Attractive thumbnails

[winglesscomic]

that's interesting, why do you think that's lazy?

I use the same thumbnail for all episodes of a chapter so that when people browse the archive, they know visually where a chapter begins and ends without having to read the episodes' names.

[ashriott]

Can't count the number of times I've clicked on attractive thumbnails only to find that the art inside is pretty meh and sloppily done, this happening more so on Smackjeeves rather than Tapastic though. Comic pages tend to be churned out quickly for the sake of quantity over quality(rushed pages/story moves quicker etc). The artist has probably spent a lot more time working on an attractive thumbnail or cover art which truly reflects what they're capable of. It used to bother me when I first discovered the world of webcomics, not because the art is sloppy, but because of how misleading it can be.

[allenthomas]

I use the same thumbnail for all episodes of a chapter so that when people browse the archive, they know visually where a chapter begins and ends without having to read the episodes' names.

I use the same type of approach with my comic. I almost used the same thumbnail that I had for Ch 1 in Ch 2, but I figured that people would find it easier to go through my chapters if they visually saw the difference from just the thumbnail.

[UzukiCheverie]

i remember when COMPLAIN FOREVER was originally called WOWZERS and its first thumbnail was of mike wazowski from monster's inc

i clicked the shit out of that thumbnail and i haven't looked back

[joannekwan]

I suppose I'm picky about how my own thumbnails look because I was a graphic design major. So I strive for something that's clear, attractive, and representative of my series (which reminds me, I need to update the thumb for Demon House at some point).

As for chapter thumbnails, I personally don't mind when the same image is reused. For my series though (the one that has chapters), I like the thumbs to be different, because the episode titles have the chapter in them and I like showcasing bits of my art that I thought I did a good job on.

[Jrej]

I love how Tapastic used the chapter thumbnails to form an illustration!

There's many creative ways to tackle this one!

@Zannen00 If drew this photo I actually think it would be a hit!
Millions... Easy!

[Raven_C]

yeah i've seen a few artists create a continuing illustration through their chapter thumbnails, it's really ingenious. :'D

I don't mind it either when someone uses the same thumbnail for a chapter. Personally, I prefer to have them be different each time.

For now, my series thumbnail is just a cropped version of my header. I definitely agree that your thumbnail should represent your own current art skills.

[hades]

This reminds me of the time I was browsing print comics at the book store and saw a series with BEAUTIFUL cover art and I got extremely excited to look inside but once I did I saw that the inner art was completely terrible and low-leveled. It was such heartbreaking disappointment. :[

[Jrej]

@Marchen, Happened to me a few times already.
I heard published graphic novel do that quite often.
They would hire a different artist to do the cover hoping to sell more of the final product.

At least on Tapastic and self publishing you get to choose what you want.
That's why we should do it wisely!

[aspiderjonny]

I never really thought too hard on my thumbnails. I usually just take a small part of the cover (usually a characters face). Though I've started to put the book # on the thumbnails so that people could quick see what chapter it is. Just thought that'd be helpful.

[scythe]

Personally I find it a bit frustrating when the thumb is an incredible digital painting, but the comic itself is a b&w manga. It makes me not want to click on thumbnails with that look, which is a shame, since there are comics out there like Kings Folly and Heart of Keol where the curtain really does match the drapes, so to speak.

tl;dr I'm a firm believer in the thumbnail should match the comic style.

[SpavVy]

@scythe (just so you know this isn't an attack if it seems like it)

Manga is usually black and white and have covers that are colored like Naruto and Bleach for example. Another thing to add is that some of us just don't have time to color everything either. If I was to color my entire series I'd be even more behind, it's bad enough that I spend a lot of time just on line art...

[scythe]

Oh I totally get it. I wasn't trying to get a dig in either, just wanted to give my opinion from someone who's never really read manga, and only rarely reads b&w comics. I learned pretty quickly that it's the norm for the genre and just deal with it now. I would be lying though if I said it didn't frustrate me a little. I often hunt for new series to read, and the thumbnails are 'face' of the comic to me.

But it doesn't seem to bother anyone else, so I guess I'm in the minority here.

[SpavVy]

@scythe I understand that completely, when I started reading manga for the first time it took me a while to grow accustomed to reading in black and white along with reading from right to left. I'll admit I still hate reading from right to left which is why I made mine left to right xD
Everyone has their own personal preference I suppose.

[scythe]

Yes, they do, and I'm happy to say, I started reading my first mangas on this site. It can sometimes take a while to wear down old preferences.

[JigokuNeko]

I think it looks best to have a uniform feel to the chapter thumbnails if only just because they're stuck one on top of the other. If there's too big a stylistic difference between them it can be off-putting. Lol, I would know, for my previous comics on SJ where chapter images were not visible together I would do whatever I had time for at the moment, from semi-realism that took hours to just a very basic gradient cover I whipped up on the spot.
On the subject of misleading art, I kinda agree with what has already been said: a gorgeous cover that does not reflect the interior might do more harm than good. It might generate some extra clicks but I doubt it retains those who clicked solely for the beauty of the cover. In any case, it pays to upgrade the cover one or two levels above the interior art (add color, more details) but too much creates a jarring disconnect.

[AnnaLandin]

I use a crop of the first chapter's cover as the thumbnail for the comic as a whole, and I'm planning to use the same thumb for an entire chapter, and then when I start a new chapter, I'll switch to a crop of the new cover.

I know I could do a separate thumb for each update, but it's not all pages that crop well, and this way, new readers get a visual cue for when a new chapter begins.

[Jelw]

Now something clearly intentional for sorting like a chapter 1 thumbnail etc. doesn't bother me as much. However, do consider that if you're doing a uniform chapter thumbnail for the sake of making it easier for readers, a reader who wants to go back and find a specific scene for whatever reason is going to have a tougher time trying to remember what exact chapter and page it fell in as opposed to if a thumbnail is a clipped part of a page. I'm personally a fan of going back and revisting certain scenes, so when a feature like thumbnailing which would be ideal for making parts easily found isn't used like such, it makes me a little disappointed.
Besides, I think episode titles with a brief Ch.1 or whatever numerology could serve that purpose better without detracting from the usefulness of thumbnails.

However, what I was generally referring to in terms of repeated images, is when a comic just clearly reuses one image because they're too lazy to make one each episode

[alterccount]

Does anyone knows how many pixels by how many pixels a thumbnail size is? thanks.

[jessiepolfliet]

I like it when that method is used.:)