Comments on: Unbound: Design matters

By: Egypt Urnash

Egypt Urnash — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 22:23:10 +0000

Considerations of scrolling are important for long-form dramatic comics as well as gag-a-day strips. I’m doing long-form narrative comic (NSFW) and I gave a lot of consideration to the page size as well as the site design; originally the whole page fit comfortably on the screen of an old 15″ Powerbook but a series of complaints that it was “too small” made me enlarge it a bit. It’s still only a little larger than a medium-sized laptop screen. I put the masthead and links in a sidebar instead of horizontally across the top of the screen partially to achieve this lack-of-scrolling.

I make people scroll for double-page spreads. Which I’m creating with the printed page in mind – does your printed page have to be in the same size as your average issue of “Dudes Punching Monthly”? My comic is not the same kind of story as those books; why should it be poured into the same-shaped page?

I’m working on another project that will stack all the pages of short-short stories on top of each other, for one long scroll. Use the traditional “comic book page” size and shape if you must, if it’s what fits the story, if you want to turn it into floppies that fit into the new issue bins at a comic shop.

And however you decide about scrolling… don’t drown your comic under a zillion other things.

By: Brigid Alverson

Brigid Alverson — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 02:04:04 +0000

Laroquod, Sorry to ruin the fun, but the issue isn’t scrolling per se, it’s the continuous scroll-click-reposition-your-eyes that gets to me. I find a continuous scroll, as in Bodyworld, much less intrusive.

Rich, when I think about it, maybe what I should have said is “don’t put so much stuff in the header.”

By: Laroquod

Laroquod — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 08:50:59 +0000

Oh look! Yet another long-scrolling article advising us that it’s a bad idea to make anyone scroll on the web.

I declare this meme dead-by-autoerotic-asphyxiation.

By: Rich Barrett

Rich Barrett — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 17:39:31 +0000

Good article but I also have to say that at least for dramatic or long form comics, I don’t think it’s that important to be in a horizontal format to fit the screen. I think you overplay the annoyance of scrolling a little. I had to scroll to read this article and that didn’t bother me. I agree though that in a case like Kitty Hawk, it’s annoying to scroll simply to fit the bottom 1/5th of the page on your screen. And that’s something that’s hard to avoid if you’ve got any sort of page header or navigation. Even the great Cameron Stewart comic Sin Titulo runs into this issue. But I’d really doubt many readers would complain about scrolling to read a vertical page, as long as you’ve got page navigation at the bottom of the comic as well.

Also, for someone like myself, I eventually plan to self-publish my webcomic so I have the printed page in mind as well as the screen. Not that horizontal comics can’t work on the page too but I think vertical works better for both formats.

By: Clint Hollingsworth

Clint Hollingsworth — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 20:06:00 +0000

I would note that not all of these are absolutes, just opinion. Those of us who make part of our living from places like ADSDAQ or Burst don’t have an much of an option to avoid animated ads if we want to make any revenue. As for the “the comic should fit the screen” argument, I would say it varies from different genres. Humor strips should definitely be “above the fold”. but with dramatic comics this is not as important, no matter what Scott McCloud’s personal pet peeves may be.

By: Juan Santapau

Juan Santapau — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 17:01:08 +0000

Hello! Nice article on a very interesting topic.
About scrolling: I agree with the notion of freeing the medium from unnecessary print comics conventions. While I can see that an horizontal layout fits better the screen, I believe that the need for looking at the whole comic page at once is a print comics “thing”, and I get the impression that currently people are less annoyed by scrolling than, for instance, the flash readers that Zuda and other comics use. I think a scrolling design may work for a reading experience more oriented to a “frame by frame” pacing than “page by page”.
There was a discussion recently about Zuda in the Whitechapel forums, and it may be surprising (or not) the amount of people who don’t like the Zuda reader:
http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=6403&page=3#Item_20

By: Joe

Joe — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 20:58:27 +0000

Nick:
The thing about Penny Arcade’s design though is there is a button deliberately titled “COMIC” so they’re not hiding their comic. But yes, it would be best if the comic was on the main page and not the blog.

By: Nick

Nick — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 20:08:35 +0000

Re: “Where’s the comic?” [Screenshot]

Aha, that looks like one from the Penny Arcade school of design. Perhaps there should be an addendum to the “DON’T hide your comic” rule; “You are NOT Penny Arcade!”