more random thoughts on comic presentation on the web

[egypturnash]

The rise of ComicPress as a comics CMS and its requirement that every page be attached to a corresponding blog entry (I think, it's a while since I played with it) is not necessarily a good thing; I don't want to read a comic book with running commentary beneath every page about how this is foreshadowing something, how the production of this page went haywire, or whatever. It's like having the artist sitting there watching you read it over your shoulder.

After going through just nine pages of a comic that did this I want to say "Shut up and let your art speak for itself!".

There's a place for this sort of thing - look at the detailed endnotes in a collection of Finder - but I don't think it's right there beneath every single page.

also, ComicPress now has a WP plugin that claims to make uploading easier; perhaps I will take a look at it. My comic-scheduling extensions to the gallery package I use for my site are pretty functional, though. And it doesn't make me name my images by date like CP did last I looked.

Comments

[barberio.livejournal.com]

You could use the blog entries for misinformation!

"This page's entire subtext comes from folk lore about potatoes. Note the important lack of a duck in the third panel."

[kamenkyote.livejournal.com]

I agree. While community is nice, it does bog things down if one just wants to read the comic. And readers are what we're after. If there's a place to comment at the end of a chapter, perhaps that would be ok? Or a message board -somewhere else- might be ok.

I like the way Kidjutsu did Fite and its comics. Their reader works well, and the comic looks better without all that clutter:

http://www.kidjutsu.com/title/fite

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Less is more. Give me the work with the least clutter around it you can get away with.

Hell, we're still debating if we're going to have a message board for Absinthe. We have some silly alternative ideas that we may or may not implement...

[ultraken.livejournal.com]

That's really nice—it's more like holding a comic in your hands than reading a comic on a web page.

[hazeraccoon.livejournal.com]

and with the blog entries there's gotta be the insightful reader comments, for the wonderful "interaction" where every other person reading with you tries to second-guess the author on what will happen on the very next page :3

I've liked how respectful Concerned (http://www.hlcomic.com) was about this. every page has the behind-the-scenes commentary stuff under it, but it's hidden by default. everybody's satisfied.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Hmm, that's an interesting solution to that problem.

Enabling reader interaction is what we're all supposed to do here on the web, but damnit, it's just so much WORK.

[eriscontrol.livejournal.com]

Most users don't have anything to say worth saying. Most sites I frequent I've found ways to excise user comments with GreaseKit or somesuch.

[ben-raccoon.livejournal.com]

You could just host it yourself and use http://www.enisoc.com/btphp.php

It's remarkably easy to use.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Actually, I already have my backend set up- I've done some hacks onto the image gallery that powers most of my site to make it support post-dated uploads and auto-scheduling. Same workflow I've been using to post stuff for... geeze, nine years now.

But thanks for the pointer!

ARGH! I *HATE* that about CP-powered comics.

[wolfwings.livejournal.com]

The whole 'must be named by date' crap annoys me, if it's page 137 of a given chapter, the damn link should be to something with '137' in the name, not the frelling date it was on.

Re: ARGH! I *HATE* that about CP-powered comics.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

This is an issue that seems to be deep at the bottom of almost every comics CMS I run into. Everything will be organized by DATE because the only kind of comics anyone wants to produce are DAILY STRIPS! Despite there being a ton of people using these things to publish larger-scope works.

[xyzzysqrl]

That's actually my favorite thing about webcomics, the running commentary. Sometimes I skip the comic itself and just read the commentary.