My name is Topi Koivisto, graphic designer, comic artist and illustrator.I’m also co-founder of Tunnel Ground inc. and one of the creators of the Tunnel Ground comic. Currently, I’m working on the next installment of the Tunnel Ground series. I also do graphic design and illustrations part time for some select companies at the moment.
Actually it was my dad, Tarmo Koivisto. I was inspired watching him making pictures with wacomtablet and cintiq. After getting apprenticeship contract I was able to work with professionals in work-life and start making digital comics. I have to say that after my first digital sketch, I was addicted to creating digital art.
I don’t read that many web comics, so my opinion might be slightly biased towards digital comics. It seems that the line between digital and web comics is becoming a bit of grey area. But like I said, I don’t read that many comics on the web. 🙂
It’s handy to have all books in one place and they don’t take up much room, as with traditional comics, which start to take up a lot of space if you have lots of them. Also, there’s the universal functions most devices have, where you can share information about the comics with your friends, have page bookmarks etc… Also, “printing” in color is somewhat more cheap with digital comics than traditional.
5. Can digital comics replace print comics?
Printed comic books are masterpieces of art for every fan and collector. You can touch and smell it, feel the paper. Even bite it if you like 🙂 Digital comics are constantly living and future will show how popular they are. I think both are important and they’ll don’t exclude each other.
Well, you can inform the readers of the cross platform comics, and have different material as a bonus on the digital comic side, for example.
I still miss the old school feeling when reading digital comics. You can’t touch the paper. As a finnish person, I can say that you can read old comic books even in the sauna! (Of course digital comic too but there can be a risk to break your device 🙂
I thoroughly enjoyed Gone with the Blastwave web comic, one of the few web comics that I read. Funnily enough I haven’t read that many digital comics, since I have migrated over from the traditional side quite recently.
I think there will be even more interactive comics that you can customize. Editing can change some of them more movie like and reader can decide alternative endings or scenes to story etc. There should be many ways to decide your own preferences when reading your comic. For example some people like sound effects or music, some don’t. Touchscreen works well and there will be lots of new ideas in the future on how it’ll affect digital comics.
The big players are always interesting to keep an eye on, Disney, Marvel, DC and the likes. Smaller
companies are more likely to invent, large companies are likely to set standards. So keeping an eye on both
is always smart.
