Marvel Comics has announced that they are going to make all of their digital comics offerings available in both formats - at retailers and via the Marvel Comics app - on the date of their release. The initiative will begin with the release of the upcoming Avenging Spider-Man #1, and roll out the rest of their releases on a staggered schedule, timed to coincide with the launch of new story lines and line-wide events.

A little over two months ago, Brian Michael Bendis and others at Marvel publicly condemned rival publisher DC, accusing them of effectively putting the final nail in the Direct Market coffin with the announcement that they would be offering their 'New 52' titles day-and-date digitally. At the time, Marvel was just beginning to emerge from a bafflingly backwards strategy aimed at postponing the transition to digital and placating retailers.

For a time, there was a mandate that no Marvel title would be released digitally until at least six months after it went to retail, and in 2010 the publisher released just a single title in both formats on the same date - Invincible Iron Man Annual #1, making the bizarre decision to charge more for the digital version, a decision that many concluded was designed to fail, and to prove that day-and-date simply couldn't work.

In any case, the future marches forward, and day-and-date is now a reality from both of the 'Big Two' publishers. Marvel will be offering free digital codes in copies of several of their titles as the day-and-date initiative rolls out, in the hopes of simultaneously spreading the word about the program and keeping customers buying physical copies at their local comic stores.

Dark Horse Comics was among the first publishers to popularize manga in America, as well as an early adapter of digital comics. So it's fitting that they've announced the addition of several of their manga titles to the Dark Horse Digital app, and it's awesome that they're publishing digital manga the way it was meant to be read - right to left! Download the Dark Horse Digital app, and get news and updates, at Digital.DarkHorse.com.

Here's the Dark Horse digital release schedule for November:

Release Date: 11/02/2011

Trigun vol. 1 & 2

BPRD: 1947 #1-5

BPRD Hell on Earth: Russia #2

Crying Freeman vol. 1 & 2

Hellsing vol. 1-3

Lady Snowblood vol. 1

Lone Wolf and Cub vol. 10

Old Boy vol. 1 & 2

Path of the Assassin vol. 1

Robert E. Howard's Savage Sword #3

Star Wars Legacy #13 - 15

Chimichanga

The Goon #26

Star Wars: Crimson Empire III: Lost Empire #1

Release Date: 11/09/2011

House of Night #1

Baltimore: The Curse Bells #3

Conan the Cimmerian #13 - 16

Gear School #2

Lady Snowblood vol. 2

Orchid #2

Paradox Entertainment Presents: Kult #4

Serenity: Downtime and Other Half

Star Wars: Empire #1 - 4

Star Wars: Boba Fett: Overkill

The End League #1 - 4

The Goon #27

Release Date: 11/16/2011

Mass Effect: Invasion #2

Abe Sapien: The Devil Does Not Jest #2

Gigantic #1 - 5

Hellboy: Weird Tales #1-4

Kull: The Cat and the Skull #2

Dark Horse Presents # 5

Samurai Executioner vol. 6

Star Wars: Purge #2

Star Wars: Dark Times #1-5

The Goon #28

The Occultist #1

Fallout: New Vegas

Release Date: 11/23/2011

Usagi Yojimbo # 141 (200th Issue)

BPRD: The Ectoplasmic Man

Conan: Road of Kings #10

Groo: Hell on Earth #1-4

Hellsing vol. 4

Path of the Assassin vol. 2 & 3

Rex Mundi: Book Three

Star Wars Adventures: Boba Fett and the Ship of Fear

Star Wars Invasion #0-5

Star Wars: Invasion: Revelations #5

Star Wars: Knight Errant: Deluge #4

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic #19-24

The Goon #29

Trigun Maximum vol. 4

Release Date: 11/30/2011

Hellboy: House of the Living Dead

Color of Rage

Conan the Cimmerian #17-20

Hellboy: House of the Living Dead

Star Wars Adventures: The Will of Darth Vader

Star Wars Legacy #17-20

The End League #5-9

The Goon #30

The DC Comics App for iPhone and iPad receieved a major update today. Here's what's new in DC Comics for iOS Version 3.0, which I'll likely soon be using on a shiny new iPhone 5:

-Completely redesigned application.
-Near instant launching.
-Separate "Purchases" area that displays all owned comics.
-New series groupings in store and "My Comics".
-Discover comics at much faster speeds.
-Pause and prioritize downloads.
-Background downloading.
-Improved "Instant Search".
-Buy or continue reading the next issue at the end of a comic.
-Book upgrade to new system allows for update without re-downloading your comics, but WiFi is required to take advantage of this feature.

Digital Comics publisher Graphicly has launched a Facebook application that allows comics publishers to embed their stable of comics onto their own pages, while getting increased exposure from Facebook page owners who opt to implement the feature.

From the beginning, Graphicly has distinguished themselves from the other digital comics publishers like Comixology by focusing on the idea of integrating social networking with the reading experience, and this is a major step in that direction.

The Graphicly on Facebook platform is very much in its infancy, but it has the potential to help publishers of all sizes spread their work virally across Facebook, while allowing fan page owners to showcase dynamic comics content. I'm testing the app right now; I'm currently featuring Graphicly on the Comics Cavern and Robot Mutant Facebook pages. please feel free to check them out and let me know what you think.

