Most comic book fans prefer to feel the touch and smell of printed paper to the coldness of the screen of an e-reader or tablet.
However, on more than one occasion, almost all of us have had to resort to download websites to locate a hard-to-find comic book or just have a look at some collection before buying it in physical format.
Lately, the hardening of the legislation on direct downloads and torrents has led to the closure of many of them, such as the popular elitetorrent.
Even so, it is still possible to download and read comic books online legally and, more importantly, for free, like the pages I outline below.
Archive.org
This immense portal of publications free of rights keeps in its interior tens of thousands of comics available to read online and to download in various formats.
It is not necessary to register, just defend with the language of Shakespeare, since almost all the collections are in English.
In its section Comic Books and Graphic Novels, you will find from erotic manga to comic books of the Golden Age, going through essential classics such as Little Nemo, by Windsor McCay or discarded jewelry like the mythical collection of DC Comics Atari Force.
They have a very good search system that lets you look for whatever comic you are looking for with great ease. When you see the comic you are looking for, you can download in any file extension of your choice all for free. This website is free of ads if you decide to read online, which makes it one of the best.
Comixology
Comixology is one of the best portals to read and download classic and current comics. Although it is a paid service, it also usually has a considerable offer of free comics that you can access just by signing up.
Actually, this free offer is reduced to numbers one or previews, in order to take a look and get hooked to the collection, which would have to pay, obviously.
Currently you can read free comics like Guardians of the Galaxy, Wonder Woman Rebirth or The X Files: Origin, to give some examples.
Comic Book Plus
On this website you will find more than 33,500 public domain comics that you can read online and download only if you are a registered user.
With a similar structure as the previous Digital Comic Museum, Comic Book Plus has the attraction of having a large number of collections in the non-English language in its archives.
In the case of Spanish, there are more than 2,700 online comics, among which are rarities such as El Capitán Júpiter, El Defensor de la Cruz or Flechas y Pelayos. An essential website not only for the average reader, but even for students of the comic world.
GoComics
Although its interface is not the most intuitive in the world, GoComics has an interesting collection of public domain comics in both English and Spanish.
Among the titles in Spanish that we can find on this page are mixed well-known characters such as Tarzan or Calvin and Hobbes with others like the dog Fred Basset.
Many of the collections belong to strips of newspapers or webcomics. The GoComics requires you to register and enjoy the free collection of comics while in your comfort zone.
Mangafreak
Are you a lover of Japanese comics, bleach, boruto? This is an amazing website to be included in your list of websites to read online comics for free.
This site however, does not have a download feature. One unique feature of the Mangafreak is the button called “random”, amongst all the latest comics that you can find on this website the random button helps you to select a comic in case you have no particular one in mind. The recommendations help you a lot to stay updated with current comics.
MComix
This is another manga and anime website for the anime lovers. Here everything is totally free. Unlike some of the anime and manga websi9tes to read comics, this website has many image viewers that allows you to view any comic in their different file formats.
It is a good option if you have downloaded a comic that your device cannot view, just use the image viewer of the MComix.
Currently they have an application that are available on almost all the devices apart from MAC (this is a work in progress though) so if you have a Windows or Linux device, you can enjoy the many features of the app which also supports PDF, ZIP, RAR, 7Z and LHA file formats.
ViewComics
The ViewComics have been around for like five years now and yet, there are so many collections that you can find from classic to trending comics.
When you open the website, you are confronted with collections of comics that if you are not careful, you might want to spend the rest of your life on their website, Marvel, DC, Image, Vertigo and a host of other publishers.
The look on the site is very simple and easy to use but does not really give you an optimum reading experience. One good thing about view comic is the fact that the comics on the site are not updated by the staff but rather fellow comic lovers, but it is also really bad that most times you will find many copyrighted issues.
XoxoComics
Are you looking for versatility? The xoxocomics website is an online comic website. Their comics are not limited to publishers or categories.
