I've got an earlier version, been meaning to upgrade... but a lot of people love the pen tool, the collection of screentones, quick and easy methods to create comic panels and word balloons... there's likely a lot more perks I'm forgetting right now

That sounds useful. Also, it seems to be on sale on amazon at the moment

yeah, Amazon tends to have sales pretty often with it, even if it isn't 5, you can possibly get the version I have (Debut 4.0) to play around with and decide whether or not if you want to upgrade later

oh and and and
AND AND
what do people think of anime studio 9

I've got EX 4 and so far I've really liked it. It's highly useful for comic style art and I'm finding more and more uses for it. I recently figured out that with the right settings I can use it to storyboard other things VERY easily.

Only downside I've seen is the page limit per file, which is 99 pages. Not a huge deal, just make a new file and keep going, but it breaks things up. It can also be a bit of a butt with color work and it's pretty terrible for pixel art (off-set pen) but it's currently my go to art program.

You should get Mango Studio

it's fucking tropical as shit

Manga Studio is a dedicated comics and illustration package, so it has tools for comics-stuff like panel borders, perspective rulers and speechballoons and can organise multiple pages into one file.

MS5 has a much improved colouring system over MS4; It's what I've been using recently.

And yes, it has stabilisers.