PUBLISHING NOV. 2007

PRINTING and BEYOND

Fri, 10 Aug 2007 19:37:40 -0500

Modern comic shop and news stand comics are basically printed the way they always have been. Preparation is different, and the machines to print might be newer, but the basic printing process is the same. Soon will have a finished product in your hands to sell, read, and promote.

There are plenty of places that will print a comic book for you. Kinkos, for example, will print almost anything if you have the cash. But to be cost effective you need to go to a specialized establishment for experience and bulk product. In North America there are three noted comic book printers....

Quebecor - They are the big one that handles the major circulation comics.

Brenner - Texas based comic book printer said to be the second biggest comic printer in North America.

Morgan Printing - This is noted as a cheap printer. It is located near my home, so I have visited them and talked about comics. They print a lot of independent black and white comics, including graphic novels and compilation books.

They are happy to quote you a price. Print runs usually have to be over 1000. 1000 is also rough cut off for Diamond Distributors. If you can not sell 1000 for long they will drop you from their catalog.

There are two decent books on self publishing comic books on Amazon.com. One by Josh Baylock and another by Tony Caputo. The Caputo book was written 15 years ago, but still works. The Baylock book is new, but has less information.

COLOR

Fri, 10 Aug 2007 19:35:56 -0500

As of writing this I have barely colored a on my comic. Only my outer covers will be colored. I am not a colorist for the reason that I have not done much color. All I will say is :

Dual Processor Computer
Photoshop
Wacom Tablet
Color Wheel
Reference
CREATIVE ILLUSTRATION by Andrew Loomis
DC GUIDE TO COLORING AND LETTERING

and

Good Luck.

You can find way better tutorials out there on the net, on Deviant Art, and elsewhere. Hopefully I find my way soon.....

COMPUTERS

Fri, 10 Aug 2007 19:33:21 -0500

If you want to show off the work, and get it print ready yourself, you need ...

A Computer
A Scanner
Manipulation software
Internet

What I want is a tool box that allows me to clean, replicate, and prepare art for output and display.

Getting your comic book print ready on your own will save you a lot of cash. If you get a print shop person to do the same thing on the same computer at their shop you will pay dearly. If you are publishing black and white you need to scan (or import), clean up, resize, then compile in a file format you can send to the printer according to their demand.

I love the Macintosh, but PCs will do the same thing. It is always best to have a FAST computer. Computers are now getting fast enough that they are comfortable handling press work. Because the DPI of these pages will be 600-1200 dpi you need memory speed.

Scanners cary in price. A comic book type scanner has to be oversize unless you want to fool around by doing multiple scans and pasting pieces together. XL scanners can be over $2000, but the Mustek A3 USB scanner is about $150. It works with PC, and Mac if you dig around for drivers and code manipulation on the internet.

Another way I thought of recently was an old school approach. You will need to rig a set up, but it might be very inexpensive - DIGITAL CAMERAS. These days you can get such high megapixel cameras that link into the computer directly. In old days printers would photograph the art on a platen and use those to make printing plates. It is the exact same thing, but with a digital camera. You need 2-6 high powered lamps that blast onto the art to negate any shadows and not send light directly into the camera lens. And you need a camera stand that keeps the camera directly parallel to the art on a wall or table. Using a tripod, pinning the art to a wall, and several cheap clamp lamps with high powered bulbs might cost as little as $100 aside from the camera.

Once the art is in the computer, I recommend Photoshop to clean it up and prepare for compilation. It also will reduce the file size for internet display and color the artwork. Adobe Illustrator is brilliant for complex text work or vector art. Adobe Acrobat will compile the pages into a PDF booklet for the printer.

An old style Epson XL scanner.

You will need to get the art into the computer. Attempt to do it with minimal hassle... that means spending money.

INKING

Fri, 10 Aug 2007 19:31:48 -0500

The art of inking is sadly waning in America. Young artists devalue it as tracing, and even many older artists are enthralled by the ease of inking with lifeless Pentel markers. It amazes me that the artistic eye of America (or the west) ca not see the wonderful ability of proper ink. Most of that comes from laziness, and a most of that is fueled by a lack of education and information. Before printing and photography had advanced enough convey pleasing images of information to readers, artists would ink up crisp images. After the early 1900s ink illustration became passe, and inking waned as the craftsman died off. Their art almost forgotten! But take the time and find it. Go see the inks at the Brandywine River Museum, Delaware Art Museum, or wherever you can find it in books (though the actual pieces in museums will knock your socks off). Rediscover Charles Dana Gibson, Franklin Booth, Howard Pyle, Rose ONeill, and other old ink illustrators, because what they did was the pinnacle of ink art, that watered down due to speed and price for into comic book inking. Their work will show the possibility of ink you will not understand until you experience, and a level you will never get with Pentel fine point markers.

