Not Clear on the Concept

Discuss the future, present and past of sequential art.

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Greg Stephens
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Post by Greg Stephens »

This quote from CBR's news item about Scott Kurtz's dead-tree version of PvP:

"The daily Web "PvP" follows a pretty standard format of a 2 x 2 grid driven by the needs of the Web. In [print] comics, however, Kurtz has the freedom to play around with formats."

Some time ago Kurtz was retooling his web site and posted a 'rant' about the things one has to consider when designing a site which contains this quote:

"You're limited to space horizontally on a webpage but not vertically. If PvP ran four panels side by side, it would be limited to 700-750 pixels in length."

Interesting how people just seem to naturally create limits for themselves.
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Post by Max Leibman »

Per Greg, quoting CBR:
<BLOCKQUOTE>"The daily Web "PvP" follows a pretty standard format of a 2 x 2 grid driven by the needs of the Web. In [print] comics, however, Kurtz has the freedom to play around with formats."</BLOCKQUOTE>

This newfound freedom to expand offered by the printed page is one of the many reasons why creators working in the limited, outmoded format of Web comics are starting to turn to print, which will most likely eventually replace old-fashioned Web publishing.

Yes.

Greg, this time Quoting Scott Kurtz:
<BLOCKQUOTE>"You're limited to space horizontally on a webpage but not vertically. If PvP ran four panels side by side, it would be limited to 700-750 pixels in length."</BLOCKQUOTE>

This man cannot conceive of changing his panel size, nor the count, nor the DPI, nor the axis it scrolls along. And his is among the MOST popular (and, from what he's said, profitable) comics on the web.

I'll leave it to you all to contemplate what this tells us about web comics readers at large.

-Max Leibman

P.s. - Check out "Corporeal Borders" in this week's <I>Sequential Art Jam</I> at <A HREF="http://www.subatomiccafe.com/">SubAtomic Cafe</A>!

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Max Leibman on 2001-06-01 19:51 ]</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Max Leibman on 2001-06-01 20:13 ]</font>
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Post by Randy »

When I took a break from work to go and get my paycheck, I stopped at the comic shop and came across the PVP comic. I enjoy PVP online and read it daily.

The format for the comic was wrong. The book should have been printed square to meet the needs of his art. He wastes about 1/3 of the space of each page with a screened image of one of the characters. And the panels are very small, thus very hard to read.

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Randy, the overworked graphic artist.

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Greg Stephens
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Post by Greg Stephens »

I'll leave it to you all to contemplate what this tells us about web comics readers at large.
Apparently they're just as trapped by their preconceptions of the comic medium as many creators.

Be that as it may, I must say that I enjoy reading PvP and was looking forward to its dead-tree incarnation, however it hasn't turned up at any of the comic shops that I frequent (guess pre-ordering would have helped). However, every time Scott K voices his opinions on the state of comics, I shudder.
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Post by Greg Stephens »

And here's an article (older one, not fresh) with a quote that takes the opposite view:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... 160575.DTL

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Post by Scott Kurtz »

A friend pointed out this thread to me so I thought I would shed some light on the subject.

There are limitations on the web. Despite what you might have read. It's the same limitation that's got us by the throat in Print media: cost.

Bandwidth costs money. If you have a comic strip that eats up over 100k and you have 35,000 people downloading 100k each day for a month....that's a lot of cash you owe your hosting service.

That's assuming that those people arent' going to go through the other 800 comics you have in your archive.

Now, I think that the 2x2 grid is a good format for several reasons:
1)It's still very traditional. Four solid panels. God I love writing in four panels. I love working out the timing. It's part nostalgia.

2)Stacking the panels lets me make each panel much bigger than if I were to line them up 4 in a row.

3) at 458 pixels wide, I can still get my file size down to 20-28k for a daily strip.

Now, with the comic book...what you're failing to mention is that I'm not just reprinting old strips in each issue. I'm also drawing brand new comic book-format PvP stories.

Standard comic book size makes sense and I think that the solution I came up for the reprint section was a nice touch.

Hope this clears things up.
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Post by Scott Kurtz »

This man cannot conceive of changing his panel size, nor the count, nor the DPI, nor the axis it scrolls along. And his is among the MOST popular (and, from what he's said, profitable) comics on the web.

I'll leave it to you all to contemplate what this tells us about web comics readers at large.
I can conceive of it, I just find most of it bothersome and annoying. My readers will too.

