Sunday, December 13, 2009

Mommy of All Hiccups - Scrolly Comic

For a little while now, John Kricfalusi (creator of Ren & Stimpy) has been posting rough cartoon storyboards on his blog. These, along with a few similarly formatted web comics I've seen, got me thinking: We ought to coin a term for web comics where you have to keep scrolling down and down and down. I'm suggesting "scrolly comics."

Scrolly comics have their advantages and disadvantages. You lose the beauty of artful panel arrangements. But there's something fun about just continuing to scroll down and down, as you reveal more and more of the story. They're also handy for posting on blogs, which are already set up for continually scrolling down.

As an experiment, I decided to take a 4-page, traditionally-formatted comic I drew recently and turn it into a scrolly comic. (You may have already read it HERE, in its original version, a few months ago.) Here it is in scrolly form:


Do you prefer the traditional version, or the scrolly version? It was easy to transform it, so it occurs to me that any old comic could be quickly turned into a scrolly comic, if anybody wanted to.

7 comments:

Peggy said...

The 'scrolly' format feels like a subset of what Scott McCloud has dubbed the Infinite Canvas. Demian5's When I Was King is a great example of this technique, though it mostly relies more on the horizontal scrollbars than the vertical.

CartoonSteve said...

I like it. The scroll grid on the side of the touchpad is what sold me on this laptop in the first place - so your scrolly format suits me just fine.

Fun cartoony stuff too!

Eddie Fitzgerald said...

A really nice strip! I also prefer the scroll version, but you need to make a full page layout to sell it in comic stores so you can make some money!

Luke Allen said...

Great comic. I prefer the traditional layout myself. However, the scrolly format is nice and quick to digest. Have you viewed the scrolly on an iphone? I'd imagine its perfectly suited for the dimensions.

Chris_Garrison said...

Peggy, you're right! I'm still not sure anyone's quite coined a term for this specific version, so I'm still rallying for "scrolly comics." Maybe somebody else will think of a better one.

Steve, thanks!

Eddie, thanks! Follow that link to see the full page version. And to learn where it can already be found in a printed comic. (but not making money)

Luke, thanks! By the way, House of Twelve -- the group whose printed comic The Mommy of All Hiccups appears in -- is coming out with some iPhone comics soon. Maybe they'll eventually put Ptooey & Loogie in there.

Anonymous said...

Hey, your style is awesome! Do you take requests by any chance?

Tobby

Chris_Garrison said...

Anon - I'm too busy for requests right now, as I'm trying to work on animating a music video (see blog link to Riverside). Unless you want to pay me well for a commission; I might take a break for that.