I received this new Internet tablet last Monday called the Nokia N800. This is a new type of device that is almost like an iPhone, but without the phone. It’s cooler than both an iPhone and an iPod Touch, and really built to be a Web surfing device with all the juice one can expect from a small 400 megahertz computer. All week, I’ve been raving, dreaming, playing with this new toy of mine and of course, I’ve tried to read a few Web comics with it.
Whether one uses Apple’s iPhone, Nokia’s N800, N810 or N770, a BlackBerry, a Palm Pilot or any phone or small device that’s enabled to surf on the Internet, viewing quality is one of the major concerns. Now, a developer has already created a program called Comix that help read online comic books. This program was designed specifically for Nokia’s N800 and N810 OS2008 operating system. But what if you don’t have a Nokia Internet tablet? How can you view you favourite comic books online on the go?
Well, at this point, I have to plead with online comic book creators to make their Web comics suitable for small screen viewing. For example turning or switching pages should be a breeze. Fonts and captions should be large enough for those of us who read on a small screen. Also, the layout of a panel and a page should be designed so that viewers don’t get only part of an image or a caption. At best they should be designed so that both appear at once.
iPhone
Most Web comic book creators probably don’t care yet about this, and that’s why I’m appealing to them. If you’re going to make a Web comic book, make sure all Web-enabled devices can have access to it.
Just remember these points
1-Make sure it’s easy to scroll through a page.
2-Make the text easy to read with enough contrasts.
3-Think of the layout of various elements like the captions and the images within a panel.
4-Make sure the plug in you use is available on all platform. As much as I love Flash (I’m a Flash animator), iPhones, unlike Nokia’s tablets still cannot see Flash movies, as of today.
5-Make sure the download is fast enough. Wi-Fi connections are not always great.
6-Organize your site so it’s easy to change page.
If you’re serious about your Web comic book, you’ll think about some of the newer audience who may be surfing with something else than a traditional computer and you’ll make your Web comic book easily accessible to us!
Your appeal makes complete sense. I strive to do the very things you call for in my own webcomic, Silly Daddy.
As for Jamie's comment/question about portrait or landscape, if you make your comics in a square format, then they won't matter which way the reader is holding their device. I try to use a square format quite often.
Someone asked me off line if it was better to make a smaller version for devices and a regular one for regular screens. The answer is no. Make one version available. Remember that the device uses the same surfing real estate of a regular screen, only the screen is smaller in size. That means that a regular page appears smaller, but keeps all info intact.
So making a smaller version will make it harder for people to read!
Hey there guys. I'm a big phone user, and do everything online that most PC users do (and a little more) from my phone every day, including reading web comics. One of the biggest problems with existing web comics is that fonts are presented too small in multiple panels and I have to reload the page to a much higher resolution and zoom in on the comic to read it properly (costing more data). Some like SMBC and Savage Chickens are designed as single panel comics and this works so well that I rarely have to reload at all, making them my most read web comics. An ideal solution would be to split multi panel comics into single panels and keep the strip format by placing them side by side on the page, but allowing mobile users to hit each panel seperately.
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