Invisible Forces

[avram]

Wow. I’ve just seen an amazing new presentation concept for web comics — Invisible Forces. Just one chapter so far, barely the beginning of a story, but it’s pretty impressive. It seems to run off of JavaScript, which means I don’t know if it’ll work in every browser, but it’s fine in Safari.

It’s by Tom Stackpole, who also does The Bone Dancer.

Comments

[stormsweeper.livejournal.com]

It works in Mozilla, but is sloooow to the point of seeming unresponsive. He's using the Dreamweaver preload images script to load all the iamges for each "page" of the comic, and thus download times are a hog.

Funnily enough, he could have done the same thing in Flash easier, and with better UI performance.

[avram]

Well, yes. Better you get that lag at the beginning of the page than before each image. It’s generally recommended that you preload images when doing a rollover (and he’s basically doing a variation on a rollover).

I didn’t find it a problem; each page downloaded within a few seconds. I’ve got a DSL connection, though. Are you using dialup?

Could he have done it in Flash without shelling out $500 for a Flash developer kit? (OK, I suppose maybe by pirating one.)

Re:

[holyoutlaw.livejournal.com]

Safari is noticeably faster than just about any other browser. Jane's been testing her Wiscon web pages, and gets reports from someone using Safari.

This doesn't eliminate your questions, of course.