icomic

Although the summum for any die hard comic book collector is all about finding age old unique issues and keeping them in pristine condition, you can now do much more with comics digitally. There’s plenty of applications on Mac to not only store all your favorite comics, but also automatically receive new issues without moving a thumb, creating lists of your favorite strips or even editing programs that let you create your very own comics out of pictures.

A while ago we brought you the best comic book applications for PC. This time we turn to the Mac platform and bring you a collection of programs to make even the most devoted of old school comic book fan ditch paper copies for the online world of comic strips:

• Comic Life - Create your own comic strip out of photos.
• Simple Comic - Don't let anything disturb you when enjoying your face comic.
• ComicBookLover - Edits your comics and save them in smart lists.
• Toribash - Martial arts fighting game, comic book style!
• Jomic - Try out the zoom tool to examine details in the drawings.
• iComic X - Tabbed browsing of multiple comics at once.
• Say Cheese - A widget to find and download comics from your Dashboard.
• iStrip - Quick navigation to view your newly downloaded comics seamlessly.

Ever since my Desperate Dan Cow Pie Eater badge arrived in the post in a black plastic wallet when I was about nine I have been an avid fan of the comic book. OK, so I was a Dandy when it was cool to be a Beano but then Dandy always came with a Wham bar and Korky the Cat. And my brother got The Beano. Still I guess you're not interested in any of this if you're not from the UK. And even if you are chances are you're getting a bit bored. I expect you're one of those Manga people. Or a Marvel. In fact I bet you've never even tried Space Dust. Whatever your taste, there are plenty of great apps to read and create your very own comics.

• Comic Life - Use photos to turn your life into a comic book
• Comic Book Creator - Excellent comic creator: drag in images, add effects
• ComicRack - Read real comic books on your PC
• ComicBase - For serious comic collectors - manage thousands of editions
• ComicReader - Huge collection of titles like Dilbert and the brilliant Calvin and Hobbes
• Manga Studio - Hee-hah whoa-yah, create incredible flying Manga cartoons
• Daily Garfield Reader - Unlimited doses of the fat, lasagne-loving cat, and Odie!
• iComic (Mac) - Download your fave comics off the web, read them offline
• Comic Book Lover (Mac) - View, read, organize and add to your immense collection

What better time to start digging at that pile of books you've left to dust all year long than summer vacation? You finally get the time to sit down and forget the hassle and stress of work and immerse yourself in a good novel. I personally like having a physical copy of a book with me, especially because I can skip forwards and backwards easily, and write up notes on pages.

If you're a real geek though, you might be attracted to the trendier and all digital ebooks.There are already countless sites on the web from which you can download electronic copies of novels, comics, journals and more. Here are a few applications, most of them on mobile device (the best support for ebooks) to enjoy your novels under the shade, and preferably with a cool drink:

• uBook - Reads most ebook files and displays images.
• Haali Reader - A Pocket PC ebook reader with multiple column support.
• eReader - A simple solution for Palm owners to quickly read edocuments .
• MobiPocket Reader - Access the large collection of ebooks from the MobiPocket online store on your Palm.
• eBook - Read ebooks in .prc and .pdb format on your smartphone.
• TomeRaider - Access loads of free ebooks online via your phone.
• ComiX - Enjoy more than 60 comic strips on your PC.
• iComic - Subscribe to comic strips, drag and drop or quickly flip between them on this easy to use Mac app.
• ComicBookLover - A comic book application with advanced viewing and editing.
• Best eBook - This application for Symbian offers library and book view and hotkeys.