Clicking to see the next panel?

[Corgan_dane]

Anyone else feel like some comics are ruined because of loading time? That is, the image slowly trickles down into existence, so you get to see half of it, and sort of figure it out before you see the whole thing.

I was wondering if anyone had ever tried making a comic where you only saw one panel at a time, and clicking on the image would make the next panel appear, and so on until the end of the strip? Might be an interesting way to do it, especially if you have sort of a wild layout to your comic anyway, and not a straight 3 panel newspaper strip format.

[Mercury Hat]

Platinum Grit uses a flash interface to break up a normal comic book into panels or groups of panels. I don't actually read the comic though so I can't tell you how effective it is.

http://www.platinumgrit.com/

[McDuffies]

Nah, I like a greade to grast entire page at once, with one look, and then fill in details by reading it panel by panel.

Loading time: wasn't there a tag that puts a 1x1 pixel version of the next page on the current page, so when you go to the next page, it's already loaded in cache?
Dunno, I got used to opening several pages in advance and reading them one by one when I was on dial-up, so I didn't have that kind of problem.

[Corgan_dane]

Platinum Grit uses a flash interface to break up a normal comic book into panels or groups of panels.

That's pretty close to what I was thinking, except in my head the panels would stay there once you had clicked, instead of simply being replaced by the next panel.

I may play around with it and make a test one to see how it might work.

when I was on dial-up

You've moved up in the world since I left!

[Redtech]

Hmmm, if I had madskillz, that's not a bad idea for something like my comic which has mainly regular square panels and large gutters/free space anyway.

I'm not sure if that would be very intuitive without doing something in flash. In HTML it just seems like you'd be using tons of code and lagging the page in a different way.

[McDuffies]

You've moved up in the world since I left!

I guess I should remove Dial-up club button or something.

[Robin Pierce]

Platinum grit works really really well, but only because the artist is as good as she is. Whole issues go up at once, and the subtly in her expressions go a long way towards making it work.

Also, the whole thingloads beforehand, so you just navigate through as everything has already loaded.

I'm not sure this would work for all situations though...

[Rkolter]

Personally if someone was going to use flash to make sure you didn't see half a picture before it was ready, I'd rather they had a "loading" image, and then changed over to a full page. I really LIKE being able to look backwards up the page and then back down to the current panel.

Something like Corgan's suggestion, where the previous panels stick around, would work too, but I think it downplays that you'd be adding a 'surprise' feeling to each panel. I'm not sure if that's good or bad. There's something soothing about being able to take in the full page and then read the full page, as opposed to not seeing the panel until you click for it.

[Fishies]

On the one hand loading lag on pages is annoying. On the other the panel clicking model doesn't do much for me since a. if I go through a large archive my finger is going to hurt and b. it gets harder to find individual pages when you want to refer back to something.

I figure it's better to just keep your page file size as small as possible and not deck the webpage out with lots of extra graphics.

[Lianweijun086]

I actually really like the idea of clicking for the next panel. Unfortunately, I'm not talented enough nor patient enough to do something like that. However, for those of you who aren't like me, check this comic out! It's a webcomic that experiments with new age media. It really takes advantage of Flash animation. Even if you DON'T plan on playing with flash, you should go ahead and check the comic out!

http://balak01.deviantart.com/art/about ... -111966969

[Alias Pseudonym]

I actually did an experiment and got one of my comics going like this, but every time I try to get it on the internet something breaks, so I think I'm just giving up.

[Necrospawn0]

I never seem to have to wait very long for the image to appear... I think the worst I've seen was like a 30 second wait
I usually just look at whatever other tab I have open until the image is all there

I feel like there is a greater potential for something to go wrong if there are a whole bunch of separate images for one comic... also I'm too lazy to do that

[Dr Neo Lao]

Loading time: wasn't there a tag that puts a 1x1 pixel version of the next page on the current page, so when you go to the next page, it's already loaded in cache?

Yes, there is - the ***next_days_comics*** KeenTag. It works well for when a reader is working their way through the archive as it means that usually by the time the reader clicks "next", the next days image is already ready to be displayed. And while they are reading that one, the following one is loading in the background.

Obviously, there is no point in putting it in the indextemplate.html file, and I don't see the point in adding it to the comic until you have at least thirty or more comics in the archive - but it's there and it helps.

As for the topic at hand, I don't like comics that try funky things for the navigation. I like the common standard because it is intuitive, understandable and easy to use. Plus it makes it easy to get to a specific comic.

Having said that, it is all personal preference, so if you want to experiment with a different method, go for it.

[Perdire]

The current standard never really bothered me that much. Of course I read ~25 comics in RSS and my reader loads the next 5 in advance, and when I'm really binging I'll be reading the archives for 2-4 comics simultaneously. Switching back and forth as pages load while reading multiple comics feels like the pinnacle of multitasking.

I actually went on a webcomic binge from Thursday to Sunday and read the entire archives of Sore Thumbs, Dreamless, Phoenix Requiem, Chronillogical, Marry Me, Girls with Slingshots, Last Blood and Girl Genius. And now I'm in webcomic withdrawal... ugh.

[Phact0rri]

I think it could really do well if you used it well. I envision different panel shapes appearing, and having them be very different to showcase action and mood. unlike the puzzle technique most people have when they set up a page. it seems like single panels forming a story could really open up some new creative ways to bring forth the emotions and atmosphere the artist is trying to capture.