Techniques for vertical storytelling | Hacker News Reader

Techniques for vertical storytelling

webtoons.com

163 pointsapenwarr23 comments

First point they say: "story is easy to read on mobile devices" yet they immediately distract with an annoying "get our app!!!" floater at the bottom that ruins the experience, and disallow selecting text on mobile so I couldn't properly quote it here

I highly recommend Annarasumanara as an example webtoon that takes full advantage of the vertical format:

https://www.webtoons.com/en/drama/annarasumanara/ep-1/viewer...

As someone with a great interest in comic paneling, I can agree, but there's so few that seem to do so. Not only that, but the vertical format (particularly as it pertains to optimization for mobile devices) leads to a number of negative effects, not limited to extended scenes where not a lot happens -- and the size and space available conflicts with the actual storytelling.

Wow, thanks for that! I finished it in one sitting, and it was wonderful. Not only is it an excellent example of vertical storytelling, it also spoke to me in a way that nothing else has in awhile. I'm left feeling inspired and hopeful.

I've read that one before. It's a great read.

But for some reason, I find vertical scrolling to be tedious and annoying. My 13" rMBP is at default scaling, so I only have 800px in total height, and about 720px for the web page area. It's really irritating seeing so little and having to constantly scroll. Horizontal there's an extra 560px, or 77% more.

despite its name ("web"), webtoon is actually optimized for mobile--it's from LINE the messaging app.

Why does the top student have such a weird head?

Now you will have to read to find out. Checkmate :D

Its not much different from placing manga frame in vertical order rather than pagination. I dont think it qualifies for "vertical storytelling" - it's like saying a book in which you scroll instead of turning pages is a "vertical book" - it's a very artificial way to categorize things.

Cartoon and comics is the other thing I truly love. Its so satisfying to just space out and get immersed in it.

I've been primarily a consumer but I really wish I could create good art.

IMHO screen mode (horizontal) works better for panel to panel comics. Why wouldn't you take advantage of as much space as you could on mobile devices?

Horizontal mode sucks, when enabling auto screen rotation it often rotates when not wanted from minuscule movements, like when having it near horizontal or reading in bed. I don't understand why they don't use a schmidt trigger effect where you have to rotate the phone very much in a direction, or even shake it, before it rotates, and then keeps your desired rotation more robustly. Oh and the buttons to enable/disable auto rotation are already too much effort to bother, too many taps away plus none to switch hor/ver instead of auto/ver.

That's a problem with the device indeed. Vertical mode makes no sense for video and many images-based mediums, like panel to panel comics, should be better viewed in horizontal mode. A square screen phone would solve this, maybe?

It says fonts should be 24 pixels tall, but obviously readability then depends on screen resolution.

No, it depends on pixels per inch. This is covered in their article a few "scrolls" down.

Many of the comics from the oatmeal are in a vertical format.

Cool

perhaps we should improve the current state of landing pages with some of these techniques.

Anyone done experiments in responsive comic layouts? Reading a vertical comic on a desktop is a bit unsettling though it works better on an actual mobile device.

It sure is rich seeing a person who thinks hacking should be punished with death complain about webcomic layouts.

Not sure what that has to do with anything, I was posing a question.

Maybe it’s time to burn this account, doesn’t seem like it will be useful for constructive discussion anymore.

Please don't cross into incivility even if someone else has been breaking the rules.

Maybe it's time to burn your abominable attitude.

You've unfortunately posted lots of unsubstantive comments to HN, and here crossed into personal attack which is even worse, so we've banned this account. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future.

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