Famitsu Issue 1351 (November 6, 2014)

Notes on this issue:

There are certain concessions that must be made sometimes when dealing with digital mags when they can't be as easily manipulated by the reader as a physical mag can.  Keeping a scan EXACTLY like the physical mag can sometimes render the digital version nearly unreadable.  For example, a flip book, where half of the mag is printed upside starting from the back cover.  The physical mag simply needs to be flipped over and rotated 180 degrees, and suddenly what used to be the last page is now the first page.  But if you make the CBR match the physical mag exactly (as I once saw someone do), it means that you'll read half of the mag normally, but from the halfway point on, the pages will appear in the reverse order as well as being upside down.  This would be IMPOSSIBLE to read, so when making a digital version of a flipbook, you have no choice but to have all the pages in the same orientation and either put both halves one after the other, or else release a separate CBR for each half.

I deal with this kind of manipulation ALL THE TIME with Japanese mags, whenever there's a manga section printed Japanese-style (with text printed vertically, meaning it's read from R-L.)  In the physical mag, when you get to the first page of the manga section, there will be a note reminding you that it's actually the LAST page of the manga, and it will tell you to "flip to page ___" for the start of the manga.  You then read backwards, R-L, and when you're finished with the manga, you flip forward again to the page following the manga section.  But digital mags can't be manipulated so easily, so I reorder the pages, putting them in order - first page first, last page last (though I still warn people that when reading in 2-page view, they have to change to manga mode for facing pages to match correctly.  This isn't just some random concession I decided upon - this is the exact same thing Japanese publishers have to do when they release official digital versions of their mags.

All of this is leading to THIS mag, which required a bit of a concession in favor of readability, which I will explain:

There is a 4-page-wide foldout that acts as part of the Assassin's Creed article.  On one side of the foldout are 4 article pages, and on the other side is a single 4-page-wide poster.  Since a CBR/PDF can't simulate a foldout, if I were to put the pages in the order they are printed in the mag, all facing pages from that point on would be incorrect.  In order to keep facing pages oriented correctly, I had two choices: I could either insert 2 different blank pages before and after the foldout, which would keep the facing pages correct at the expense of throwing off the page numbers, or I could simply move the last page of the article in front of the foldout, which keeps facing pages and page numbers correct, except for the single page moved.  I opted for the latter.  The article pages are pretty modular, so the pages don't need to be read in a specific order to make sense.  So what you will see if you're looking at the printed page numbers is:

• 106 (the first page of the article) (also pg106 of the scan)
• 115 (the last page of the article which has been moved forward) (pg107 of the scan)
• 4 unnumbered article pages from one side of the foldout (pgs 108-111)
• 4 unnumbered poster pages from the other side of the foldout (pgs 112-115)
• 116 (a new article begins) (pg 116 - from here on, the page numbers are once again aligned with pages of the scan.)

If this is confusing you, don't worry about it.  Just trust me that this is the best option for a digital release of this format.  Whether reading in single page or double page mode, you'll be good to go.

I have also included a perfect join of the 4-page poster image at the end of the CBR, so as not to disrupt page numbering.

Also at the end of the CBR is a two sided...something...for Onee Chambara Z2.  It's just an A4 sized...mini poster?  Or something?  Printed on thick cardboard?  Dunno.  I can't imagine a use for it.  The table of contents calls it an "illustration card."