Finding the tools they used is becoming tedious and expensive! In the old days they would crank out nibs by the millions and sell them for pennies. Everyone wrote with metal nibs and ink. With the ball point pens around WWII, the old messy nibs went out the door, and so did the physical coordination to use them. BUT, they have not vanished, and some are still manufactured at an expense. I feel the all the prime nib shapes and strengths are sill manufactured and distributed in North America and Japan. Nibs are generally $1 these days, but slightly cheaper if purchased in bulk. Keep in mind that some nibs are broken before you ever use them, so expect to have a bad nib for every 10 you use. Nibs also wear down very quickly. I used about 3 to 6 new nibs every 24 pages, and I utilize about 6 to 8 different nibs on a comic book, PLUS a sable brush, and Kohinoor technical pens for detail and touch up. HUNT nibs are made by SPEEDBALL now, and distributed through DickBlick and other major art stores. The two-nibs-and-a-holder packages are very expensive but a good starter. If you purchase a set, beware that you will need a LOT MORE NIBS very quickly. I recommend going to EBAY, and ordering a BOX of old nibs up for auction. Keen artists will bid them up and snatch them away, but you can find a box of old time Esterbrook, Gilotte, or even Hunt nibs, with 100 for $10. Make sure they are not rounded point. And then you have a cheap solution - nibs to burn as you try and try and try again. If one is bad, or breaks, or wears down, it cost you a few cents instead of a dollar. Once you have learned to control and utilize that one box of specific nibs you can be far more frugal with approach to expensive, newer nibs, and then discover how different nibs can influence your coordination to create wonderful textures. For example, my Tachikawa #3 School nib gives silky, flexible, clean lines for larger characters, while my Hunt #101 is loose and rough providing crackly bark and wood textures, and my Esterbrook #355 makes wonderfully flexible and minute lines for background objects with heavy light and shade. BRUSHES on the other hand are widely manufactured, but almost glossed over as an inking tool. An inking brush should be small, round, pointed, and retain the shape and point despite being pushed. KOLINSKY SABLE ROUND #2 is preferable, but a #3 or #4 is not that bad either with larger numbers meaning larger brushes that hold more ink. A Winsor Newton Series 7 brush might cost you $20, but if you try out off brand brushes at the store you might find adequate brushes for as little as $7! And a brush should last a good time with good care. Twirl them in your mouth, or palm, and try inking with them (sans ink) on your hand to see if the point stays firm and pointed, or if it splays. If it splays, put it back and try another.

In an age of instant gratification and idiot proof writing and reproduction implements, anyone without clear goals of artistic competence will denounce the inking implements as crap, useless or unnecessary, but it reflects an inability of an artist to grow and attain skills. When you begin a trek to make art you take a journey to attain skills, and the scope of skill for art is as varied as the reality it reflects and recreates. You will always need to gain further understanding of something if you are serious about art, so get serious about ink if you want to do traditional style comics, and move up into nibs. Ink smears, it dries relatively slowly (compared to markers and ball point) and it is finicky, but it is not unmanageable. Inking IS the final, it IS the art. People who look at a final comic art are seeing the ink and can not see the pencils. So improve your inking and you improve your art, because it is the inking people will see. If kids in the 1800s could master these implements in one room school houses, any modern person can do the same, and the key is knowledge and practice.

Find the right Paper
Find the right Ink

For comics, I found Michaels has a very nice 2 ply Strathmore cold finish bristol in large sheets which can be cut down to two comic pages. It is so well made compared to others I tried that it has not even deteriorated with water damage (aside from water splotch and warping). The hot press (smooth finish) 2 ply is excellent as well. 2 ply is my favorite because 3 ply is board which can not be light-boxed through, also a pain to transport because it does not roll up. 3 Ply is also more expensive and bulky, and when you do 250+ comic pages, you begin to realize you will have a lot of finished art on your hands. A large sheet of 2-ply affords a comic page for $1 in 2007 and takes very little space in storage.

Inks are tricky. Many change their formulas on a whim, many are weak, and will erase to grey. I tried so many inks; Winsor Newton, Higgins, Dick Blick, FW, Pelikan, Sennelier, Japanese inks, etc. The only real inking ink manufactured is the Winsor Newton Black India ink (with the goofy gothy spider on the bottle). It dries fast enough, is super tenacious, deep black. It costs $4 a smallish bottle at Michaels, and can be purchased in bulk from Britain (I used Green and Stone) where it is made. You will be surprised how much ink you use. I have a set up with a prime bottle for dipping, set in a $2 heavy crystal votive holder from Michaels to steady and handle over flow from dipping and dripping, and use other bottles to fill it to the top when the level dips a bit. This set up allows for thoughtless dipping, and less searching down in the bottle. Make inking clean and easy.

