Reading ​

The Reader plugin turns BackIssue into a full in-browser comic reader — no separate app needed. It reads your owned CBZ/CBR files directly, remembers where you left off, and keeps everyone's history separate.

Opening a comic ​

Any owned issue shows a read button (▶) — on the issue rows and in the issue's information panel. Reading state appears right on the rows:

• ▶ not started · ◐ in progress · ✓ finished

Open an issue and the reader takes over full-screen.

Reading shelves ​

The top of the Library greets readers with horizontal cover shelves — pick up where you left off without hunting:

Shelves are per user: hide one with its ×, and turn any on or off under Profile → Reading shelves. A shelf with nothing to show simply doesn't appear.

Reading modes ​

• Paged — one page at a time (the default).
• Double — two-page spreads, with an adjustable spread offset so covers sit right.
• Webtoon — continuous vertical scroll, for long-strip comics.
• Right-to-left — for manga; page turns reverse.
• Plus zoom/fit controls, white-border trimming for scans, and a data-saver mode that downscales pages.

Guided panel reading ​

Press G in the reader to read panel by panel — the view zooms each panel in reading order with everything else dimmed, and admins can hand-correct any page's layout in a built-in editor. See Guided panel reading for the full story, including the shared layout cache.

Progress, resume & bookmarks ​

• Resume — the reader saves your page as you go; reopen an issue and it picks up where you stopped. Finishing an issue marks it read.
• Continue reading — a sidebar entry lists your recently-read, unfinished issues with a thumbnail and progress, so you can jump straight back in.
• Continue on a series — a series page shows a "Continue #N (x/y read)" banner that opens the next issue to read.
• Bookmarks — mark any page and jump between marks.
• Mark read / unread — set an issue's state by hand (handy for backfilling series you read years ago).
• Read later — pin an issue to your own saved-for-later shelf.

Acting on a whole series ​

The series header carries the bulk versions of these, next to each other: Mark read, Mark unread and Read later.

Each one works the same way. Tick some issues and it acts on exactly those. Tick nothing and it acts on the series, with one sensible difference: Read later takes only the issues you own and have not finished, because pinning what you have already read just clutters the shelf you are building. The button says how many it will take, and the count follows your ticks.

Once everything in scope is pinned, the action becomes Remove from Read later, which is also how you clear a series off the shelf once you are done with it.

Per-series reading profiles ​

Your mode choices (paged/double/webtoon, RTL, fit) are remembered per series — so a manga series stays right-to-left webtoon while your US books stay single-page, without re-setting anything.

Reading defaults ​

Profile → Reading defaults sets how comics open when a series has no saved profile of its own:

• Default layout (single / double / webtoon), page fit, and right-to-left.
• Eye comfort — a colour filter: invert (dark), grayscale (e-ink), or sepia.
• Data saver (lighter pages) and trim page margins (crops white scan borders).
• Keep the screen awake while reading — stops the device dimming mid-page. Needs HTTPS (browsers only allow it on secure origins), so the toggle appears only where it can work.
• Always read incognito — nothing is recorded (no progress, history, or stats) until you turn it off; the header's incognito button flips the same switch.
• Count as read at — when an issue latches as finished: the last page (default), or 95/90/85/80% — so skipping ads at the back still counts.

Reading stats ​

The sidebar's Reading stats shows your personal totals: pages read, issues finished, pages this month, a reading streak, a 30-day activity strip, and your most-finished series. Each account sees only its own numbers.

These same numbers feed Gamify, if you install it — levels, streaks, quests and a household leaderboard built on the reading you already do.

Offline & install ​

The reader works offline for issues you've opened (a service worker caches pages), and BackIssue is installable to a phone or tablet home screen as a full-screen app.

Reading lists ​

Sidebar → Lists — ordered lists of issues, private to your account unless you choose to share one.

