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Jan 2022

For me, I make page comics that I later format into scroll format (pain)

Why I do it:
I'd like to have my comic printed some day! I'd prefer to have it all in the page format so that I don't need to reformat it for later.

I enjoy creating compositions for the page that look cool (I'm a sucker for illustratory splash pages) I also like that I can more easily track my progress in terms of how many pages I've completed. I've also found that I tend to prefer reading traditional comics, so maybe that impacted me too.

BUT- in scroll comics I have a much easier time pacing scenes, as I can choose how long it takes a person to scroll. I also love scroll comics that have cool transition panels that you scroll through for a while, it looks amazing!

https://tapas.io/series/The-Commune2

What are your thoughts? I'd love to hear them.

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    Jan '22
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    Feb '22
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I'm one of those old coots who wishes to print my comics someday as well, so I refuse to adhere to the current trend of scroll comics. I have nothing against them, just that I always loved to hold a comic book or graphic novel in my hand and flip through the pages like I used to back when Borders Books was a thing.

I must admit though that scroll comics are easy on the eyes and make reading on my phone a breeze.

Traditional page format. I prefer the esthetic of it and wants to print it one of these days. never really liked scroll format. no idea why. i dont find it pleasing

same here! I tend to prefer reading printed comics- something about being able to hold it and flip to the pages is special to me.

I do still read scroll comics, I'm just not interested in having my comic be exclusively that format.

What I don't like about drawing scroll format is that I'm only able to look at my artwork a couple panels at a time. Traditional comics for me are their own illustration with their own composition, and I like just looking through them from time to time. I can take in the page as a whole rather than just 1 or 2 panels.

A mix.
I am very perplexed about how panelling should be used, and was more about the scrolling technique, so I tried to do something very much alike as Fools manhwa, by Youngha. Some panels floating here and there, and little by little I had my own understanding about how they are used. Sometimes I go out of that box and draw an element without panel, or something like that. Everything goes into experimention once I have confidence enough.
Now I am stuck with this xD
I would like to try scroll format on my next project, but there is still a lot of time for that to happen, so I am still practicing and improvising when opportunity arise.

I do a traditional page format for a number of reasons. Cohesion, ease when it comes to drawing and creating dynamic images, and (for me) certain aspects of accessibility. I have a mild learning disability (it was worse when I was younger) but certain types of text can still be hard for me to read. I find vertical scroll very hard to read, comprehend and look at for long periods of time without getting a headache.

Moreover... I just think the old school way looks better for what I am doing in particular. I've found some stories here which use vertical scroll that I really enjoy and find myself getting into without issue. But if the panels aren't very cohesive and easy to connect, I find it nearly impossible to read in vertical, whereas tiny or spaced out panels on a traditional page are still legible to me.

Pages because I think they look better and have much better visual flow. I also find them easier to read.

I tend to not like the scroll comics. They often feel squished. And I read one recently they felt more like a picture book than a sequential comic. I guess I am not really into that. I have read one that I like but most I just don't enjoy reading in that format.

My comic is drawn in traditional page format (because I too am old-school and would like to have my work printed someday), and that's how I post it here on Tapas. I mirror my comic over on Webtoon, and I was told a scroll comic would do better over there than traditional page, and I sighed and started chopping up my panels to fit a vertical format for Webtoon.

It made absolutely zero difference in my subscriber count. It has not budged at all. I've been stuck at 24-26 subscribers on Webtoon for months. No idea why. I'd go back to traditional page format, because that is MUCH easier for me, but my 1 regular commenter on Webtoon prefers the scrolling vertical format, so I guess in order to not lose my one actual engaged fan there, I'm keeping it.

Personally I hate scrolling format. I don't read comics on my phone, and I haaaaaate that I can almost never get a full panel on screen at a time with scrolling format. Plus it massively limits the sweeping landscapes I like doing now and then, and renders any clever paneling totally moot.