Nib practice sheet.

Noted are all nib types using a lightboxed drawing utilizing the lightest and thickest possible lines a nib can produce as well as freestyle texture in the hair.

Using nibs and brushes will confuse you until; here is what you need to know...

Nibs and Brushes are NOT ballpoint pens and markers.
You DRAG them toward you.
DO NOT GO SIDEWAYS (unless you like the effect)
Rotate the paper! All the time.
Lift the wrist as much as possible and use the arm and shoulder.
Do not let the ink dry in your nib or brush! Keep working!
Clean the implements thoroughly and dry well.

When you dip, shake the nib lightly over a spare piece of scrap bristol taped to the table edge between bottle and artwork. Get the spare out which might suddenly bleed out onto the page. Perhaps scratch a few lines on that scrap bristol to make sure the pen is primed and will not blotch on the final page. Then move over to the art and start going. And do that again and again as you work. Any damaged or slightly used bristol is perfect scrap for this method. After a few weeks of test inkings you will probably become acquainted with the implements, soon mastering them.

If you find the ink is heavy on the page and dries slowly, try using a hand held hair drier if impatient. I work on two pages at once; while parts of ink dry on one I work the other. It only takes 3 or 4 minutes for prudent ink application to dry, but it might take 30 minutes for large, thick puddles of ink to dry. Generally, brush ink lies down nicely thin and flat and dries almost immediately.

A Pill Box.

Useful for keeping current nibs when not in a holder.

CLEANING your implements is almost as important as using them. You only need WATER, SOAP, and a SOFT RAG (I use cotton t-shirts). Nibs are straight forward - dip in water repeatedly to loosen ink, and then stroke the pen to clean off all water and ink in a direction that will not snag and hurt the nib. If you do not dry your nibs, they rust. Technical pens can be disassembled and cleaned with water, or you can submerge in pen cleaning fluid to dissolve tough ink, then rinse and dry on a saucer. Brushes are a bit of a beast. Simple enough to dip in water repeatedly, or wash under a faucet, but inevitably the ink will creep up the bristles and cram into the metal ferrule, and this is where the fun begins - THE BRUSH SPLAYS. A lot of people throw tantrums at this point, tossing the brush in the trash, but I found you can easily work the ink out with repetitive gentle actions and some simple, smooth hand soap or brush soap.

Place a dab of soap in the palm of your hand
Gently smash and swirl the brush into the soap
Rinse
Repeat

Or you can twirl the brush, smashing it gently, into the bar of dial or container of brush soap. Keep going, keep rinsing, and be gentle. Coax the ink out by pulling and turning the brush into shape through two tight fingers. You will find a lot of ink has eased out, and after a thorough rinse the brush is back almost as good as new, if not better. Water near your work is risky! Make sure it is always anchored or sealed, and can not dump on things or get in your way. This goes for all beverages as well - place them in large metal containers or on the floor. I have known several people who place soda and coffee directly on the table with the art!! This past year I found a wonderful, heavy brush holder/water container for painting that works perfectly for inking. Check the photos on top of this page. It was expensive, but is worth every dollar.

Application of ink can be learned in studying artists you wish to emulate, but the use of ink is mesmerizing and complex, and personally intricate to a highly experienced artist. I will break down just a few ideas. Remember that there are many approaches to ink. Many Japanese artist will use thin, unfluctuating lines to create light, airy art, but they cast adrift the appeal of contrast in line weight. Art students and beginners will have a heavy handed approach not realizing the work will reduce to 66% for printing. American and western inking styles tend to me more varied in line weight. The American comic book sensibility is, simply....

Darker lines away from light
Spot black to give graphic appeal and create light and shadow
Feather and Cross hatch to create grays and textures
Thicker lines on objects closer to the viewer
Thick into thin into thick - each thick line hits a thin line around the outline, and the contrast of the thick and thin creates an aesthetically pleasing effect.

Use different implements for different types of objects (skin, clothes, metal, wood, plastic, hair, linoleum, rubber, etc etc.). From there, it is up to you to make your own style of art that conveys images of story for the reader.

