Thursday, November 23, 2017

Few thoughts about new comic formats

It has been over a year that I am thinking about writing a long article about different comic formats, what I think about them and a general comparison of pros and contras that you can objectively see.
On one hand the time to do it throughly is missing and on another hand I probably need more readings of newer and current titles, and I am not the avid reader I used to be.
That said, my analysis might be missing something and I don`t like to write articles halfhearted unless it is something I really have an urge to yell out loud and now. And I have to communicate and share something about this topic right now.
My attention was caught on some social media, as the shared link was shared again and again till it reached my dashboard and I read it.
It is an article in Italian, originally published by the english version of a korean publisher, with the information that the article is Italian and talks about the said title.
What title? What publisher?
The article can be found here on wired.it and it is an interview done at Lucca Comics&Games 2017, few days ago.
The interviewed are Kooji, author of Killing Stalking (the title I was talking about), and an editor of Lezhin Comics (the webcomic publisher of the said title).
What really took my attention was that everyone was so fired up that “Italy is the first country ever to publish this title on paper in a book version”. So the author as well as the publishing company were skeptical about the results but once they saw the draft adaption of the book they accepted.
I do prefer paper over digital, still. But I have to tell I DO read webcomics on my mobile phone while going to work or coming back from work, the mobile phone fits in my hand and I have it with me anyway, no need to bring a book with me making my bag extra heavy. With the risk, I won’t even open the book and carry extra weight for nothing. So I see so many positive things on reading on mobile phone! Comic books keep piling up at home and I don’t get a chance to read them. I DO buy them, but I DO NOT read them.
What is it wrong with that!?
Answer is simple: I don`t carry them around and at home I have so much housework that needs to be done before I can gain those 15 minutes for myself to read something. Or I need to lighten up the book correctly if I want to read books in bed before sleeping. The mobile phone lighten ups itself and I don`t need anything else than just it for my readings.
Now, do comics on paper work as comics on mobile devices?
Of course you can find .pdf or scans version of paper comics and read them on your mobile device (there are both legal and illegal options for that) and a lot of artists publish their online comics following the set of mind and organize the work as you would when you work on a paper page-after-page version of your comic. This still works as everyone still knows how to read a comic book and it still is easy to adjust to this hybrid version. But. Webcomics, also called webtoons, have the component of dynamic as you let the images scroll down and you don`t turn any page. So the mindset that the author uses (or should use) is slightly different than working on a comic book.
Translating a webtoon into a comic book seems a legit action today, but will soon be pretty blasphemous in my opinion. Why? Well, would you ever try to “translate” a statue into a paint?
You can surely make a paint or a picture of that said statue, but you can`t translate it into a picture.
Today it propably still doesn`t feel like this new comic format is so different from the classic comics format. But I feel it already, it has its own grammar and words and we all gotta learn them to communicate using this form of media.
No worries: it was the same when comic grew from strips into comic books. Wasn`t it?
P.S.: Just to let you know: I did buy the comic version of the korean webtoon “NOBLESSE” in Japanese, when I was in Japan. I am a collector and I needed to have something I can hold onto. And I also have to say you can notice the change of grammar and words in this serie as it goes on. At the beginning the translation into comic book works great, the webtoon itself is still in the comic book mindset. But look up the newer chapters: would you be able to do a good job translating them into books? I probably have to make a trip to Japan again and check the new released books. LOL
That`s all, folks.