I was really interested in a more simplistic vertical webcomic layout, similar to Eroyn Franklin’s. They were very straightforward, simple, and easy to read. This type of layout also kept the focus on the webcomic. I also really liked Scott McCloud’s interactive zoom-in webcomics, but found it was very hard to make something similar unless one has extensive knowledge of coding. 

I created my website to scroll vertically, and only displaying one image by itself. Essentially my webcomic is one column with only one image per row. Since the webcomic is comprised of only eight different images that are displayed one by one, it should be relatively easy for the viewer to follow. 

Since I used Wix, a website builder, to create my webcomic, I didn’t really have to worry much about the mobile view for my webcomic. Wix was able to automatically make my webcomic compatible with mobile devices. On the mobile version, the vertical layout is exactly the same as the desktop/laptop version, however, there is less of the background being shown. The way to scroll through is still vertically.

I think Scott McCloud would say that my webcomic does a good job of telling a story, with scenes that do have a bit of closure.

One panel from my webcomic, titled “Long Distance”

I used Adobe Illustrator to create my webcomic. The iconography that I wanted to use was more suited for this program. For example, I had used a lot of simple shapes that I easily created using the star tool, eclipse tool, rectangle tool, etc. I also chose Illustrator because I felt like this program allowed me to play around with colors and gradients more easily. This was an important factor in my webcomic. 

I had originally planned on creating my own website to host my webcomic using HTML/CSS. However, due to time constraints I decided to use Wix instead. Although I could have had a lot more freedom with my webcomic layout if I coded it myself, Wix provided a lot more convenience and took less time to use. The process of coding a website is very tedious and time consuming. With many deadlines and homework assignments coming up, using a website builder like Wix made a lot more sense to use. Sometime in the future, I do hope to learn some HTML/CSS and experiment with making my own website. 

To get my work from Illustrator to my Wix website, I saved the work that I did on Illustrator as JPEGS. On Wix, I had inserted sections onto the webpage that had placeholders for images on them. I uploaded the JPEG images from Illustrator into these placeholders.

Throughout this project, the main new thing that I learned is the amount of adjusting to your comic that you may have to do in order to get it accommodated by a web platform. It is definitely a lot simpler than it sounds!

Here is the link to my Webcomic!