I also used tones because I wanted to aim a bit for Oda, being a fan of Japanese comics and animation a long time. When I looked at Oda I realized he uses a lot of pen work to give him unique style where others would opt out for simple tone sheets. Oda would cheese out tones to blanket characters when he needed a page to have a balance of dark and light. Very simple. Some Japanese artists will use tones in so many and varied ways that it becomes an art form of its own, but I always thought over toned comics look anemic. They are used nicely to pull objects into the foreground and separate foregrounds from backgrounds, or give uniform grey to simulate B&W color. So that was my plan of usage. TONE sheets are not made in America anymore and are just made in Japan. A sheet is $3.50 and you might use 6 or 8 with a comic. Expensive and difficult to get hold of. Tone sheets are merely soft glue decals of dot tones or other shapes and textures. You use a sharp xacto (get plenty of blades and toss them when the tips dull in the slightest!) and cut the stuff out of the sheet. Apply over the drawing. Trim to desired effect. Simple! Burnish down before you trim so the tone does not slide off or loose grip later on A nice, cheap block of Tyvek foam is a great place to plant an xacto and burnisher. Tones can create difficulties! Moire patterns will set in if the tone is too tight and the printing resolution too rough. You will suddenly see hypnotic patterns in your tone. This also happens if you overlap tones.

Tone Bin.

This simple, inexpensive document storage bin holds all my Deleter tone sheets.

My tone use is all Deleter Japanese:
30L - 10, 20, 30, 40 % for extreme foreground
42.5L - 10,20,30,40 % for middle ground
60L - 10,20, 30, 40 % for background

My Gray Test line-up sheet. This hangs above my table where I can be reminded of the tone percentages used on my characters while I apply tone sheets. It helps maintain consistency and remind me of all the places on the characters that need tones.
The difference in tone sizes gives the illusion of distance and focus. There are also rub down tone sheets which you burnish directly onto the page for a more organic feel to the tone. If you plan to color the pages, tone is a serious pain to work around as you have to color the tone dots and make them work in conjunction with the color between the dots to get what you want from the color. I use no tones on my covers which are colored.

A cheap screw and bolt organizer.

An effective organizer for various inking and lettering nibs.

Speedlines are done easily. I use a Japanese Tachikawa Spoon nib, which is nicely rigid and silky smooth. Using a piece of plywood coated with an art mat, I tape the page on to the board put a pushpin where the lines should converge. Then I just rotate the ruler around the pin and drag the nib outward from the pin along the ruler. Some removable tape placed on panel borders means I can run wild and not have to taper off or worry when I get to the border of the panel, ensuring an even line.

Speedline Lap Board.

Using this mat covered plywood, I can easily push pins into the surface of the board and not damage my drawing surface when doing speedlines.

ERASING. When you are done you have to erase all the pencils. Phew, what a chore. Using electric erasers is kind of boring and takes forever. They do not make giant white erasers, except in China.

Finally, WHITE. White can be as amazingly complex as black ink, and with proper use it can bring out wonderful effects. Many advanced ink artists will apply a good deal of white over black, or even scrape the black with razor blades to reveal white, for further levels of texture and light. I found the PH. Martin White paint is best. You can water it down a little, dip in nibs and brushes, and further dip those implements into water to soften the paint as needed for proper application. White takes a while to dry, though, unlike India ink.

NOW THE ART IS DONE!! (unless you are coloring)

Final Page

PENCILING

Fri, 10 Aug 2007 19:28:41 -0500

If you have utilized PERSPECTIVE, FORM, COMPOSITION, FRAMING, EXPRESSION, etc, in your thumbnails, then penciling becomes a wonderfully indulgent application of detail. My comic was aimed to be more simplistic and iconic rather then ultra detailed realism, so my pencil stage was not as tedious as a big two superhero comic.

Before you begin penciling, know your tools - pencils, templates, erasers, rulers. Choose a good bristol and combine with the right pencils to allow your hand to get desired results. You might use a smooth bristol for fluidity, and use a softer lead pencil (2b) for larger, fluid figures, but get down to a 2H for small details and mechanical items. Place a folded piece of paper under your hand so you do not smear pencils! And also it blocks any sweat or skin oils from entering the paper and weakening the fibers. If your paper fibers loosen from absorbing skin oils it could make the inks wind through the fibers and create muddy finishes. Try to keep the paper as clean as possible.

Penciled pages are another intermediate stage of comic art. (Unless you are publishing the pencils without finishes.) I find that if my pencils are not precise and complete I begin to ad-lib as I improvise under the ink nib. Unless you are VERY experienced, you do not want to let that happen. Maybe after I have done thousands of pages I will know exactly what I should have in ink not done in pencils, but for now I need all the lines laid down in pencil.

A perfectly measured Comic Page Guide.

Using a T-square I cut out this guide so I can mark off the corners on the blank pages. Saves tons of time and effort to rule a traditional page perimeter.

Be fully aware that pencils are a relatively limited tool compared to the scope of ability ink has to provide texture in the common comic book. Many of your pencil lines will gain a further life if you choose the proper inking tools to give them unique expression.