• Build a list by hand — from any volume page, select issues (or the whole series) and "☰ Add to list". Reorder items with the up/down controls.
• Add whole series at once — on the Library page, turn on Select, tick the series you want and choose Add to list. Every issue of each goes on, in the order the Library is showing them and by issue number within each series, which is how you build a run out of volumes: a title ComicVine splits across four volumes is four ticks rather than four trips through a series page. The dialog tells you how many issues that is before you commit.
• Import a ComicVine story arc — search ComicVine story arcs (e.g. Infinity Gauntlet, Blackest Night) and import one: BackIssue pulls the arc's issues in cover-date reading order, across every series involved — ideal for crossovers that span multiple titles.
• Import a CBL reading list — CBL is a widely used reading-list format. Import CBL takes a .cbl file of your own, or lets you browse the community catalog of 1,700+ curated lists (DieselTech/CBL-ReadingLists) by publisher and pick one — whole events, character runs, even entire alternate universes, far larger than a single ComicVine arc. Preview any list first — its books in reading order, marked with what you already own — then import. The list keeps the file's own reading order (tie-ins interleaved with the main event), and any book that can't be matched on ComicVine is listed after the import so nothing is silently dropped.
• Items you don't own show a download button; items whose volume isn't in your library yet show "+ Add series" to add it. A list tracks how many of its issues you own.
• Want all makes every issue on the list wanted instead of queueing it right away: series already in the library get those issues picked, series that aren't are added with monitoring off and just those issues picked — so automation fetches the list and nothing else, and keeps trying if a source doesn't have an issue yet.

Reading a list as a run ​

A list isn't a folder of issues, it's a run you read through, and the list page is built around where you are in it. The issues sit on a single spine: the rail is filled up to the point you've reached and grey after it, each issue carries a node, and read issues are ticked off and dimmed so the unread ones carry your eye.

• One "Read next" — the first issue you haven't read is promoted: a bigger cover, a highlighted node, and its own Read button. There is exactly one, so there is never a question of where to pick up.
• Continue at the top of the list opens that issue straight into the reader.
• Gaps are shown as gaps. An issue you don't own is drawn as an outline, not a broken cover, labelled with its position in the run. The spine stops at a gap rather than filling through it, because reading past a hole isn't reading the arc. Continue still skips ahead to the next issue you can actually read.
• The header counts reads, not files — "12 of 33 read", plus how many are in progress and how many are missing. Ownership is a separate number and is labelled as one.
• The index shows every list with a tick per issue and a status: New, a read count, or Done. Above them, Continue pins the run you read most recently that still has somewhere to go, with the next issue named.

When you read an issue you opened from a list, the reader follows the run rather than the series. The last page carries a Next in arc button where an ordinary read would offer the next issue of the series, and finishing the issue brings up a card with the run's progress, the next issue named, and Read now, Later or Back to arc. Crossovers therefore carry on across titles the way the list orders them. Later dismisses the card for that issue only and leaves the button behind, so you are not asked twice and not left without a way onward. Open the same issue from anywhere else and the reader behaves normally.

Read state comes from the reader. Without it installed, a list still shows ownership and its issues in order, and simply doesn't claim to know what you've read.

Sharing a list ​

A list is private by default. With the Share reading lists permission you can publish one from its Share button, and every user then sees it alongside their own — a house reading order, a curated run, or an imported crossover everyone can follow. Sharing changes who can see a list, never who can change it: only the owner can rename, reorder, add, remove or delete it, and a shared list never reveals mature content to accounts that can't otherwise see it.

Otherwise reading lists are per-user, so your lists and their order are yours alone — two people can work through the same imported arc independently.

Shared and personal lists both appear over OPDS in reading order, so a native reader app can tell you what to read next.

Books and audiobooks ​

Reading here means comics. If your library also holds EPUBs, PDFs or audiobooks, those have their own reading and listening flows — see Books and Audiobooks.

Reading on other apps (OPDS) ​

Prefer a native reader like Panels or Chunky? BackIssue also serves your library over OPDS — see OPDS.