Why I don't plan on ever making a vertical scroll comic

[smokesalty]

Okay- DISCLAIMER. There is actually a vertical scroll version of my comic because I've reformatted it for a webtoon audience. What I mean is that I don't plan on having my comics originally be in vertical scroll from the beginning.

Also- I happily read vertical scroll comics and I have nothing against it, this is just an opinion on how I make my comics

I, for whatever reason just do not like drawing on a long vertical canvas. I cannot get the scaling right and I don't like how I can't tell how the panels look as a whole composition (if I zoom out its just a colourful spaghetti noodle) It just feels weirdly constricting for me?

I don't mind reformatting it to vertical scroll since I can just copy and paste panels and move them around freely. However- the page version of my comic will always be my favourite.

I feel like I can keep track of my progress much better, and I like that each page has it's own development of the story. I think it's really cool. I also enjoy making compositions on pages, and working out how each page layout will look to convey meaning and show cool visuals. I can look at a page and see how the panels look together. Vertical scroll definitely has it's own cool composition styles you can't do with page but I just can't work them out personally,

I'm also planning on printing every single one of my comics, and I don't like the way most vertical scroll comics reformatted to page looks. I just really like reading print comics, and I'd love to one day have my entire story printed as multiple volumes. I'm just kinda like 'since I'm planning on printing I may as well have it in print format'

I think I'm just happy having my comics in page format and reformatting it to scroll for people who enjoy that format too (I like seeing my comic in both formats tbh)

As I said, this is not hating on vertical scroll, I just feel like exclusively doing that format is not for me.

What are your thoughts?

[DualDragons]

Honestly agree. I plan on doing the same for my comic. I wil format it to scroll for the webtoon peeps but I will always prefer the page version.

I dunno, scroll format feels so weird to me. Apparently webtooners don't like seeing more than one panel at a time or something, but that really kills action for me.

[smokesalty]

I hate when you can only see like 1-2 at once! I feel like I can never tell if anything is the right size or good amount of detail.

[TheLemmaLlama]

Yeah, that's really the only smart thing to do if you want to print imo. Although ... would you consider it if there's a publisher out there that prints on scrolls?

(I know, I know, I just really like scrolls XD)

I guess my personal thoughts about my own relationship to vertical scroll ... I find dynamic panel composition difficult in general so I'd have trouble really 'leaning into' both webtoon format and page format. I guess this is because I grew up mostly watched shows and played games on a rectangular screen, and haven't read many comics or manga.

So I just have the same rectangular panels all throughout, and I'm glad vertical scroll supports that because I personally find it liberating and it removed one of the anxieties I had about getting started since I won't have to worry about fancy panel layouts

[darthmongoose]

I'd probably make a vertical scroll comic if I made something more focused on drama or romance or maybe more sweeping, epic fantasy, but I find the insistence of current platforms that every comic ought to be long scroll frustrating, because Long Scroll is pretty limiting for comedy and action.

The whole "two panels on the screen at any one time" that Webtoon recommends, with big gaps between them would kill a lot of my jokes that rely on a quick whiplash between a setup and a surprising punchline.

Like if I were to follow those rules, it would be like between every panel you add about a second and a half. So between every panel, you have to count "one two" in your head. It just DRAGS. Like can you imagine watching Brooklyn 99 and before any funny response to something, Jake Peralta waits two seconds instead of the snappy back-and forth the series is known for?

Long scroll is great for some things, and it can do certain forms of comedy very well, like Beware the Villainess is a legitimately hilarious comic that relies on a focus on the protagonist's big reactions to things in her internal monologue, often referencing memes. But my comedic style is a lot snappier, more influenced by sitcoms, relying on a bunch of characters in a scene bouncing off each other. Lots of small panels with short gaps allows for a really snappy back and forth, or to control the pace of the speech in interesting ways, add pauses, add changes of tone mid-sentence.

It also in action terms is much better for this very "anime" style of fighting, where somebody charges up, does one big, spectacular attack and then everyone talks about it. You can't easily have quick flurries or any kind of mechanical complexity to the fight that's shown and not told if you're forced into a format where you can ONLY do big panels with big gutters.

Overall, it's not that I hate long scroll or I'd never use it, I just think it's a great new tool, but not a tool that's so perfect for everything as to render all the old tools obsolete.

[igneriss]

I think it would be quite interesting to do a comic in a scroll format, though it would also be quite hard for me to make that switch. I started drawing some silly comics when I was in elementary school, and they have always been in a page format, as comics I read where also page format only. Now when I think of a scene for any of my stories, I already see it in my mind as panels in a page format i've trained my brain like that haha. Even when I planned to do a scroll format story, I first had to sketch it down as a page format to later rearrange panels.
But I think that scroll format can make some very fancy panels and transitions work better, so in the future I actually would like to try it. But I guess first I'd have to read more scroll format comics to get used to seeing story flow like that.

[RedLenai]

Do as you want, there shouldn't be a long explanation as to why you do a comic a certain way. I don't see anyone demanding such explanations in a way that you have to detail several aspects

Yes, there are platforms that are way too adapted to scroll format since it is designed for mobile, a smaller screen usually for phone/tablets/ipads. But that's it, and there are websites that allow comics on the classic format which personally speaking are better when you're reading comics on a personal computer/notebook/laptop since you don't have to zoom-in every panel to read it.

As well, I believe the reason why certain people avoid the scrolling format is because they don't know how to work with it, or think that they have to have 2 panels per image. When actually, you can have image files of 940 x 30000 pixels or similar (Clip Studio's limit to 50000 pixels) and then being way more confier to work and tell the timing and composition of your story through that format, instead of putting yourself out by "cutting" the flow with small and short images.