With Cowboys & Aliens set to premiere tomorrow, digital comics publisher Graphicly has released an enhanced digital version of the Platinum Studios graphic novel on which the film is based.

Cowboys & Aliens features writing from Scott Mitchell Rosenberg, Fred Van Lente and Andrew Foley with art by Dennis Calero and Luciano Lima. Graphicly's enhanced diigital version of the complete graphic novel is available for $9.99. It can be viewed online, or using any of Graphicly's free apps, which run on iPhone/iPad, Android, Mac, PC and Linux.

IDW Publishing is gearing up for the release of Transformers: Dark of the Moon with a huge sale on their Transformers digital comics.

IDW's entire Transformers digital comics library, comprised of over 200 titles, will be on sale for $0.99 through July 4. And they're available for just about every platform imaginable.

For iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch users, IDW has a dedicated Transformers comics app, which contains their complete Transformers library. Alternatively, you can purchase comics from the IDW Comics app or via Comics +. All three apps are powered by the iVerse comics reader.

Anyone with a web browser can purchase and read the Transformers library online at http://transformers.comixology.com. Android owners can use the Comics by ComiXology Android app.

The Transformers comics library is also available in the Sony PSP Digital Comics Store, the Nokia Ovi Store, and the Amazon Kindle Store.

The Transformers digital comics library is on sale now through July 4 at 11:00 pm.

In keeping with the futuristic theme of the story, Tron: Legacy has been adapted into an online graphic novel that maximises the flexibility of new web standards to create a very new kind of comics experience.

Via Fast Company:

Disney has partnered with Microsoft and tech-design firm Vectorform to create the Tron: Legacy graphic novel, one of the first HTML5 graphic novels made by a major brand. We're used to seeing PDF ports from the media industry--articles and graphics simply copy and pasted from print. But Disney and other startups like FlipBoard are more and more trying to sex up boring old print designs with sleeker digital UIs.

In preparation for the cinematic release of Green Lantern, DC is offering many of the most important GL-related titles for just $0.99, in a 48-hour digital comics sale beginning Saturday at 12:01.

The "101" title has two meanings; it's not just an opportunity to catch up on all things Lantern, there are also 101 titles on offer for the reduced price.

I've been receiving lots of requests for Green Lantern prep reading lists via e-mail and in my Tumblr askbox over the past several days; to everyone looking to bone up on GL, I definitely recommend you check this out.

It's also a great excuse to splurge on some of excellent comics, and to take DC's iPhone/iPad app for a spin if you haven't yet taken the digital comics plunge.

Here is the complete list of titles going on sale:

THE BLACKEST NIGHT:

• Blackest Night #0-8

GREEN LANTERN: REBIRTH:

• Green Lantern: Rebirth #1-6
• Green Lantern Corps: Recharge #1-5
• Green Lantern Corps: To Be A Lantern #1-6
• Green Lantern (Vol. 5) #1-35
  • No Fear #1-6
  • Revenge of the Green Lantern #7-13
  • Wanted: Hal Jordan #14-20
  • The Sinestro Corps War #21-25
  • Rise of the Red Lanterns #26-28
  • Secret Origin #29-35
• Secret Origin of the Green Lantern Corps
  (excerpted from Green Lantern Movie Prequel: Sinestro)

THE CORPS’ DARKEST DAYS:

• Emerald Twilight/New Dawn (Green Lantern, Vol. 3 #28-55)
• Hitman #11
• Final Night #1-4
• Parallax: Emerald Night #1

EMERALD DAWN:

• Showcase #22 (First appearance of Hal Jordan)
• Green Lantern, Vol. 1 #6 (First appearance of Tomar-Re)
• Green Lantern, Vol. 1 #7 (First appearance of Sinestro)
• Green Lantern, Vol. 2 #59 (First appearance of Guy Gardner)
• Green Lantern, Vol. 2 #76-86, 89
• Green Lantern, Vol. 2 #87 (First appearance of John Stewart)
• Green Lantern, Vol. 2 #201 (First appearance of Kilowog)

Viz Media's excellent iPad app has received an update, and is also now available for the iPhone and iPod Touch. And yes, one of the new features is seamless syncing across all iOS devices. It's a huge leap forward for what was already one of the best proprietary comics apps (and THE best manga-only app) available.

Welcome to the VIZ Manga app! You now have the greatest manga from Japan at your fingertips, at long last in a convenient, downloadable format for the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch! Your manga purchases will be accessible from all iOS devices and shared bookmarks provide an even more seamless reading experience.

With Naruto, Bleach, Death Note, Vampire Knight, One Piece, Dragon Ball, Bakuman & hundreds more titles across a wide range of genres, we’ve got something for everyone, whether you’re an action addict or a romantic at heart, a fantasy fanatic or a sci-fi aficionado, a comics geek or an art lover.

New to manga? Can't decide what to get? Every month we provide a number of free previews for you to download and explore. Take a look, figure out what you like: you're only a screen-tap away from fantastic adventures!