14 DAY TRIAL // The Internet has changed the way many things are done? such as publishing. Today anyone can be a publisher of their own content, via the web, and blogging has become a world-wide phenomenon. This has opened up a new age, in which even the smallest of 'fish' can get their thought out there to the world, and it's not just about words, as pictures too are going through the same revolution. Web comics are quite big these days, having a bigger audience than printed comics. While with traditional comics it is quite easy to subscribe to one and have it delivered every month to you, or pick it up at your local store. Web comics are different? especially since most of them are daily strips. If you are just following one comic, things are not so bad, but if you are following more than one at the same time, and they have different publishing patterns it can quickly become a hassle. This is why programs such as Comictastic were written.
What it does
Comictastic works like a web comic aggregator and archiver. You can subscribe to as many web comics as you like and when the program is launched it will automatically fetch the current issue of all the comics and add it to the archive from where it can be accessed at any later time.
Comictastic can also download the archives of most comics so that you have all the strips saved locally and can read them without having to access the internet.
Working with it
The first step in working with Comictastic is subscribing to a web comic. This is done in one of two ways, you can either let the program do all of the heavy lifting or you can configure the subscription manually. The automatic process works incredibly well, and I have never seen a comic that could not be subscribed to using it. Simply type in the URL of the comic and it will automatically scan that page for all images. Once all the images have been loaded it will automatically scan them and in case it is not immediately clear to it which one of the images is the comic, it will ask you to point it out. Once the comic image is selected, and you enter any additional information such as the name and the group you would like it under, the subscription is complete.
Whenever Comictastic is launched, it will automatically look on the web and fetch all the current issues of the comics you are subscribed to. Additionally, the program can be told to download the archives from the website. This is simply a matter of choosing the option from the menu and then telling the program which one of the comics you want to download.
Once you have several issues downloaded into the program you can browse the comics in one of two ways, either using the previous/next day buttons or using the calendar view in the bottom half of the comic list. Days that have no comics will be grayed out, while days that have a comic will have black numbers, the currently selected day is represented by a gray dot while the current calendar day is represented by a blue dot.
No hassle
Because of the nature of web comics as the work of one or two people, many of them do not have the same predictable publishing rate as their paper versions. Sometimes when the makers of the strip are not feeling well, or are on vacation, they will skip a day or two. Also, each comic has its own publishing patterns, with some bringing out a new strip every day, while others every other day while some choose every Tuesday and Thursday. Needless to say, if you follow several different comics, each with its own publishing pattern, it can become a pain to visit them all at the right days, and sometimes you can skip a day, and in case that comic does not have an archive, you may have very well missed a strip.
Comictastic lets you forget about all that and concentrate on reading the comics when you have the time, without you having to visit many different sites, or remember on what days new issues come out.
The Good
Easy aggregation and archiving with the program doing most of the heavy lifting after you point it in the direction of the comic you want.
The Bad
The comic archive can grow to be quite big, each comic takes about 100K on average and they can add up quite a bit, especially if you subscribe to a lot of them.
The Truth
The perfect solution to have web comics delivered to your desktop. Forget about having to go to all kinds of different websites every day. Just fire up Comictastic and you can read them all in one convenient place.
Here are some screenshots, click to enlarge:
