Zuda
DC’s new line of web comics, Zuda Comics, is drawing nearer to its complete launch.
As mentioned on their facts sheet, “Zuda Comics will be all-new, original comics made specifically for the web” and “…the majority of comics we publish will be selected by the Zuda community. We’ll put up a batch of the comics you submitted each month. Then you and all of the other users will vote, comment, and rate the comics. The one you guys like the best is the one we’ll sign up for a one-year contract.”
While their site is still unfinished, earlier this week, they posted details on The Deal, which includes stuff like aspect ratio and resolution and whatnot, and there’s already quite a bit of discussion on the message boards.
It looks like all the content will remain creator-owned, with DC Publisher Paul Levitz adding “DC will publish the winning/chosen comics under fairly conventional publishing agreements adapted to the peculiarities of the digital platform: initial payments for the work that is done, with royalties from revenues based on other uses, such as books, merchandise and movies/television shows. In the next couple of months the contracts will be going up on the site, and we’re doing our best to make them as clear as possible, so people can make an informed decision about submitting their work.”
So while most web comics have flown either under the radar or over the heads of those of us here at Doomkopf, DC’s involvement and enabling may help bridge the gap between comics on the web and on paper.
I don’t think I’ll ever get used to reading a comic on the internet. It just feels wrong. Plus, I like to get a sense of the page as a whole, and it’s hard to view a full comic page on a computer monitor and still be able to read it without being very, very close to the screen. And that makes my eyes hurt.
Of course, someone could always change the format of the comic “page” so it fits more nicely on a monitor. That might work for me.
That’s one of their requirements.
“Every artist needs to work on a page, even if it’s a digital one. Yeah, we weren’t sure just what that meant either so we did a lot of work to figure that out. Our page had to work on screen and, eventually, in print and it had to work for single panels, strips and pages. Dave is a big fan of The Math so we asked him to figure it out. He came up with this complex formula that resulted in an aspect ratio that worked for everything – 4:3. Turns out, it’s an industry standard.”
I think we should come up with a strip. It can’t be worse than PvP.
Sure it can. Look at Family Circus.
Hmm…
I think I’d still go with Family Circus.
You just like Family Circus because it’s round.