Recently, I have had the opportunity to try out an app that is its (very) early stages called Graphic.ly. The app, clearly made for comic-book lovers and announced at CES, is intended to be an online comic-book shop with social features. The app has also been getting some good buzz in the iFanboy community. As the app, which is being developed for Adobe AIR, Windows, and mobile platforms, is early in its development, a full review would be premature, but here are our first impressions. After all, it only just launched into private beta.

First, let me say that I am a HUGE comic-book geek. ‘Been hooked on the inked pages since I was three. The Death of Superman graphic novel was my constant companion during El Nino in the 90s. So, as a comic book fan, what do I think of the “Baby Beta” of Graphic.ly for Windows?

The app has your standard social networking features such as Friend Requests, Messages, and a profile. Also, no social networking app would be complete without some kind of lifestream, or in Graphic.ly’s case, an event feed. In the event feed, I can see what books my friends are reading and how they are rating those books.

The ratings, divided into “Story,” “Art” and “Cover,” are particularly interesting to me. When I want to see a movie, I check Twitter to gauge whether or not it’s worth the money. The ability to do that with comics (which run 3-5 bucks a pop) is invaluable.

The store is another interesting aspect. Here, I can buy comics virtually and read them in the app. At the time of this post, the store was pretty sparse, and included comics like “Berserker,” “Forgotten Realms” and “Jericho.” Each comic was going for $1.99.

I can browse through different books under “My Collection” via a scroll bar at the bottom. As for the comics themselves, turning each page is pretty on the screen but navigation is unintuitive. While reading a book, arrows are presented on the left and right sides to flip through the pages, but this never comes across natural. Panels can be viewed as thumbnails, making for easier selection, but I’d hate to spoil myself by glancing at future pages.

The app also has an interesting gaming feature, where one gains different achievements and levels. I still haven’t figured out how to level up or gain achievements (there wasn’t a list with requirements, from what I could see). Finally, I couldn’t figure out how to add friends in the app, making many of the social and gaming features moot.

The concept is really cool. One of the things I love most about visiting comic-book shops is chatting with other fans and doing that in a virtual space is appealing. As the app is in early development, I expect many of these issues to be worked out. Graphic.ly just closed its first round of funding, so we’ll be keeping a close eye on this one.

Below is an interview with Micah Baldwin from Graphic.ly during CES. If you want to try out Graphic.ly for yourself use invite code "TechZulu" and the doors will swing wide open ;)