April 7, 2008

And now for... Interactive scrolling! (Hold your mouse pointer over the arrows.)

Horizontal-scrolling is the standard for 3-panel internet comics. And yet, this is completely BACKWARDS when you think about the interface itself. They're INTERNET comics, so they load in an INTERNET browser. And how, pray tell, do images load in internet browsers? They load row by row, starting with the top row and eventually ending at the bottom. People on slower internet connections can view this effect in action, when they see the top edge of the image load first, then the next bit beneath it, and so on, all the way down, much like a stripper revealing her hot naked body as the last of her garments slide down to gravity's sexy pull. And what do these slow-connection users do while they wait for the rest of their 3-panel comic image to load? Well, they read the text at the top of each of the three panels, don't they? But they don't see the pictures until afterwards, when the punchline is partially "spoiled". And also they don't see the text at the bottom of any panels, if any might happen to be there.

And so it is, ladies and gentlemen, that the format of the horizontally progressing three panel internet comic is a case of a square peg in a round hole. The layout of the comic is not suited to its delivery medium, much like a sexy stripper-cum-poledancer hired for the annual meeting of Visually Impaired Persons. But I cannot change the internet. I can only change my one comic. And that is why you get to enjoy ultra-big comics with VERTICALLY stacked panels, so that you can actually start reading the comic before it has finished loading, and not have your experience lessened by the layout conflicting with the medium. But you know what WOULD rule? Braille strippers. For visually impaired people. I mean, they have tactile text, why not have tactile peepshows? So they could feel the stripper instead of seeing her/him. That'd be cool. And they could tap the strippers with their canes, too. And instead of seeing-eye dogs, they could have leering-eye dogs to gaze lecherously at the strippers and drool with tongues dangling from slack jaws.

There is so much that we can do for our visually impaired perverts if only someone would tap-tap-tap into that niche market.

You can view more random rants like this in the NSFW Forums, you know. Why, just the other day we were discussing such lofty philosophical gems from "TANGOTI (There are no girls on the internet)" to "People who use NSFW comics as a substitute for the Kama Sutra", to "Post the dumbest thing you've ever done" (currently the longest thread in that particular section of the forum, surprise surprise). Great fun.