I've spent a lot of time lately looking at websites with online comics. One problem has been coming up over and over again that I want to bring up.

I see many sites that show one comics page per HTML document and force you to hit a next button to view the next page. The big problem with this is that it can take a couple minutes for the next page to download.

There are two smart ways to address this problem:

(1) Put ALL the pages of your story on ONE HTML page. Put them all in a column so that the user only has to scroll downward to read all the pages. This way the rest of the story is being downloaded while you're reading the first page.

(2) Size the pages so that each one is completely contained within a fullscreen browser window.

(2) While you're at it, keep the resolution of the pages down to about 75 dots per inch so that the browser finishes loading faster.

Check out http://home.pacbell.net/badhad and http://members.aol.com/cynicalman for examples of two people who've gotten online comics right! (Actually, the Bad Habit site has the resolution set much too high, but otherwise it's great!)

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Ben Adams
Mediawarp Comics
www.mediawarpcomics.com

[This message has been edited by Ben Adams (edited 12-24-98).]

[This message has been edited by Ben Adams (edited 12-24-98).]

Hi, Ben!

You've got a really good point about how to set up an online comic. I hope the folks over on Don Simpson's big thread (some other discussion board here) will read this. I think if you have a series of pages to scroll through horizontally, it isn't as important to make the page fit the screen. Also, with the differences in browsers, it's tough to find a size that fits all windows.

The sites you gave as examples were both extremely excellent. I wish the Matt Feazell site had had more comics; but Matt also has lengthly discussions of his work, displaying comics on the internet, and lots of other stuff!! It's a great site!

I also dig the Bad Habit site, mainly because I think Colonia is one of the coolest comics to premiere this year! By the way, I'm afraid you misspelled the URL. It's http://home.pacbell.net/badhab.

I wonder how many pages can be stacked this way before the browser has a hernia? 24? 60? 96? Hmmm. [img]/resources/ubb/biggrin.gif[/img]

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Joe Zabel