Posted in: Comics | Tagged: dc comics, Digital First

DC Digital First Comics Are Really Digital Seconds

Published Thu, 01 Apr 2021 10:20:12 -0500

DC Comics has a line it calls Digital First. Comic books created to be published digitally first usually a 10 page story, then collected with another chapter for a print comic later down the line.

Except, rather than the comics being digital-first, they are more like digital seconds. They are not drawn for the digital reading process, but for the print comics audience instead.

DC's digital-first comics are told in landscape format, basically the shape of a computer screen or a tablet or phone on its side. Which approximates to the top half of a printed comic book page. The printed version of a digital-first comic takes two of the pages and puts them one on top of the other.

But if the artist draws for a printed landscape page, rather than a digital-first layout, the editor just chops the page in half, whether it makes sense to do so or not.

Sensational Wonder Woman and Truth & Justice appear to be the most egregious offenders, but it's popped up in most titles including The Next Batman: Second Son.

Here are a few collated by friend-of-Bleeding-Cool Martin Gray. And will start with my favorite, the final cliffhanger two pages of The Next Batman: Second Son #1.

Grifter has arrived, with a message for Jace Fox from his father Lucius Fox. So what will the final page show us?

Purple shoes! What a climax! Or the moment in Sensational Wonder Woman when she makes her dramatic entrance.

What will the reaction from the people be?

It's all about the boots! The red boots! And picking up Truth & Justice, the digital-first comic with a more radical agenda?

It's all about the leggings! The yellow leggings!

This isn't "Guided View" or anything. These are separate pages of a digital-first comic book. Proving that it is anything but. And there are plenty, plenty more examples.

Might this be something DC Comics editorial might like to try and keep an eye on? And remind creators when they are creating for digital-first comics of the sizes of the pages?

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