[smokesalty]

Do as you want, there shouldn't be a long explanation as to why you do a comic a certain way. I don't see anyone demanding such explanations in a way that you have to detail several aspects

Oh, this wasn't supposed to come off as me trying to 'justify' my decision to make my comic the way I do, nor am I expected to explain myself. I just thought I'd talk about why I personally wouldn't create my comic in this format, I went into detail because I felt like discussing.

I get what you mean with people not knowing how to work the format, and I'm sure people (myself included) would get better at the format with more practice.

[AlydaB]

Though the first comic I ever read was in a traditional page format and I enjoyed it a lot, I always liked the vertical scrolling format more as both a reader and creator. There are pros and cons to using either of course, but overall, I personally prefer the look and feel of the latter. :]

As a reader, comic pages (in general; some styles and techniques look better than others) feel cramped and limited to me. Whenever I click to the next page, I see a big cluster of panels all at once and am met with the challenge of figuring out where I'm supposed to start. If there's an action or line of dialogue that's supposed to be emphasized or shocking, I see it immediately as soon as I look at the page, then have to find the panel where I'm supposed to start and read through, already aware of what to expect. This isn't always the case, but I think the page format requires more skill to pull off in a way that doesn't have these issues to some extent.

As a creator, I find the vertical scrolling format freeing. I'm able to control how much time/space passes between each panel and keep it from looking cluttered or confusing. It flows, gradually revealing a panel of the scene at a time, rather than click- a page of separate panels to mentally dissect- click- next page of separate panels.

You can do some cool things with paneling in a page format, but frankly, it doesn't come to me naturally and I'm not clever enough to make the most of it lol. And, of the clever, cool-looking techniques possible in both, I still prefer the scrolling-comic tricks.

That format also works better with the slower pace, contemplative tone, fantasy drama elements, and detailed art style of my comic, so I'm biased in that.

There's value in both. Suppose it depends on your style and the story you want to tell.

[toonben]

Same here. I tend to be a traditionalist and I stick with the comic page format. Always posted my comics that way.

[hakei]

I do both, traditional and vertical.
My main webcomics are in vertical format — but if I had to pick, I'd select the traditional format, as both a reader and creator. The traditional format is easier to read, easier to retain information, and easier to draw because panels tend to be smaller lol. But at the end of the day, WEBTOON and Tapas are platforms for vertical scroll comics.

I will say that there is much more freedom in the vertical scroll though. It's much easier to shuffle or add/delete panels. If I wanted to add a panel to help with the action flow? Just stick it in, and move the rest of the panels down. Plus with Clip Studio, there are free templates on the Assets store that helps you determine how a panel would fit on a standard phone screen (and CSP itself has a webtoon previewer).

Also I do want to add, that there are style variances even with in the vertical scroll format. I'd urge more creators to browse and study more scroll format comics from other genres, and from other countries. (e.g. some Chinese webtoons have very thin gutters, with panels back to back, much similar to those of a traditional format.)

[Caro]

I’m all in on the page format. I don’t super enjoy scroll format for reading and I definitely don’t enjoy making my work that way.

Granted, the only time I ever did try vertical was when I was getting paid by WT and I was converting a trad page comic of mine to scroll for them. I still don’t think I’d enjoy making something in a format I don’t enjoy reading (despite the fact that I still always try to read em anyway!)

Also, after a lot of back and forth on it for the last few years, I’ve decided I just don’t want to rely on the internet as much for my livelihood. Truth be told, I make a lot more money now than I ever did on WT with print books since my advances have gotten higher and I argue for larger cuts of royalties. And for work that is also much lower stress and a lot less reliant on uncomfortable social media presence.

When I was more on the webcomics side, it was a constant hustle of posting almost every weekday, self promo, and just general grinding on the comics themselves to have enough content to post all the time and I didn’t realize how much extra work I was doing for less benefits.

[Kaydreamer]

I'm the opposite. I started off making my comic in page format, but I struggled with composition and pacing, and generally found actually laying out a page to be frustrating and tedious. Not to mention, if I wanted to add in an extra panel here or there, I'd be tossing out a handful of thumbnailed pages because I'd have to re-jig everything else - which often meant making a choice between my ideal pacing, or throwing out hours of work. (Not helped by the fact that this is my first comic, so I was still finding my footing and often realising I needed to change things halfway through a page.)

What infinite scroll felt like to me, when I started working from start to finish in it, was freedom. Want an extra panel, but already halfway through lineart? Easy, just drag everything below that point a bit further down, and there's the space for that panel. I also love the way everything flows in the scroll format. I'm one of those comic artists who's allergic to white space, give me panels floating over landscapes, gradients and star fields flowing through the scene, little reaction boxes dancing on top of large, impactful full-bleed panels. I find it immersive to read, and enormously satisfying to create.

It won't print as nicely as it would have in a page style of course, but I can live with that.

[ShidoDraws]

I don't know if I only have a small collection of knowledge in my memories but I do like reading comics in the traditional format. The scroll format just feels like it's not compelling as traditional. Like it's designed to be full of suspense all the time. And suspense ain't my thing cause I get mentally exhausted waiting for the next episode, especially when I'm the type of person that likes to wait years for something to complete and then binge it in one go. Unlike how webcomics are designed like a youtube channel where you have to keep your story ongoing or else people will stop interacting with it. Which is fair but feels like a lot of dragging... ba-da-tsss.

Sorry, I'll leave now.

[system]

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