eComics and webcomics

Index

Comics are Sequential Art are Comics	2

The difference of eComics and webcomics	2

The obvious challenges	2

Comics on the PC	2

Comics on other digital devices?	2

How to get credits for your creation	3

The not so obvious challenges	3

The challenge of designing webcomics	3

Summary	3

Recommended reading	4

On (print) comics	4

On electonic comics	4

Introduction

Here we'll go into how the concepts of eComics and webcomics as perceived for this project. Actually it’s the ground for this projects existence, thou the ambition is to maybe in the future also be a tool creators can use to adopt for regular print comics as well (or that be all well integrated).

Comics are Sequential Art are Comics

To begin with, let's just define what we're talking about, because there's a confusion that leads people to think print comics are comics as it always was and all it can be.

Comics are the application of Sequential Art. Sequential Art, however, have existed long before, alongside and still in practice parallel to (print) comics. Instructive sequentive visuals, for example in airplane folders, are another form that you are more than likely not to call comics, though the resemblance is striking.

However it might be a little high preticious to call it sequential art each and every time for everyday applications, so comics are well suited for entertainment sequential art and graphic novels for longer pieces presented in book form. Therefore we will continue to use the term comics about sequential art in this project, since we are dealing mainly with the form for entertainment purposes. It's convenient as people in general know it better as such.

The difference of eComics and webcomics

Let's just state clearly that these two concepts does not necessarily have to be the same. eComics are electronic comics in an digital environment and webcomics are comics on the web.
They may go into each other, but eComics is about comics that was aimed at working in a digital electronic environment and taking advantage of that, breaking loose from the conventions of print-comics (this is rare, but existing).
Webcomics on the other hand is rather about the distribution on a web page and some adoption (like being digitized images - most often scanned right off an print-ready format).

The obvious challenges

Comics has been only print-comics for so long that it has come to be synonymous with it. It had its real break in print as it could easily be reproduced and mass-distributed, but it did exist before that. (read Scott McCloud's "Understanding Comics" for more insight into this)

Comics on the PC

If we begin with how digitized print-comics come off on a regular PC monitor, we notice that the dimensions of a printed page rarely meet those of the monitor. Why then should we read it like that and either not use more than half the screen or simply have to scroll to read at the bottom of the page? Just because the comic creator can't adapt? If the creator settles with this as OK, he/she most probably be rejected in favour of those that do adopt. But maybe the creator still has something to tell...

Comics on other digital devices?

Nowadays, PC's is far from the only form digital content can appear. We have smaller devices like cellular phones, handheld PC's, smartphones (the hybrid) who all can browse the web and be used to get electronic digital media content. New devices like custom ebook readers are on the way.
It might be hard to adopt for all these different devices and some, like the custom ebook reader devices, might even be better suited to digitized print-comics. However, for the time being these are still not too common use for things like reading things like comics, so let's leave them out to begin with, but keep them in mind to look to for the future.

How to get credits for your creation

This is where most comic creators hesitate when they consider going online. How do you really know you'll get credit for your creations? And what if you want to make a living out of it, is it even possible to get payments for the stuff on the web? Looking to content on the web at large, its strength always was that is was free, and all users were, with good reasons, saying no to pay for content. Business had to reside to merely present their products or services and get money back with other means. This have changed and payment solutions have emerged. The possibly best one is micropayments; that is you pay little, because the efforts of producing and distributing is more direct and cheaper AND can reach a much larger audience. (Another hint towards Scott McCloud's book "Reinventing Comics" for further exploration on this topics in specifics)

Also, content on the web is at risk of being simply stolen and put up or used somewhere else without credits due to its original creator. Laws have and are being created to at least make this illegal, and alongside the copyright there is now also possible to licence your content with for example the sharealike and others at Creative Commons.

The not so obvious challenges

There are issues that takes some insight into the areas of designing media content for electronic devices. Factors like how long you can keep a readers interest to look at an electronic screen and online connectivity or distribution isn't something everybody can be fully understood with. We'll get into some of the specific areas where comics in a digital and electronic environment is involved.

The challenge of designing webcomics

If you don't have that much insight into the constrains of webdesign - which may or may not be the case if you're a comic creator - you may not know the certain specifics of web content design. Content on the web tend to benefit from being more concise and more well divided into smaller chumps a bite (pun not intended).

For example this text isn't really a good example, since it's a longer text in one. However you may note how I try to divide it into smaller sections and sub-sections. On the other hand it's not serving the purpous of outlining a vision very well if its too concise, so bear with it.

So for webcomics (maybe for eComics to some extent too) time is a factor - and in more ways than one too. The first one is how long the reader will wait to get to the content or the next bit of it. Larger and/or more images generally means longer loading time. Next one is the time it takes to actually read through each bit of content. If the comic should happen to have some animation features (like animation inline or transitions) that time will also be a factor to how the comics is perceived.
The general solution for all these is to keep the content down to smaller bits a chump (again, pun not intended).

Summary

In case you just skimmed or you simply are confused or have already forgotten the meaning of the babble, here's a summary in short:

Comics is actually just one application of Sequential Art, but we'll use it to represent the form for entertainment purposes that this project is mainly about

eComics and webcomics are two different forms of comics in an electronic enviroment

eComics are comics taking advantage of being in an digital electronic environment and breaking loose of conventions from print-comics (rare, but existing)

Webcomics are comics distributed on a web page with some adoption like being digitized images

Comics used to be synonymous with print-comics because of their being the real break and 'only' form

There are and will be several new devices able to display media like comics, but we focus on those on a regular PC to begin with

There are several challenges to do comics in an electronic and digital environment, most of them concerning design issues

There are both licensing and payment solutions to let the creator retain rights and get paid for his/her content

Time is an factor in more than one way for eComics and webcomics

General solution is to keep it smaller and remember that less is often more

Recommended reading

If you want to delve further into this subject there are a few readings (off this site) that are recommended:

On (print) comics

Scott McCloud's "Understanding Comics"

Will Eisner's "Comics and Sequential Art"

On electonic comics

Scott McCloud's "Reinventing Comics"

Scott McCloud's Homepage http://www.scottmccloud.com/

eComics and webcomics

definitions on digital comics

electronic comics digital comics web comics creating comics eComics webcomics

Henrik Våglin

2004-11-10T22:54:22