What kind of layout do you prefer in comics?

[CrazyAGCat]

Hi there! This is a rather odd question, but I've noticed two types of formats for comics on Tapastic-- the standard comic style, where if you printed it out and stapled the pages together, you'd have the types of comic books most people think about; Then you have the vertical style, where panels are still present, but rather emulate newspaper comics in that you generally read more down as opposed to reading in a 'Z' pattern.
An awesome example of the 'original' comic style on Tapas would be King's Folly by Whispwill, and a lovely example of the downward comic style would be Countdown to Countdown by Vel!!

What do you prefer? Do you think it depends on story style, or art style? Do you like it when the two styles blend a bit? Or do you just prefer downward because of how mobile-friendly it is-- or are you impartial either way?
I was just going through my reading list when I realized how different people tell their stories-- I love how uniquely everyone frames their characters, like a director changing how the camera films a movie and I'm curious as to what other people think! ~

Thank you for reading!! <3

[Zetsubonii]

I'm not sure if either is limited to newspapers nor Tapastic in general as I've seen the óriginal' and the 'Z' in printed mainstream comics like Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, etc. ^^" For Jim's Day's, I prefer the 'Z' style as it helps me navigate the reader throughout the actual page, showing them what's important or not as well as trying to keep their gaze away from things I want to hide from them so that when it does becomes important, they'll comback and say Öooooooooooooooooh, I get it." xD

[joannekwan]

I prefer the classic comic page style. I read mostly on my laptop and sometimes the vertical scrolling pages are way too big and one panel doesn't even fit on my screen, that and other times there is way too much scrolling.

[shazzbaa]

Yeah, I don't strongly prefer one over the other if they're both done well (though looking at my reading list, I seem to have a subconscious preference for the classic style) but I often run into the same problem as @joannekwan, where the panels on the vertical-scroll comics that are intended to be big and mobile-friendly are awkwardly too big on my computer, feeling like I'm zoomed in too close and can't get a good look at the panel.

[keii4ii]

I don't even have a smartphone (so desktop viewing only), and I generally prefer vertical scroll style. My biggest reason is because the text/font tends to be bigger and much easier to read. As a reader, I am RUTHLESS about legibility. If a comic isn't easily legible, I will not follow it, no matter how amazing it may be.

But if that were to be taken out of the equation (after all, it's not like you can't make a traditional page format comic with a big font size -- or a vertical scroll comic with a small font...), I think I might have no preference? It would come down to how well the creator utilizes the format of their choice.

BTW, I wouldn't consider Countdown to Countdown a vertical scroll comic (this is arguable, so that doesn't mean your categorization is wrong). If you go to their website, it loads one panel at a time, like Ava's Demon. I think that's the way it's intended to be viewed for that comic. Sure, the panels are stacked vertically and have the appearance of a vertical comic, but I think I see some indications that it wasn't designed specifically for that kind of viewing.

My LEAST favorite is the wide page format, where you do the Z but it's a very wide Z. I find this to be physically uncomfortable to read on the computer, at least with the examples I've seen.

My own comic uses the vertical scroll format. Despite font size being a big factor for me as a reader, it wasn't why I chose that format for my own comic. I originally published it on Korean sites, where vertical scroll is the norm. It was a cater-to-your-demographic thing. I consumed lots of vertical Korean comics before committing to the format with my own project and found some amazing examples to love and learn from.

After a reboot, I stopped publishing it on Korean sites, but I kept the format because now I can't imagine this particular story any other way. =P Doesn't mean I'll never go back to the page format with future projects, though! Every project is different.

[Mharz]

I don't really have a preference on this. If the art is good and it caught my attention, I'll read it regardless of layout. That's all there is to it.

I personally use the standard comic style since I want to print all my comics also that's the kind of layout I've known. I only found out about vertical scroll when I started reading webcomics.

[VikiKuli]

I think both have their values! I generally work and read comics in the classic style but I really enjoy the scrolling down style as well! Sometimes I think movement in backgrounds is portrayed better in the scrolling-down version, while dialogue can seem more natural in the classic style. But both work well. Just my opinion, good topic!

[Pandastrophic]

I find myself reading both regardless of the format id I like the story+art of the comic. But I personally do prefer Vertical/webtoon style comics, just easier to read for me, the panels have some space to breath, sometimes the regular comic format can look very claustrophobic with panels and speech bubbles squished on one page.
I'm a little biased though because I love working in vertical format for my own comic.

while dialogue can seem more natural in the classic style

For me I found that dialogue can seem more natural in vertical style because it's easier to spread speechbubbles of the conversations more spacially, so it gives the artist more control over the pacing of the scene and it makes it feel much more natural.

[AnnaLandin]

I'm in the standard-comic-page camp. Vertical scroll-comics aren't inherently less good than standard-page comics, but as other people have mentioned, I often run into the issue of having to scroll several times to get through a single panel. Also, in many cases, the episodes feel very, very long, and by the time I get to the bottom of one, my brain's blanked out what happened at the beginning. It's like watching a movie where someone throws a punch at the very start, and then it doesn't land until the very end - and by then you've forgotten it was thrown at all.

I've been reading comics for nearly 25 years, and comics on the internet for well over a decade; I'm used to the standard page-format. I do read several vertical-scroll comics that I enjoy, though, so it's not as though I'm completely inflexible about the whole thing. =P

[Chopythes]

I prefer the "classic". I've been "reading" comics since I was 3 yo, so that's what I'm used to.
The vertical scrolling pages are... Kind of obnoxious to me? I get extremely frustrated as they're often too long and I lack patience. I need to see where the page ends for some odd reason and vertical scrolling isn't doing that for me.
I've seen creators uploading panels only as a vertical scrolling, and that works! It's usually just 3-4 panels but they look good on the phone and on the desktop.