I used Tombow pencils because I enjoy their consistency and smooth application. They need sharpening, so I used a simple electric sharpener velcroed on the top corner of my table just north of my drawing hand. This made sharpening an easily repetitive habit. Having to stop, turn, get a sharpener will slow you down and wear you out, and waste time. If you use mechanical pencils you will not have that problem, but when you get familiar with wood pencils you can use the waning point to your advantage and practically ink with a pencil and get wider designation of texture and expression through pencil. Just below the sharpener I velcroed little wire spiral pencil grabber and in those I had a fresh 6B, 4B, 2B, B, HB, H, 2H, mechanical pencil, stick eraser and pencil extenders. All my implements were close to my drawing hand.

The edge of my light-box drafting table during penciling.

Note the easy access of the electric sharpener ad all the different pencils. The electric eraser is hanging with the scissors at the bottom corner.

PERSPECTIVE was the hardest part. To do varied perspectives you will need to extend vanishing points beyond the page. Some artists will tape the page to a wall and use strings or dowels to allow them to create a working perspective grid before they return to the table. What I did was more tedious due to a lack of wall surface - taped 14x17 inch papers to the page sometimes in 3 directions and used long rulers to map out the grid. This requires a large table top! Lots of tape! And lots of patience. Perspective provides so much realism and variety, so it is worth it.

Templates. Here is an unceremonious stack of my templates. Many have inking edges. 3 size sets of circle and ellipse templates. Tons of curves. Not visible is a flexible curve.

TEMPLATES. If you are doing anything mechanically precise you NEED templates. French curves, circles, ellipses, etc. Buy them and take care of them. They tend to last a life time if kept well. My favorite tool (not really a template) is a ROLLING NAUTICAL RULER. You simply cruise along to draw parallel lines with ease.

My two favorite rulers. The nautical rolling ruler is brilliant for quick, parallel lines. The tiny ruler is a cheap, cork bottomed inking ruler, but I super glued a test tube stopper on top to aid in moving the ruler without smearing the art or scraping it with fingernails. A regular while block eraser would work equally well, super glued on top of the ruler.

Lastly, ERASERS. I have an old corded electric eraser and I love it. Great for saving your strength. But I also have a small pin point SAKURA battery eraser for tighter detail. And aside from the cheap and typical white block eraser I have a hand held stick eraser, a kneaded eraser, and a scum bag eraser for lightening pencils.

A final Penciled Page.

Depending on your inking ability you can go looser on pencils, but tight pencils help inking immensely.

LETTERING

Fri, 10 Aug 2007 19:26:25 -0500

My initial phase of lettering was to get a reduced copy of all penciled pages. Next I numbered the pages. Then I used a BLUE MARKER to put borders on panels which I wanted borders on. Borders are part of lettering. Next I took a RED MARKER and circled where the balloons would go, and who they were pointing to. And then I numbered the balloons on each page for reference, and noted where I wanted sound effects. I had a full mock up comic book for reference.

My comic book mock-up with balloon placement.

This is done before I ever write on the notepad to give me the idea of the amount of text I can place on a page. Borders would be marked if there was a non-bordered panel on the page.

Next I took a blank notepad and began to label issue #, page #s and panel #s with space for dialogue. I went through the mock up copy and wrote on the note pad what I wanted the characters to say and narrations for each panel. BUT, I had to be aware of space limitations and make my dialogue editable in case it was too large. At this time I now understood the entire scope of the story as people would see it with pictures and dialogue.

Dialog Notepad.

Note the divisions of text and the numbers of character spaces.

I preferred to do hand lettering. If you do not hand letter it means you will have to INK EVERYTHING, including art covered by balloons. If your page is super detailed, you just wasted a LOT of time. Last, I wanted complete works I could sell, give away as Christmas presents or hang in my house. I also wanted to develop my hand skills.

Sorry, computer guys : buy the DC LETTERING/COLORING book for a text on computer lettering.

The AMES GUIDE is IT. That little $5 plastic credit card device is THE must have because it is cheap, painless, and 100% pure awesome. If you want to hand letter, get it NOW. It is an adjustable line ruling device you drag along the edge of a t-square against a straight edge table over a taped down comic page to get guide lines for your lettering! Just use a light mechanical pencil and bingo- 3 minutes later your entire page is ruled and set to letter. There is an excellent, concise explanation on the Ames guide in the DC LETTERING/COLORING book. I began using setting 4, so in issue #1 you see my cruddy giant letters. Due to the size of the letters I had a lack of control. Next issue I used the prescribed smidgen under 3.5, and loved the control, legibility, and spacing.

