KComic

Even if the computer managed to infiltrate our lives and daily routines, doesn’t mean it killed all other activities. On the contrary, it helped evolve, and keep them alive. Comic books represent one example, and now come under the form of specialized file formats, which can be easily accessed with KComic.

On the visual side of things, the application keeps things simple, with most of the space serving as the preview area so you can properly enjoy any comic strips, or pictures you load. All your effort narrows down to loading one or more pictures, and scrolling through them using hotkeys, or dedicated controls, which are found in the context menu.

File support is pretty impressive, with the possibility to load formats like RAR, ZIP, 7Z, CBR, CBZ, CB7 for picture archives, or regular pictures such as BMP, GIF, JPEG, JPG, MNG, PBM, PGM, PNG, PPM, TIFF, XBM, and XPM. You need to rely on the built-in browse dialog for multiple files, or a folder, because drag and drop is not supported.

There’s an additional tool which perfectly goes hand in hand with file support. Any picture you load can be converted to a different format, with little effort, but no other options related to quality, or enhancement.

A fullscreen mode allows you to get a better view of image files, or comics. Depending on the type of screen, or window size, pictures can be automatically scaled if smaller, or reduced to fit. Pictures can be rotated clockwise, as well as counter-clockwise. Sadly, the application doesn’t come with a built-in slideshow, which would have made the whole experience even more comfortable.

To sum it up, KComic stands somewhere in the middle, acting as a slim picture viewer because of the neat file support, and comic book reader. The clean design saves most of the space for pictures, with a fullscreen mode for a better view, while the converter helps you save any image under popular picture formats.