Decompression

[Joel Fagin]

According to the stats for my webcomic tutorials, around 35% of people still use 1024x768. Given how annoying it is to scroll horizontally, you'd probably be losing that whole third of your readers if you went to a higher resolution.

Also, once people have a wide screen monitor, they rarely, if ever, full screen a browser again. It's just too big. I keep my own browser windows just a little bigger than 1024x768. That's a comfortable size to read from.

The dialogue problems is more down to the pixels per inch. The higher resolution something is, the clearer small text becomes. Paper's usually at least 300dpi and you can print very small text compared to a 96ppi monitor.

- Joel Fagin

[ShineDog]

The percentage is still high, but its dropping year on year,

I still think that we need to see FAR bigger sizes than the 400x or 500x sizes that are so common in comics(and look shit). Its hard to deny that the comics are suffering for it, unless its some low detail dilbertish thing. Ill be running mine at 800 or 900 (give a little for scroll bars, i just cant account for history bars, its too much.) and god damn it hurts to put it that low


I know how crippled the detail on my own work looks when i drop the resolution, and I would be interested to see how the increased fidelity of a well drawn comic effects readership.

[Joel Fagin]

It's always dropping but there is a limit. As I said, a webpage as wide as my screen is extremely unweildy. Resolution is a deceptive measurement sometimes, expscally when you also take sidebars into account.

And, thinking about it, most mainstream comic pages are smaller than pages on a monitor anyway. I think it's mainly down to pixels per inch. We need better quality monitors.

Fortunatly, there are hints that they're coming soon. (Although I'm sure they'll be expensive to start with.)

Anyway, it's an ill wind. The worse the image is on the screen the more desirable a printed collection becomes.

- Joel Fagin

[Alschroeder]

Well, that brings up a question---and of course this is opinion/taste only, but still, we might bring up a consensus....what IS the maximum word count on a panel in a webcomic of reasonable size? If due to the number of pixels, it's more limited in webcomics---when is it too much? There's a reasonable consensus in print comics of no more then twenty to thirty-two words per panel (as long as we're not talking single-panel pages), usually averaging twenty-five to twenty-nine, as a MAXIMUM.

If the number of words is SMALLER for a webcomic---then what's the maximum for a webcomic? Opinions, please. And remember there are no wrong answers.---Al

[McDuffies]

The only estimation that makes sense to me, Al, is, take how long the action in the panel is supposed to last, then read the text in your head and see if it took you that much time.

Maybe this is what comes of having a language. But it's interesting. I always thought that reading pictures was more basic to the human nature than reading text. Isn't that part of the reason comics has an appeal to people?

I guess years and years of reading ordinary text kick the habit. Comics resemble to a book rather than to a photo or a painting.

[Vulpeslibertas]

around 35% of people still use 1024x768. Given how annoying it is to scroll horizontally, you'd probably be losing that whole third of your readers if you went to a higher resolution.

I'm of the opinion that webcomic authors with high-quality art should offer multiple resolutions. That way you don't cut anybody out, and people can still see your work in all of its glory.

[Datachasers]

grr - multiple resolutions would be nice , ive seen a few that would really be interesting IF it wasnt so darn tiny -

on that note - compression can be used to great effect,
in one regard im glad i use a editor that is a artist as well - and she handles all the text breaking - and the final size of the panels -

thats one thing that variys from comic to comic , size - make it visable !
make the font readable size - i dont like having to save off something just to put in a viewer program so i can blow it up to a resonable size
12 to 14pt type font is pretty readable..

from a stand point of Clip frames - or "slicing the action down to micro-seconds - i think it really depends on whats happening in the story

example - if our hero needs to bust past two guards at the door to get to the evil sponge king then just show him blowing past - no need to spend frames on the fight between him and the "red -shirts "
however the first punch he throws at the spongeking is the most important ... unless hes also a red shirt .. but the moment you start slowing down the action you know "this is important " .. so its a useful tool no matter what - just like anyother tool , it can be over used -