TOOLS for lettering. I used a full range of Kohinoor Technical pens for touch ups, borders and balloons. The letters themselves were with SPEEDBALL B-6 and sometimes B-5 or 5 1/2 for darker and larger letters. B-6 nibs are rounded; the familiar nib of lettering comics, but some people use chisel tips for a unique approach. My ink of choice was SPEEDBALL SUPER BLACK INDIA INK because it was smooth under hand with the nibs. Sadly it does erase slightly and turn gray. Do NOT use it in technical pens. For Tech pens I used Kohinoor Tech pen ink after Dick Blick Black Cat turned gray after erasing.

What makes lettering simple actually makes it difficult- the alphabet. While only 26 letters and a few symbols, it means you have to be able to do it with acceptable uniformity. The Ames guide gets your vertical sizes uniform, but the horizontal is not so easy to regulate and there are no easy tools to create that uniformity so you must use physical coordination through understanding and lots of practice. The Latin alphabet is made of characters that can all fit inside uniform boxes aside from the letter I. Your challenge is to constantly visualize and utilize even sized boxes to contain your letters, and even spacing between letters, as well as a consistent spacing between words. I try to allow a full letter space between words, and use half a space for I, ! and a period or comma. When needs must I did squash letters and spaces to fit in dialogue. Practice, practice, practice before ever beginning.

Lettering Practice. It is good to get familiar with the tools. Lettering can be fairly tedious and I found certain hand muscles took a while to accustom to the act of lettering with ink.

When beginning lettering I would take the notepad and use a colored sharpie to mark where I would split the words and begin a new line in the balloons. Ovular balloons make it necessary to have a diamond shaped cluster of words starting with a small top tier graduating to a wide mid-tier and tapering back to a small bottom tier. Keep that in mind as you slice up dialogue to letter. Then I noted how many letters I had (counting I, !, comma and period as 1/2, and breaks between words as 1). On the page, in the balloon space, I would draw a center line vertically for the center of the text. Next, count the middle space of each line and begin penciling the letters onto the page from center out to left and right (yes, go backwards for half the line of text). When done you should have a well centered diamond shape of dialog.

After all the pages are lettered in pencil, get out your B-6 (or whatever inking implement you use) and go over the pencils. The key is consistency, legibility and apt expression through style.

Sound effects are more freestyle. They are a sensibility you develop as an individual. The approach is whatever you want. Be aware that the more designed and ornate the sound effects are, the more time it takes. I was amazed to find sound effects take a lot of time compared to the bulk lettering. When looking back at pre-computer comics I noticed there were not many sound effects. But my memory was that there were constant, large sound effects. The pictures were so vivid that I imagined the sounds, and effects were not needed. When I read modern comics I noticed plenty of computer sound effects for every little aural indulgence. But, a plethora of sound effects can actually detract from the reading experience, I believe.

BALLOONS are done in my comics with ellipse templates of all sizes between 15 degrees and 40 degrees. Sometimes I needed larger degrees, or used small circle templates. At first I used a .60 mm Technical pen, but found it less and switched to .80 mm Technical pens. Experiment! I used a tiny .30 mm to make clean points, correct mistakes and gaps. Draw a rough balloon with tail before inking. Get some ink raised templates, or put little plastic feet all over the bottoms of the templates. If not, the ink will go under and smear over everything. Note - get ink raised implements when possible or raise them yourself. Some people just layer up tape underneath rulers and templates. Others paste paper and small coins.

An example.

BORDERS were done with a 1.4mm Technical pen due to graphic definition. A Japanese manga artist claimed any border 1.0 mm and smaller looks sickly - I agree. He used a ruling dip pen, which I have, but I avoided the dip pen for the obvious reason of possible leaks. Corners were trimmed with white Dr. Ph Martins white paint, some permanent white gauche, or filled in with a .30 mm pen. Get those border corners sharp! Borders can really reflect a lot of the effort in a comic book, and let go be distracting

LAYOUT

Fri, 10 Aug 2007 19:24:17 -0500

Now begins the actual art. Comics are sequential art, and as such it is visual storytelling. Visual storytelling is the marriage of image to script. Where a script is merely text, you now have to marry images with ideas using a script as a foundation.

You now need SHOT CHOICE.

You need a choice of shots. You need VARIETY. And you need the skills to be able to vary your shots. Once you can define what must be done to create variety you are enabled! So let me define what I needed, and you can throw it out the window, or expand on it as you need....

Perspective
Composition
Framing
Shapes and Form
Light and Dark
Texture
Expression and Posing
Panel Size, Shape and Arrangement
Proximity of Focus
Direction of Movement

At this point you begin to shove all your hopes and ideals into a funnel of ideas narrowed by limitations of skill level. Try and visualize every picture or panel as you hope it to be in the end, and then try to meet that vision.

