Digital comics and the refusal to let go of the printed dream

[Shanny8]

Actually that's where the catch-22 has landed the comics industry. It's easier for indie/self-pubbed artists to print a graphic novel or printed edition than it is for the established industry. The mainstream industry need the 22 page comic books to be sold in order to justify making a collected edition. If sales from the smaller books dont hit, then they dont even make collected edition.

[profesone]

Many years ago, I was told in a strong voice that comics are dead. It would not have met much if the person telling me this was a well know and profitable comic artist (a damn unicorn) who still makes comics today for DC. Anyway, Kickstart has made it easier for us to raise the small amount needed to do shows and Cons which generates fans to come back to what????? ONLINE MEDIA!!!
My book Frontier Graveyard https://tapastic.com/series/Frontier-Graveyard has had small success in print with four guys pouring money into the project, doing Cons, radio shows, press releases, Kickstarter, and online ad campaigns. The most success we've had is here on Tapastic so far. I have a three year old project that's doing well in my eyes.
So the bottom line is, I appearly don't correct typos, comics are not dead it's just way too many of them and we need to find better ways to get them into peoples hands like Tapastic, and print is a good physical way to grap peoples attention at Cons. This is a good thread, I saw the title and couldn't help myself to reply. I hope this helps somebody who is crying about quitting comics or something.

[haleymewsome]

I think the biggest benefit of print is that it is more accessible to people who don't spend a lot of time on the internet. I know several people who are outside of my age demographic who consider themselves big time comics fans and never read webcomics. There's large swaths of people (hipsters, young kids without their own computers, older generations who don't like reading on screens) who won't even try to read a web comic, but might really like it if it is in their hands.

I think it's great that we can do both!

[kiddcosmos]

Scott McCloud said some really interesting things about webcomics in the Ted Talk he did about understanding comics.

He mentioned how when Hollywood was trying to adapt to the rise of television, they simply took the production format of films and applied to what they made for television, and they were baffled when what they made was unsuccessful.

I'm paraphrasing, but Scott said that the reason Hollywood's approach didn't work was because television as a medium required its own unique approach -- just as webcomics require their own approach that suit their medium.

I particularly have trouble reading comics formatted for paper on my screen or phone, simply because it's not designed for the device that I'm using to read it. In my webcomic (Freddie Freakie), I've tried to enlarge the text and panels and create a more scrolling-centric flow in order to better suit the medium of the webcomic. Check it out here!

[Djmuse1231]

It's certainly a thing I still aspire to, personally. Web-based media and Ebook style comics may be the future -- as it is slowly taking over all print-based media -- but I still yearn for the day when I can see my book on the shelf of a comic book shop. It's even reflected in the way in which I work: traditionally, on bristol paper, 15x10 inch image area, very easy to transfer to print.

It's not like it never happens to webcomics. Look at Henchgirl or KillSixBillionDemons, for some quick and easy examples. If you can find comfortable/fruitful success with a purely digital distribution, that's great, I'm glad for you. But I'm still clinging to that comic-shelf dream.

[masoneasley]

Despite my comics being online, I still print them. I think print is a market you don't want to avoid for a variety of reasons.

[trinkettrancemusic]

Here's my take on it: I wish we could get over print. But nostalgia and marketing systems won't allow it to happen. Yet.

Eventually, it's likely to be a necessity. I get the whole tactile argument, but it's content that excites me, not form, so I don't really care if I'm holding a stack of papers or a tablet, unless the tablet is running out of juice and I don't have a charger, or the sun has gone down and I don't have a lantern to read the book with.

Mostly though, I'm a demented environmentalist and think it's morally irresponsible to continue supporting the manufacture of physical objects to satisfy personal interests. Myself included. I WANT print comics and do buy a lot of them. I need help to stop. Gorging on digital comics certainly helps.

The other main point though, especially as a creator, is INNOVATION. The boundaries of print have been quite firmly explored. Digital is a new frontier. The functionality doesn't come through on hosting sites like Tapastic (though its soundtrack feature is cool), but The Beard is designed specifically as a digital comic, though I made concessions on formatting so that it would be printable (I'm just a writer, so I have to pay my artists still). In the pdf version, it's an enriched document that has hidden hyperlinks serving as footnotes and pathways to extra content as well as music cues and sound effects that you trigger by clicking on certain panels. The trouble has been in finding a widely used PDF reader that works. PDFX Editor is the only one I've found so far that does everything I need it to. Ah, tech problems. I'll solve 'em yet. I want there to be every reason to CHOOSE digital over print eventually, because it's a hard decision to make when you're used to a popular standard.