Thrillbent - Mark Wade
[This is the most exiciting publishing technology I've seen at TOC this year.]
Comics have been crafted to work in the printed page in a portrait format. It does not work in landscape mode. The art was designed for a certain canvas and doesn't work on the screen; it does not take advantage of the digital space.
Motion Comics tried solving this problem a few years back by adding a little motion and sound, but these aren't comics. What makes comics comics is that the reader is in control of the pace that you are reading [this theme came up earlier].
Thrillbent is trying to retain what makes comics special and take advantage of the medium. It puts you in control of the pace. It makes use of panels in a way that depends on the page turn rather than the reader reading from left to right. You can replace an existing panel or modify an image rather than move to an entirely new layout. Dialogue can be handled by changing the voice bubbles or adding background explanatory images. It takes advantage of what digital does.
On the site the panels all load dynamically rather than reloading the whole page. The layout is responsive, so it adapts to the browser size. The fonts are optimize and it works with landscape format.
Print costs have risen so how that they looked at going digital first with an eye towards maybe doing print later. So now they publish on a regular business and sell via comixology which recoups all of the production costs. Nobody gets rich but everybody gets paid. One revenue stream covers all their costs which free them to experiment in other streams. The online content is free.
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