Segmentation of Panels in d-Comics

Abstract

For over a hundred years, comics is presented on paper-based carriers such as magazines and books. With the development of new technologies, the comics industry has the opportunity to embrace a new carrier—the digital environment in electronic devices. However, due to the difference of the carrier, there exist differences between d-Comics (digital comics) and printed comics. One main difference is how the carrier creates segmentation of a sequence of comic panels: the segmentation created by paper is static and exclusive, while the segmentation created by screen-based electronic device may not be static nor exclusive because the same comics can be accessed through electronic devices with different screen sizes. This article describes an online experiment conducted to investigate how panel sequences are segmented in d-Comics. By analyzing the collected data from 80 participants with 4 panel sequences, two types of segmentation of panels in d-Comics were identified and discussed. This finding will further contribute to the design of d-Comics.