I took the OUTLINE SCRIPT (see previous entry) and labeled the perspective and type of shot next to every panel description. Perspective - Upshot, Down shot, Eye level, Worm eye, Waist high, just above head, etc. Shot Type - Close up, Medium, Far, Extreme Far Shot, Detail, etc. This was a very effective way to see if I was employing variation in basic idea.

A stack of layout guides.

These xeroxes of perfectly reduced page borders allows me to rough an accurate representation of the final format. Thus when I xerox the thumbnails up there is no readjusting to make the page work in the final dimensions.

The ROUGH THUMBNAIL was next. My pages were done at what I understand is common American page size - 10x15 inches. Japanese do slightly smaller. In the past many American artists did pages of 15x20 inches or MORE! Beware - the limitations of your scanning. 10x15 inches will fit on an oversized scanner or copier which usually are 12x17 inches. With a stack of sheets having accurate 50% resized outlines of the final page I could work roughly and quickly to smack out page layouts. I used a 4B Tombow pencil to rough because it flowed and did not allow me to do fiddling detail. The purpose of the rough thumbnail is to quickly figure out all the basic properties of story, expression, composition, page flow, and space for dialogue. They are quick and rough, so if they suck I will not lament trashing it and starting over, or light-boxing parts onto a new rough sheet until I have what I need. ROUGHS ARE NOT MEANT TO BE BEAUTIFUL; THEY ARE A FOUNDATION FOR FINISHES. DO NOT FALL IN LOVE WITH THUMBNAILS. It is a necessity to see them for what they are; a stepping stone to the final. Working in this fashion you will free yourself to maximize your page layouts with minimal effort. Imagine NOT doing this, doing the page full size, going over it, beginning clean up and then realizing it does not work, is staid, flat and boring?

Next is the CLEAN THUMBNAIL. I light-box the rough with a harder pencil (Tombow 2B or B) and begin to define some detail, the actual, basic, ruled perspective, and some light and shade, balloon placement, and so forth. This is merely a step to the final, and I used it to improve all information desired in the final page without hours of tedious detailing. Light boxes and copiers take so much hassle out of comic art. With them you can take a satisfactory drawing that does not fit the format and improve over, reduce, enlarge and fit it how you want. When you merely copy from an image sitting beside yourself you tend to change it drastically, usually for the worse!

Cleaned Thumbnail.

Now I had a quick, clean, fairly accurate representation of the basic page done at half size. I xeroxed it up to actual page size (just slightly smaller for wiggle room), and would light-box that xerox of the thumbnail when penciling on the final bristol board....

WRITING

Fri, 10 Aug 2007 19:23:12 -0500

DEFINE YOUR WRITING.

Know how you will approach the entire project - genre, page count, controlling idea, pacing, character expressions, plot spine, plot detail, A story, B story, plot twists, etc. Write it down.

Before I began writing I had made a BIBLE - a complete set of character profiles, art style, and ideas. Using it as a central pillar I could understand the entire concept, and reference the bible when in doubt. The point is to exercise up the idea and give it a solid core of understanding so the writing will not constantly shift.

With my American style writing approach (I would consider this OLD STYLE American, and not the average approach to comics in the past few years) I decided that every page would display a story point, and as many as possible would end with a 'mini-cliffhanger' to get the reader flipping pages. Every issue would be a story in itself (except the first issue which was an action grabber idea). So I wrote down a controlling idea for an issue, then wrote down other ideas I wanted to get through comfortably in an issue, arranged them logically in a row, imagined how they play panel per panel, then wrote one sentence for each page that tells what i want to basically do or show on a page. Next I visualized panel by panel and wrote under each page idea a description for each panel. I tried to keep it around 6 panels per page to accommodate detail and clarity. This was a non-dialogue outline of the comic, panel for panel, page by page to work from.

My dialogue is written in after the art. The strength being that the dialogue will fit better in the panels, and it will play off the visuals. By writing dialogue later I attempt to cohesively fit visuals and dialogue together. The negatives are a) possible lack of story logic if dialogue doesn't have room in a panel b) expressions might become too routine due to lack of dialogue to lead expressions.

Here is an example OUTLINE for a page. It seems simplistic, but the story was in my head and an outline would revive my story memories leaving me free to interpret as I penciled layouts...

Page 12 - Exciting and Cooler go to Skitch-s house
Skitch is at window
Cooler asks Skitch to join him
Skitch tells he can not rejoin, looking at others in street
Cooler asks again
Skitch explains himself

Layout of this page will be displayed in the next section...