Traditional cos i'm old school and want printed manga volumes on my shelf too!

Well, I love the traditional page format because I love to have and read physical books. In digital, I still like them, they're familiar and I enjoy them, but I find myself liking to read the scroll format more, because I always use my phone and it's more comfortable to just... scroll and read lol.

When I read webcomics with the traditional format, depending on how the artist does the page, sometimes I can't read the font on my phone, and I have to zoom in. And it's difficult to read like that. In the scroll format the text is bigger, so I don't have that problem.

Reading on my PC is different, because the scroll format seems huge XDD but I almost never read on my PC, only on my phone lol.

Something I really like of the scroll format are the transition panels, artists can be really creative with them! And because the scroll format it's still somewhat new, I think there's still room for experimentation with it, and that's really cool too.

Oh, and I find it more easy to format for scroll webcomics lol. I'm not one of the really creative people that can experiment with it, so I just try to do it in a readable way lol. I use Clip Studio, so it's easier thanks to the program too. Also, I'm bad at paneling for the traditional page format, even though I like it lol I still lack skills in composition so... yeah XD

All the page formatters coming outta the woodwork tonight!!

I’ve always done page no matter what since my income comes mainly from books. Even when I did work for WT I just cut the pages into scroll format which was really great because it meant I could continue to make money off of that comic after it’s WT run in the form of print. It would suck for me to only be paid for it ONCE and then have to move on. Its simply not financially worth it for me to go in on scroll even if I didn’t dislike it.

It´s complicated, like everything in my life.

I grew up with printed comics and grew up drawing traditional comic pages. I printed my first crappy comic in the 80s.
I relearned drawing 6,5 years ago and now I find pages very overwhelming, it´s really hard for me to finish a page
and now I find it very convenient to have panels which always have the same size and that I can add or remove
panels. After the script I do thumbnails, then I pencil the thumbnails and add panels where needed or delete them
again. I could still print them, I work 940x940 with 600 dpi

depends on the comic, most of mine were done page format because honestly I started them before I knew that scroll format was a thing? My current comic is really just intended for the internet's eyes only and not for the printed page, so while I do have the panels saved seperately in case I need them to print (I won't, I'm not famous) I just do it in strictly scroll. It also means I can use as many neon colors as I want :slight_smile: CMYK can't screw with me now.

But that doesn't mean I'd only do scroll in the future, I want to do another page format one eventually. Hopefully one I can pitch traditionally so it'd be a hell ton shorter, too.

Page format: I like when the panels and the flow in general guide the reader's eyes exactly where I want. But I'm curious to try scroll format in the future...

I guess I do both? I draw my comic in the page format but on here I post it in the scroll format.

Scroll format because when I started my comic I already new that for Tapas and Webtoon it's best to do that format. Plus I don't really have any reasons to doing a page format.

Page format, cause I'm a desktop user and really don't like scroll format, especially works that are like

a panel with a line of dialogue
scroll
scroll
scroll
scroll
scroll through a gradient/white void
single panel again
I get tired by them easily

I started as a page comic artist. Personally speaking, I never felt comfortable with the paneling, I always thought it looked extremely ugly (Maybe I was just unexperienced back then) and it didn't align with how I imagined the the time pacing scenes, and I always had this sensation everything was so cramped.

That's why I prefer scroll comics since they give me more liberties, I can feel I have control over all the things I felt uncomfortable or insatisfied before. Not to mention that nowadays, people are mostly on their phones or ipads or even in their desktops and usually, they are used to scroll on their feeds like Facebook and Twitter, therefore, the scrolling format makes sense independently of the dispositive you're in.

I don't have plans of printing stuff, neither do the authors of the series I work for. So we don't worry about the traditional format.

Same, it doesn't appeal to me.The format of having text or dialogue suspended in big empty gaps is kind of weird, I always think there's a problem with my internet and the images aren't loading or something.