Look, people don't read PvP to see the art form pushed in crazy new directions. They come for a quick laugh. Get in, laugh, get the hell out.

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Post by Max Leibman »

Fair enough, Scott. And PVP is usually good for a laugh, and no, not every comic needs to push the boundaries. My second comment was probably snottier than it needed to be.

I stand by the first one, though -- the way the article was worded just sounded, well, silly.

(And I do have a lot of respect for some of your views on webcoomics -- particularly after the whole success killing web comics rant.)

-Max
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Post by Scott Kurtz »

Thanks.

I tend to get really defensive, especially as of late. I used to have a lot of friends in the "webcomic community."

But now that PvP is starting to hit some real financial success, suddenly every word I say becomes either "arrogant ramblings." or "holier-than-thou."

Opinions just went 180 degrees when I started making a living at PvP. Suddenly all these web artists who used to like me and my work now had nothing to say but "He's sold out."

So anyway...I'm adjusting.
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Post by damonk13 »

(*realizes that this is an old thread, and one which may not recieve reply, but such is life*)

Well, while I don't always agree with what you say in your rants and such, I do still enjoy your comic, and treat both comic and rant as two separate entities.

I also concur that not everyone has to be a pioneer or trendsetter or innovator -- we still need solid contemporary or "traditional" works, too. Your comic is solid, and and consistent.

I have heard people complain that you used to trace from templates, screaming that you were a hack because of this. Why they would say such things, I can't even begin to fathom -- every artist has her/his tricks to help with consistency... if one cuts or pastes here and there, or if one traces, how does that make the final product less than it is? Sometimes I suspect they're just angry they didn't think of it first...

As for the popularity thing, I find it interesting that a number of the "bigger webcomic names" recently seem to get treated the same way you do now -- with contempt or disdain...

Sometimes I think they are just jealous that you achieved a certain amount of success and they didn't (a natural reaction, perhaps, among creative types?); sometimes I think they are hypocritical as I hear them wish for their own success, and sometimes I think they are sheep, just following the trends... "What? Everyone hates PvP and Sinfest now? Well I will too, then."

However, I *have* seen some people offer valid reasons for disagreeing with some of your opinions, and that I do not consider as wrong -- everyone is entitled to opinion...

Still, the namecalling is unwarranted and unethical...

Anywho, I suspect that we are currently in an odd "boom" stage where every one who ever thought they might be a writer or cartoonist or artist or poet (etc.) suddenly has "open and easy" means to get noticed by at least a few people beyond their family and friends...

The problem with this is that they do not realize that discipline, passion, and tenacity are key to going beyond hobby and reaching a higher level of, well, for lack of a better term -- professionalism.

Also, it means that a lot of people hop on the webcomics train for the wrong reasons, and as a result, we see a lot of uninspired crap out there (this, of course, is not limited to webcomics, but to ALL artforms)...

In a few years, we will see things change a bit as those who aren't really serious about their craft (e.g., those whose primary goals are self-attention or "easy" money) will drop away, and some of the "real" quality will finally be given a chance to shine a bit...

hell, online comics have been around for what -- 5 or 6 years? that's still the foetal stage! it'll be a while before things get sorted out and this proto-generation shapes itself into its first infant form...

And Scott, while I figure you have learned to deal with the angry mobs, I hope you listen among them for the voices of reason -- there are some -- and I hope that they in return will accord you the same respect.
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Post by clahey »

This may be slightly off topic, but I noticed that this is a discussion of the format of online comics.

I don't know if it has been discussed much, but I think the format of <a href="http://www.sluggy.com">Sluggy Freelance's</a> sunday comics is rather clever. It's just a list of images, but because of how web layouts work and how the image sizes were chosen, it resizes very well with the size of your browser.

Specifically, with June 10th's comic (I don't know if it varies by a pixel or two week to week) between 702 pixels of space and 933 pixels, the comic is 4 rows tall (of 218 pixels each). Between 940 and 1402 pixels wide it's 3 rows tall and from 1403 to 1873 it's 2 rows tall. Outside of these ranges it's not rectangular

This means that viewers at different resolutions get a different experience, but it's optimized for their viewing resolution. I don't have to scroll as much as someone on an 800x600 screen does but we both have a decent view of the comic.

This may have been discussed before. Sorry if this is a repeat.

Thanks,
Chris
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