(I will admit that I like the looks of vertical scrolling comics, but they feel a little bit too intense and most scenes are too far apart so it's like: HERE'S A PANEL! [insert a white blank spot for what feels like endless scrolling] ANOTHER PANEL!! rinse and repeat.
When it's well done, it's like a gift from gods, but it often feels too long imo.

[punkarsenic]

i generally prefer the traditional style, i think it gives more space for variation and experimentation in the panels themselves. that being said, some scrolling comics really play with the medium and make it super interesting.

[popsiclestick]

I much prefer the classic page layout, as I'm all about getting my work in print - getting to hold my comic in my hands is a big thing for me! I'm not a fan of all the white space in a lot of vertical comics, although a lot manage to avoid it! Tho to be fair, I'm always aware of my crowded looking pages too, which is something I'm working on. I've been planning to try webtoons for a while now, but the heavy bias toward vertical comics is really putting me off :/

[spadesart]

I use a laptop to read comics so mobile formatted ones are usually super super annoying on desktop because they require SO MUCH scrolling just to get to the next panel. So original style is definitely my preference.

[Shanny8]

Classic layout. Not partial to almost infinite scrolling- especially when some comics throw in "that one panel that sits in the middle of the scrolling continuity, where no one says anything". Or in other cases, like on Webtoon where I've seen lettering balloons/sound FX that are sitting off the page in a space basically more or less, by itself. I want to be able to read the entire page & get a sense of meaning from it.

[keii4ii]

I wonder if the dislike for longer vertical comic episodes stems from mismatched expectations? If you click on one of those webtoon updates, expecting it to be one page, then of course it's going to feel overwhelming. The key is to go in expecting multiple pages, similar to a chapter in a Japanese weekly magazine.

[ConradComics]

They both have their strengths, eg the 'page turn' for classic or the 'fade out' for vertical. So, I like both.

I grew up on classic, thus it's cozy and familiar, but I do like the motion (or maybe the passage of time effect?) of vertical.

[okellymx]

I think it has to do more with the pacing of those vertical comics than length. I'm mean the panel spacing. Reading though a manga chapter takes much less time than reading a vertical comic. I personally do not want to scroll through 90 some panels to remember where I left off. I'd rather have a bunch of short episodes than one really long one. Kind of like yours.

As a creator everything I do revolves around the possibility of it being printed. Even if my series doesn't get printed I'd still make it into a PDF or other digital comic book format.

[Kura]

I don't mind either, though because I have my comic released in both formats to accommodate to the webtoons layout, I notice that my tapastic readers seem to like the page format version more (I upload both versions here) Even when going back and re-reading old chapters over again they do so on the page by page version, even though I would think they would use the long version because it's formatted better for this website and involves less clicking.

The difference in reader activity is so large between the two that I often debate if going through the trouble of reformatting for the scrolling version is actually worth the work =/

[keii4ii]

I think it has to do more with the pacing of those vertical comics than length. I'm mean the panel spacing. Reading though a manga chapter takes much less time than reading a vertical comic. I personally do not want to scroll through 90 some panels to remember where I left off.

What kinda vertical comics are you reading? The ones I read don't take that long, nor do they have anywhere near 90 panels on average (one possible exception being Denma, though I've never counted).

Now I wonder if the screen resolution is a factor. I'm on a 5k display, so I see quite a bit of content in a single screen. Maybe viewing on a smaller resolution creates that "ahhh when is it going to end?" feeling. Though I never experienced that feeling even back when I was on a 2560x1600 display?

I also don't see anyone complain about monthly magazine manga chapters (those have like 40 pages) being too long? Although that could be because you can remember which page you leave it off, I always read those in a single sitting and assumed (perhaps incorrectly) that most other people did so as well.

That said, here is one example I can think of that has way too much white space even for me. It doesn't make me wonder "when is it going to end!???" This comic's chapters don't have a lot of content (something they get complaints about all the time in their comments section), so the chapters feel short to me. It still messes up the sense of timing, though, which is why it's too much for me.

I'd rather have a bunch of short episodes than one really long one. Kind of like yours.

Interesting. I first came across Korean webcomics on a manga scanlation site, where they divided the chapters that way. And I found it severely annoying. XD;; I wanted to A) scroll a lot OR B) keep clicking for the next page without scrolling. I didn't like having to scroll a little, then click for the next page.

The main reason I make mine that way is because I wouldn't be able to update often if I were to make my updates longer. I try to make my updates a bit longer than the chopped-up scanlation I came across, though, because that was... really annoying. It was like reading a traditional page comic that was just a little too big to fit in one screen, which I dislike as well. If I have to click often, that's enough work for me... don't make me scroll on top of it!

Different strokes for different folks, I guess.

[69Michi]

Vertical format for me. I'm really bad with paying attention when it comes to reading the traditional manga pages. When there is a lot of words and bubble speech on the same page, I found myself tend to skim over it or skip the dialog unintentionally. While on the other hand, vertical format is easier on the eyes for me and give me a sense of pacing/flow and time pass between each panel. Also sometimes when people knows how to use the vertical format correctly, it can make the comic looks more like a still-image anime, and I enjoy that aspect a lot. (I still remember my first experience with vertical format, being Nobless and I always thought to myself how much the fight scene looks just like an anime as I scroll down and down haha)