Traditional Layout VS Vertical Layout (Again), feedback on different formats

[triggermangaverse]

I made a post earlier asking about how the two layouts affect the reader's experiences. The feedback I've gotten most was that traditional layout has too much going on packed in a smaller space, making some dialogue hard to read.

I recently experimented with both formats with my webcomic. I feel like the reading experience on mobile is much better in vertical Layout and slightly worse on bigger screens when reading in Vertical Layout. I am still very indecisive about which format I should stick with because I grew up with and have more attachment to traditional layout whereas I think vertical formats would do better long term. What do you guys think?

I uploaded my story in both formats. If you are interested in reading or curious about what the transition looked like, here are the links:

Vertical Layout on webtoon - https://www.webtoons.com/en/challenge/mcbritain/list?title_no=485473
Vertical Layout on tapas - https://tapas.io/series/McBritain/info
Traditional Layout on tapas - https://tapas.io/series/McBritain-Manga-Layout/info

[malwdark]

I prefer traditional layout, because it looks a lot better on tablet and pc (plus, its printable). Vertical is only good on movilephone and I hardly ever read comic on there.

[sushy00]

I personally prefer the traditional format.

[Legendofgenii]

No way am I going back to reformat 80+ pages to mobile view Lol!

I do keep my panels large though so they are easy to read and I can't draw tiny anyway.

[M.ComicFan]

Traditional layout all the way.

[Thakura]

I think it depends on the gender. Action stories usually look better in a traditional format, but suspense stories look better in scroll format (again, in my opinion)

[ItsAvocadoToast]

I'm tapas web-comic creator, but I'm used to vertical comic creating when it comes to panels.

[Coati]

I'm team vertical hehehe. It's better to read, even in PC/Tablet. But maybe I'm too used to read webtoons that it became my favorite format.

BTW, you won't get many chances to be a premium creator or go to staff picks and stuff with a page format. My recommendation is to work with both if you want to print it in the future.

[RosesnWater]

As a reader, I think either method is okay for certain things, sometimes with traditional I have to zoom in with my phone but it hasn’t impacted which types of comics I lean towards. As an author I really like what I’ve been able to do with the scroll format although I do kind of dislike that scroll is the one pushed on most online creators in order for them to be successful. Unfortunately it is difficult to do some transitions and during the pure dialogue parts I haven’t exactly found a good way to transition besides simply going from shot to shot but here’s an example where I really enjoyed transitioning through the page and the story felt very fluid to me:

[triggermangaverse]

What I do now is I plan my comic around pages format and move panels around to transition to vertical format. It takes a few extra hours to do both but I think I will work with both formats

[triggermangaverse]

I never really thought of it that way, now that you have mention it, I 100% agree with you

[triggermangaverse]

wow, that drawing is super cool !!

[triggermangaverse]

Yea, I really don't like having so much empty space when reading comics which is what vertical formats and small screens pushes. Right now I work and plan around traditional, transition to vertical is more of an after thought. I think I will do what I am doing right now, traditional finish pages first than transitional for 2 versions. One version I like and the other hopefully reaches mobile users

[Llyrel]

I prefer traditional format, mostly because that's what I grew up with and I find it hard to let it go, lol. Also, I love how with a traditional layout you can set the mood of a scene by using creative compositions like this:

Or this one:

https://2.bp.blogspot.com/uriVbQfpu2EN-4fDfJaurTaGXe9ShA0gaDTT13f1jFPYiOOJEzVlU9dyU39qNAfBcvRjs0cM8kGC=s0

(Both pages come from W.i.t.c.h. comics)

I mean, it's not that you can't do something similar with a vertical format, but I don't think it would look as... cohesive?

That said, vertical forma has its perks and I can definitely see the appeal: I love how much more readable it is on mobile and the bigger panels are soooo pretty! But yeah, not a fan of huge white spaces between panels on the vertical format. Your page layout looks very good, though, @triggermangaverse I love the creative compositions you used and the fact that you used the white space to insert balloons makes the whole thing feel like a whole page and not a bunch of separated panels, so good job on that!

Personally, I decided to go with the traditional format for my story. I know that Tapas pushes for the vertical format and that it will be harder for my comic to get featured this way, but having very little free time to work on it and knowing that the story is gonna be LONG and with a lot of pages, I honestly can't afford to waste my time redoing the format twice for each page. That said, I do try to keep my text as big and readable as possible, so that it should still work on mobile.

[RosesnWater]

Thank you! I really liked what you did with your vertical too ^^ I think in a lot of the professional premium comics they separate every image out way to far so that I find I’m just scrolling through too quickly. Yours is a lot closer together and honestly that’s much preferable since each image is really dynamic ^^