Dusty’s Birthday-Print Comic-Created with printer paper, felt tip pen, and colored pencils Designed by Kristine Zorn, August 2019

Depending on the tools you have creating print and digital comics can be very similar. I use a drawing tablet and pen which makes my digital comic process closer to my print comic process with paper and pencil. Virtual rulers and grids help to simulate the way rulers can be used in print to makes frames and lines. However, there are a bunch of differences. One of the most noticeable differences to me is the way color and texture appear on paper versus digitally. The type of paper and tools used, like pencil, pen, watercolor, or markers, all change the texture of the drawings. There are ways to simulate texture digitally, but it isn’t always easy or accurate. In most digital art I’ve done, there isn’t much texture to the color at all.

Undead Love-Digital Comic-Created in Photoshop using a drawing tablet-Designed by Kristine Zorn, August 2019

I don’t like print or digital more than the other. There tends to be a learning curve when it comes to drawing digitally. It feels a lot different than paper because of the smooth texture of the screen and smoothness of the pen nib. There is also a bit of parallax that occurs when drawing digitally which doesn’t happen when drawing on paper. I prefer to sketch on paper because of that it feels more natural to me. When it comes to color, I like digital tools. I find it easier to get an even tone of color in larger areas. The ability to undo also can help with coloring mistakes which can sometimes be irreversible in print. For most projects, I sketch on paper and then finalize lines and color digitally.

It can nice to read on paper and physically feel the page and you turn it. Print can be taken anywhere and don’t require a connection to the internet like most webcomics would. But there is one distinct thing that I love about reading webcomics, the ability to write comments and see thousands of others’ comments as I read is a unique, shared experience. One difference I often see in webcomics is that they are read by scrolling vertically. Print comic books allow for cliffhangers at the end of the page before you flip and for surprises on the next page. Cliffhangers and surprises have to be set up differently in vertical webcomics. I have also experienced problem reading webcomics when a panel in the middle of a chapter doesn’t load and interrupts the story, which is never a problem in print unless a page has been ripped out.

I had already finished my comics before reading chapter 1 but even after reading it I don’t think it would have changed my approach much.