To be brutally honest with you, I've been in an almost 365 day 'quandary' session, and it's been driving me insane. It has been almost a year since I finished the first Brabbles & Boggitt tale and nearly a year since I was supposed to start the new one; in fact it's been almost that long that I've been promising you, me and a few Amazon that I will be putting it together and publishing the thing; yet still I have not.
Why? I hear you ask (I have very good hearing). Simple. The first tale was written in a standard comic book format where as the second is being produced in a Sunday strip format, and I quite like it.
So I can either, re draw the first tale, then publish, restart the second tale to fit with the first or hang it all and have the first book forever at size odds with what comes after.
So in my usual manner---and after a year of mental wall blocks---I'm going to throw it to you to decide what you prefer the best, and to help you I have republished three sample pages from the first tale and below it the first three pages of the new story with its Sunday strip format.
Please leave a comment or email me if you prefer, either way PLEAEEEEEEEEAAAAAAASSSSEEEEE help me out of this fix so I can move on with my life...
First 3 random pages from Brabbles & Boggitt, book 1...
Page44
...and now for the second book and the Sunday page format.
Page 1
Page 2
Page 3
Like I say, your input is most welcome so please do give it...
Thank you.
Karl,
ReplyDeleteyour writing is really snappy. It's got great pace and rhythm! Funny too of course.
You also manage to gut everything in without it looking cramped, which is something I have to work on.
So, forgive my naïveté, when you say Sunday format, that's basically Landscape, right? And the alternative is the Portrait/Comic form?
You seem to work well in either. I love Calvin and Hobbes in the Landscape format books. For my own work, I chose Landscape partly because of C&H and partly because it works well onscreen. But in some ways, it's a curse. It feels very restrictive when I'm working out the flow of my panels. And types of panel shape combinations.
If you want to continue showing the strips online, I suppose the Sunday format is good but if you ultimately want readers to get most of their enjoyment from high quality printed versions, your vision for that and what print-readers want should probably take precedence.
So it's a bit tricky to read portrait format online? Then buy the book :)
John
Hi there. You are right. It is a very difficult format to produce, yet so very rewarding when it comes right. I am a huge Calvin and Hobbes fan---as is any right thinking and self respecting cartoonist---that guy is so good he can teach seasoned professionals a thing or two, her certainly taught me the odd trick.
DeleteBut try as I do, the whole thing just looks too small on the screen and there for too small to read; also your valid point about publishing also rings true. Virtually all comics on the net now are portrait and I believe its the way to go.
Thank you so much for your valuable input; it really is appreciated
Karl