May 2021
2 / 9
May 2021
May 2021
akitsukino
May '21

A lot of people wonder if Korean scroll comics ever see publications and a lot of the times they do. They’ll just rearrange the panels to page format. Sometimes it looks pretty good,

image.jpeg1600x1125 253 KB
https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/UtMAAOSw~SNfCJLw/s-l1600.jpg

Other times you can tell it wasn’t supposed to look like that

image.jpeg1374x963 154 KB
https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/hgMAAOSw0c9fLlOQ/s-l1600.jpg1

But there are a lot of western scroll comics that get books too. Stephen McCranie’s Space Boy4 has multiple volumes out and the Webtoons Hooky3 and Lore Olympus 1 are getting print releases in the Fall.

I’m not used to scroll format yet so I’m drawing in page format and then rearranging. But I think I’m still kind of holding on to a day where I could see an actual book, even though most days when webcomics get print release it’s either through Kickstarters or publishers picking things up. But how do some of you feel?

Those of you who draw in scroll format, do you ever think of one day publishing a physical copy or are you not very concerned with that? Do you pick up physical copies of webcomics you like? In this digital age is prepping for print even important anymore when most your audience will read online/ on their phones? Let me know below!

  • created

    May '21

  • last reply

    May '21
  • 8

    replies

  • 1.0k

    views

  • 9

    users

  • 4

    likes

  • 5

    links

Kaydreamer
May '21
1

I completely intend to print my comic, and that intention was one of the things which made me initially resist working in a vertical format. I've since relented, because I've come to really prefer working vertically - it helps my pacing immeasurably, and I find it way more fun - but I still want to print a book!

I'll be getting my hands on the first issue of The Croaking once its Kickstarter is finished, and I'll be looking closely at that to see how the artist has reformatted her comic from the scrolling version. I think just having a good sense of page balance should be enough to make a decent looking reformat, and being willing to repaint a little where necessary. The 'bad' examples you posted suffer from weird and inconsistent panel sizes, which really; that shouldn't be hard to avoid. Crop where needed, expand where needed, and avoid clunky looking bleed panels unless there's a really good reason for it to be a bleed panel. It probably won't look as good as a comic which was designed in page format from the beginning, but that's the trade we make in order to have something which looks really good when scrolling.

Having a printed book does have a lot of advantages. You can sell it at conventions, markets, book fairs, and you may be able to convince a local comic book store to stock a few copies. That's more than enough reason for me to put the time into reformatting for print.

lidiash
May '21

One of my comics is created strictly to work in scroll format, for example transitions like this one is impossible in book format: (click on the image)

05.png177x1000 227 KB

Scroll has several advantages over book format and vice-versa (for example scroll isn't fit for big horizontal scenes and resizing makes scene look less impressive).

I am not concerned with getting this comic to a physical copy, maybe an artbook for personal use would be okay. Physical copies still matter, through - it's different feel to have a physical copy than to have a comic in the subscriptions.

Puck
May '21

I been asking myself the question since I thought about putting a webcomic.
I think it´s good and possible to plan your comic like you would print it in the future.
It makes it a bit more complicated in the beginning because it is a different to plan
a full page compared to the horizontal / vertical way of a webtoon

dreamysheep.01
May '21

My comic is drawn in pages and reformatted to vertical scroll later, but I have some pages where I've drawn two versions of some panels - one for print and one for vertical scroll that takes advantage of the medium.
I definitely plan to print my comic but not on a large scale, for now I'll just be selling a few copies at conventions (whenever they return)

I'm sloooowly working on 2 more comics, onev drawn in vertical scroll that I probably won't print (it's just a cutesy AU of my main comic) and one that I'm unsure of which format I'll be drawing in yet but I'm leaning more towards page format for now

darthmongoose
May '21

Honestly as somebody who made a comic as pages for print then reformatted to web, part of me wishes I'd made for web from the start. Brexit and new tax rules have made selling physical items overseas so prohibitively expensive that I'm now unsure it'll ever be viable to make a book, which was originally planned to be the main way of making money off this project. The unit price for the printed books including postage is probably going to end up something terrible like £15 for a 150 page A5 book that nobody will want to pay. I could have saved myself the hassle by just focusing on an online audience.

TheDoublekey
May '21

I definetely hope I'll be able to print my series in the near future (at least the first volume!). When it comes to formatting and compositing the work itself, I usually do it in print format first (manga format) and then I rearrange the panels in the scroll format.

I'd love to have my comic printed soooo bad, because that would mean I finally accomplished one of my goals. :heart_eyes:
I've always dreamt of having my work published as a book and I can't wait to hold the thing in my hands. It would mean a lot to me.

Pandastrophic
May '21

Sometime I see printed copies of a comic and I feel like it would be nice to see my comic like that but... it's also super unrealistic for me, even pre-covid.
With self publishing, printing books where I'm from is really expensive if you want it done well, most of my readers are from the US so I'd assume IF i sell it online shipping would be expensive, and If I decide to only sell it at cons... well... we only have 1 major comiccon per year, we have a few smaller cons here and there but it's not worth it because they don't have as many visitors as the main comiccon so you end up paying more for the table than you would have in earnings.

We also don't have a comic industry, i've seen a few people try to publish their comics here but it has to be a very specific type of comic to even be considered for publishing and all the projects I've seen over the years haven't gone anywhere.
Even though I think there is a huge market for manga and comics here, we grew up watching anime dubbed in our language and many grew up to read manga as well. It's just disappointing that publishing places never give comics/manga a chance.

If I'd want to print my comic then it would just be like 1 copy for me personally lol.
I like the freedom that the scroll format and publishing my comic online gives me and either way I'd never be able to print my comic even if I wanted to so.

azzy-m
May '21

It doesn't really bother me if i ever don't get a book release to be honest, haha. Would be nice, but I want to have merch more than a book release, stupidly enough. Besides I don't know if my panels work with the page format :sweat_01: