Pros and Cons of Digital Comics

In today’s day and age, it has never been easier to find the next comic for your reading list. Whether you prefer reading your comics digitally or physically in your hand, there are benefits to each method. Today, I want to review these benefits and my personal opinions on both.

PRO NUMBER ONE AND TWO: CONVENIENCE AND PRICE

It should be pretty obvious that digital comics are more convenient in everyday situations. For example, instead of taking an oversized TPB or a 1000-page omnibus on a flight, you can simply read the comics on your phone using apps like Hoopla. In certain cases, you can even find Audiobook editions of certain stories! I definitely prefer the convenience of digital comics when I’m traveling or looking for a specific older run. This leads me to my second point about price.

Many apps (such as Hoopla, which I previously mentioned and highly recommend) offer a multitude of comics for free. If these apps don’t have what you’re looking for, however, you can usually find pretty cheap runs in PDF format on sites like Etsy! Personally, I’m a big fan of classic Marvel Conan the Barbarian comics. Instead of going out of my way to buy an expensive omnibus or find small sections of the run on apps like Hoopla, I opted to get a set of 213 issues of the original Conan run for about 7 dollars! All you need to read the comics is a free comic reader app, which can even be installed on mobile devices.

CON NUMBER ONE AND TWO: LACK OF PHYSICAL EXPERIENCE AND RESELLING

This might not matter to everyone, but I feel like the lack of physically touching the books you’re reading takes away from the experience. There’s just something about holding the book, examining its pages, and smelling the scent of fresh ink. This is why I generally treat digital comics as a “last resort”, but everyone has different tastes.

This lack of physical media can also lead to issues when trying to resell comics. For instance, if you purchase a comic digitally (and don’t like it), there’s no way to sell it off to someone who might enjoy it more than you. Of course, you could take fewer risks when buying digital comics, but it’s just something to consider.

Ultimately, the choice is yours and depends on your tastes in how you prefer to read. While I prefer physical media, there are certainly pros and cons to both media.