Summary

2.3.3. Content Development of Digital Comics
The development of comics on the web gave birth to a new type of scrolling-style comics
that would have been difficult on the paper form. This new format usually does not have black lines
to frame each panel, and each frame is enlarged to make the drawings big and clear. These comics
are similar to the Japanese 4-frame style comics and can be printed into comic books with
appropriate re-formatting like Wan Wan.
Besides showing just graphics on tablets, publishers like Marvel had also experimented with
adding background sounds to the panels in their comics like “Project Gamma”, due to be released
soon. 5 Tokyopop, a US manga book publisher, even did a demonstration at the artist’s art university
to showcase their animated comic frames in 2007, blurring the definition between animation and
comics. Unfortunately, whether or not most readers wanted sound and animation remained uncertain.
In 2011, Tokyopop had to stop all projects and shut down the company due to slowing global sales
of manga and Borders bankruptcy. 6
Meanwhile, story picture books had developed their own apps to make use of the new
media’s multimedia functions. They included animations, sounds and interactivity with user clicks.
Content publishers were thrilled by app development because they could charge users for
downloading their content, something that they had difficulty when providing content on the World
Wide Web. However, how long users will be willing to pay is hard to tell as the prices of apps race
to the bottom due to an increasing number of competitors and abundance of free apps to entice users
to download and try them.
5 Rosenblatt, Seth. "Project Gamma brings intelligent audio to digital comics." CNET News. N.p.,
10 Mar. 2013. Web. 3 Apr. 2013.
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6 Reid, Calvin. "Tough Times at Tokyopop." Publishers Weekly. N.p., 7 Mar. 2011. Web. 3 Apr.
2013.
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