Here you find various comics from old to new, classic, manga, horror all for free. The xoxo comics has a feature where you can follow your best comics and get updated when new ones are posted, you also get to follow them on facebook where you can engage in the forum where comics are talked about.
With the number of followers on each comic, you get to know which comic is most trendy to read at a given time. They have ads too like, game ads, but not as disturbing as some websites, besides that’s the price you pay for getting all these for free.
CastleComics
Ever been to a real castle before? If you aren’t aware of your way around you can easily get stuck. If you had a comic in mind to read and then visit this site, you might change your mind a million times because of the thousands of comic collection posted and updated each time.
The comics are totally free of charge, all you have to do is register for free too and then start surfing and reading the many comics. The website has a very simple build and has an option in case you want to donate to such noble work.
Your reading is quite smooth because there are very less ads on the CastleComics, so if you ever want to visit this site, just make up your mind first because the comics in collection are too many and features a wide range of publishers
ComicHappy
The comichappy is another comic hosting website with comics that are free of charge. You might not even need to register to start reading.
Their most featured comics however are from DC and marvel so it is not really a good option for manga comic lovers.
The ComicHappy comic site updated their comics every Wednesday and Thursdays so if you have a free space on each of these days and you are a comic lover, you might as well include a schedule and reminder to help you visit this site so as to be the most updated person on any of their most recent comics just as they update them.
Read Comics
This is one of the free online comic website that have ranked first in what they do. The site offers you with a range of marvel and DC catalogs. The website unlike other comic websites have a professional design which is too good to be true.
Reading comics on this website requires that you register for you to be able to get updates on comics that having been uploaded and completed. There are ads, but they are not as disturbing as you may think.
ViewComics
the view comics website is totally free and always updated. On the home screen you have the A-Z button that allows you to find your comic with ease, this might still be tedious.
But no need to worry as they have an advanced search option that allows you to fill in some necessary details of the comic you are looking for in order to make the search more precise.
If you are not so sure of the comic you want to read, there is a random button that opens up suggested comics for you to start an entertaining moment.
The ViewComics site is totally free of ads, you don’t have to worry about disturbance when you are enjoying the moment with marvel, DC and other super heroes.
ReadComicsOnline.me
Totally different from the read comics website is the read comics online. The build of the website is simple with almost everyone’s best super heroes; spider man, iron man and dead pool as logo.
This tells you that the website features a lot of Marvel comics. There is a list of genres on the right hand bottom side of the website with a lot of options that meet your imagination, options like; action, adult, adventure, anthology.
Anthropomorphic, anthropomorphic, animals, anthropormorphic animals, biography ,Blaxploitation, children, Christian, comedy and a whole lot more. You do not need to register to start your experience. One which is totally free of ads.
KissManga
The kissManga is an online comic website where you can read Walking Dead comics. The website just like the manga freak is all about manga, so if you are a fan of manga comics, this is a sure site for you to read without any strings attached.
The KissManga offer you another feature that makes it stand out from the rest of the other free comic websites. If you have been reading comics and you feel it is best that you experience the full actions of the super heroes through cartoons, then you are also on the right place.
The KissManga has some anime collections that you can watch all for free. The only little price you have to pay on this site is the ads which might seem annoying, but it is nothing compared to the quality you receive.
Digital Comic Museum
Forget about Marvel, DC and other current comic book publishers, in the Digital Comic Museum you will only find collections of the so-called Golden Age of Comics.
Just by registering you will have access to thousands of collections of comics free of rights and public domain to download without paying a single cent.
In this page you will find mythical publishers such as Ace Comics, Charlton Comics or Fawcett Comics, from whose pages arose characters that later became part of what we know today as the Marvel and DC universes.
If you defend moderately with English and you are a lover of classic comics, Digital Comic Museum will guarantee you thousands of hours of entertainment.
There are fifteen options from which you can read comics online from this lists. So you don’t relent all you have to do is get some bowl of popcorn and sit back to the unlimited entertainment of these websites all for free.