I’ve been reading comics for a while now on my iPad. One of my favorite apps for it was ComicFlow, that was until their latest update removed a feature that basically ticked off many of its current users. Since then, I’ve been trying to find a replacement app for it that does basically the same type of things while also remaining free. That brings me to Pulp Reader which I discovered the other day and is free for an unspecified limited time. Pulp Reader is a comic book reader that supports cbz, zip, cbr and rar formats, with PDF support coming soon. Is it any good though?

I’ll start off with the comic book reading aspect of the app and say that it’s basically what you’d expect in a good reader. You flip through pages by swiping left or right on the screen as well as tapping either the left or right borders of your screen. You can also jump pages by tapping on the screen and viewing all the pages as small thumbnails on the right hand side and scrolling to the page you want. On each page, you can also double tap to zoom into each page or pinch to zoom. Like I said, reading comics here is pretty standard as this is how most comic book apps function.

Where most comic book reader apps differentiate themselves is in how they organize your collection as well as the overall look and feel of the app itself. Here is where Pulp Reader differentiates itself from ComicFlow with several features I find more interesting, though there are still some features missing. Let’s start with the good. Pulp Reader allows you to organize your collection in app instead of having to use your computer to do it. You upload your collection to Pulp Reader and then from there, you can drag comics on top of each other to create and name collection. Collections are then depicted as comic book boxes with your comics inside of them. You can add or remove comics from collections just as easily. One more thing, you can create collections within collections as well which can take organizing even further.

If you want to get a bit more automated with your collections, you can create Smart Collections that automatically places new content into correct collections. For example, let’s say I create a collection called “Batman.” I can set a criteria for it in which I state that any comic I add to my collection with the word Batman in it will automatically go into the Batman collection. That is a very cool feature and one that makes organizing huge collections a breeze.

Another very neat feature is that new comics will show up with just the cover while partially read comics will be shows as a turned cover page with the page you are on peaking underneath. It’s a neat little visual cue to quickly see which comic you are in the middle of reading. There are other ways to get back to recently read comics too. There is a Now Reading button that allows you to quickly jump into the last comic you were reading. You can also tap the Recent Reads button to bring up a list of comics read within the last day, week, or month.

These are all features that are not in ComicFlow which so far makes it seem like a much better app, although Pulp Reader does have a few little quirks about it that keep it from being perfect. For starters, and this is a biggie, Pulp Reader will not let you transfer comics via WiFi. You have to cable it to your computer and transfer via iTunes or other file management app. Second, the app can be a bit slow loading a comic when you are ready to read it. It’s not that long of a wait but I’ve been spoiled by other apps that are almost instantaneous.

Those two issues alone keep me from really making it my main comic book reader of choice at the moment. It’s a very good app, but I’d like to see WiFi transfer enabled as well as a bit more optimizing for speed. Other than that, it has some really good features you should take note of. This is definitely an app that you should keep your eye on and if they can make improvements and add more features, it will be a killer app for comic book reading.

App Store Link: Pulp Reader
Version: 1.3
Developer: NASA Trained Monkeys
Price: Free
Compatible Devices: iPad. Requires iOS 4.3 or later.