BASIC NEEDS

Fri, 10 Aug 2007 19:20:58 -0500

The price and scope of producing a comic can be as simple as using cheap pencils on paper bags on top of your living room carpet, to huge spaces filled with expensive equipment achieving very precise finishes. Take into account that you could spend tens of thousands to make a single comic book if you want to have the best tools at your disposal. The difference that money ultimately makes is that it cuts your effort, improves your efforts, improves your art if you try, and saves you time and hassle. How you spend your money will define how serious you are about making the best comic you can, and how serious you are about your project. It is a great gauge toward your own inner desires you might not have come to grips with yet.

What you treat as a hobby will remain a hobby.
What you treat professionally will become a career.

If you are making a comic book you will spend a lot of time at your desk. Your first expense should be aimed toward maximum comfort at the table. SEAT and DESK are prime considerations. Get into a comfortable working position. You can find cheap, adjustable, comfy chairs on sale in office supply stores. For a table I only recommend the ALVIN ENSIGN table which has a fully adjustable top. You can adjust the Ensign from 180 degrees to 90 degrees for any artistic job, or physical need. It costs under $600 online. If you do not have the cash, you can work on $100 tables found in bargain stores, and customize hardware for height and tilt needs.

Then comes your ability to stay seated while doing your work. Keep everything in arm reach. Build a room, dividers in a room, shelves, and place tables around with full storage of all immediate needs. Some people even put small refrigerators or sinks in quick reach for beverage, food and cleaning.

You probably will need a computer. Get a super sized scanner to scan your comic pages! A expensive idea is to get a Canon copier ($2000) that doubles as a large size scanner, and maybe as a printer/fax in conjunction with your computer. MAKE SURE YOUR PAPER FORMAT WORKS WITH YOUR SCANNER! Piecing together parts of scanned pages can be all day hell.

After those expenses, the actual art supplies are piddling, but not insignificant. Nibs, pencils, paper, erasers, ink, paints (if needed), print cartridges, etc, etc etc, are not cheap. The price of a simple roll of Scotch Brand removable tape is $5 alone! And you can tear through those making a comic book. Price it all up. But also know what you work best with ....

TEST FOR THE BEST! Know which paper and pencils work under your hand, and work best with ink and color. You will be surprised how a different pencil, pencil hardness, or type of paper will change your final art efforts. One worry was that the bristol I used would have weaken fibers allowing the ink to spider out, making the images watery. I also tested every ink possible for feel and permanence. Ink can make all your efforts of lettering and inking nigh futile if the ink disappears or turns gray when you erase over it.

TEST as many supplies as you can. Spending a little can save A LOT.

Inexpensive, adjustable shelves from Menards hardware. Note the stacks of pencils, tape, and other supplies. Different sizes of paper and handy and plentiful.

INTRODUCTION

Fri, 10 Aug 2007 19:00:01 -0500

It is a huge effort to make a comic book, and without planning you will hit an insurmountable wall after weeks of hard work.

FIRST you have to consider the FINAL FORMAT of the work.

Is it just going to be on the internet for fun? Printed for sale on shelves in comic shops? Made into a book for sale in large book stores? Perhaps a mini-comic? All formats have specific processes. If you are spending thousands of dollars to make a comic, you definitely want to know what you are doing before you ever put pencil to paper.

SECOND, contact the PRINTER.

Tell them what you want to do, and ask for information. They will help you as much as possible- that is their job. If you are just making your own copies, ask the copy center for advice. All need specific resolution and file format. Full process printers need very specific file formats at certain resolutions or else your work will get muddy, printed off center, pages might be mixed up, or moire patterns could set up and the comic looks odd. Usually a print shop works with a PDF in CMYK color mode at 300-1200dpi.

If you are trying to sell a comic book through comic stores, you want to contact the major player in distribution - Diamond Comics Distributors (link on front page of this blog). There is plenty info on their site for hopeful vendors.

THIRD, contemplate ARTISTIC GOALS.

Define the writing and art, what you aim to do with it, what audience you desire to reach, what the genre is, what the central idea is, what that idea achieves again and again, or over a period of work, define the style you hope to use throughout, define what you wish to stress in the artistic work (ornate clothes, buildings, expressions, light and dark, etc), and define what you want to impress on people. Define how you hope your skill level improves by the end of a span of art, and define what you will do to get there. Define the tools you will use. Get it all sorted out now or your first pages will be constantly shifting styles.

FINALLY, define your DEADLINE.

Even if you have 80 years to do the comic, make a deadline. Give yourself timelines and goals, or you will probably never get it done. If you are planning on building skills to become a professional artist you will need to know your limits and how fast you can do work at your fastest.