Yves Bigerel (known as Balak01 on DeviantArt) has created a set of demonstrations showing how print comics can be translated onto the web while maintaining their essential quality — the sequential use of space to tell stories through time — using Flash.
While some alternate methods used by others have included adding motion and sound to single or multiple panels, his simple demonstrations have shown that keeping the narrtive flow of one panel after the other is all it really takes to tell the story, keep attention, and attract a growing audience .
The first is “About DIGITAL COMICS”, the second is “ABOUT about DIGITAL COMICS”.
At the time this article was written, the first of the displays has been up for two weeks, has gained over 50,000 visits, and the attention of established comic artists.
Great concept, nicely executed.
Add some sound effects at the transitions and it gets even more ‘animated’. Some of the ‘frames’ show a character winding up for a big action. Those frames could be a small loop where the character makes a small ‘wiggly’ movement and sound, both of which loop until the viewer advances to the next frame.
There could also be some mouse-over effects – someone getting punched in the face on the mouseover, for example.
Plus, adding sound opens up a whole new market for the voiceover artists who can say “Thwak!” and “Kapow!” convincingly without laughing.
Flash….Well, they DID create the medium so I guess they should get paid.
Nice. Funny, informative, and shows that you can go simple or very involved. I enjoyed the variety of frame effects.
A thought … Rather than using Flash, one could do relatively the same this with plain HTML, and then put a Google Ad (for example) on each panel/page.
For CPM ads, this could potentially be very lucrative.
Great ideas. It shows how digital comics can emphasize some of the keypoints (specifically time/pacing) that Will Eisner discusses in Comics and Sequential Art.
I know this is an old thread, but the concept presented here has been knocking around in my head a while. I finally spent some time with Flash and was able to get a rudimentary version of this up at my website. I’ve been wanting to switch from audio/video to a text-based version of my cartoon, and this was the only way I could see to do it.
I used this tutorial as the basic launching pad:
http://tinyurl.com/yzcyr8j
This format is a great way to load a lot of content into a small piece of screen real estate, which will come into play more and more as the new digital devices become prevalent. For those you who, unlike me can actually draw, you would need a way to get your art into separate PNG images to create the slide show effect.
I picked 480×270 pixels as the Flash SWF size since it’s an even 16:9 widescreen ratio. I might drop it down to 464×261 pixels because the standard half-banner ad is 468×60, so many websites have a column that is at least 468 pixels wide. My thinking here is that a cartoon in one of these containers will have a better chance of landing a spot on a news/magazine website if it can be dropped into the existing layout more easily.
Anyone else messing around with anything similar you want to share?