Photos and Letters

So I picked up a copy of Photoshop. One of the nice things about working for an institution of higher education is the academic pricing. I saved a couple hundred dollars, but it was still about as much as a car payment.

The good news is that it is worth it. I've already got my layouts worked out and have figured out how to do titles and speech bubbles better than Comic Book Creator 2.0 ever could. For $50, though, CBC 2.0 is still a great deal for what it does, so I can't say too many bad things about it. If it were just a tad more versatile, Adobe wouldn't have my money.

Interestingly enough, I did some research on how the pros put down their panels, and it looks like inDesign is how they set it up, affordably priced at $199 for those of you in academia. My sense is that you can waste all your time building up tools and never make a product, so for now Photoshop will do.

The funny thing is that this has nothing to do with a-zombie. Single panel storytelling doesn't need a layout. What I'm working on is still zombie related, though, so I might as well post it here until we get more artwork.

I've been checking a great site on webcomics at, surprising enough, webcomics.com. They do strips, rather than pages, but their process carries over. There's a video on how Sheldon is created which is fascinating. Check it out.

Learning to Letter

I'm having a tough time getting art done. Mostly because I've been trying to do it myself. The biggest problem stems from the fact that the lines I put on the page do not resemble the image in my mind, and when I change the lines, the image in my mind gets corrupted as what I've drawn on the page looks more and more like a train wreck. Unless I'm trying to draw a picture of a train wreck, in which case it looks like a pile of crude blocks.

Fortunately, there are endeavors which don't require mad rendering skills but are still necessary for production. These are layouts and lettering. I've been dabbling with Comic Book Creator 2.0, and although it is a schizophrenic mess of features (animation? sound bites?), I thought there would be enough functionality there to produce something. Sadly, it won't let you easily change or create layouts, but perseverance and a little investigative work unlocked the secret of their XML-like layout language. Or at least enough secrets that I could produce a page that had the panels where I wanted them.

The real show-stopper came with the lettering. The word bubbles do have some flexibility, but tend to consume excessive space if you're using a lowercase font. Trying to get a bubble to cut itself off in a corner is impossible. And just to drive home that it's really amature night, visiting PlanetWide Media's tutorial on "Word Bubbles" gives you a video that has nothing about it, instead the actual tutorial appearing under "Using Your Own Pictures".

I guess I'd better save up my money and get Photoshop after all.

Learning a new trade is fun!

Well, it looks like we're not going to be putting up new artwork this month. In the meantime, I'll post on the progress of some other projects.

A is for Alone

The Beginning of the End

You probably don't remember the outbreaks. You probably don't remember the horror, the quartantines, and the miracle cure of Dr. Morgen Foster. Or the lesser-known escape route of physicist Adam Moorsburg.

Why would you?

These things haven't happened here. At least, not yet.

But they did happen. In a place just like this, except perhaps a bit nicer.

It began in late summer on a Tuesday afternoon. It was one of those perfect days where sun was shining but the air was cool, the fury of Summer's heat had mellowed with age, but not so late as to carry the chill of the coming Fall. A perfect afternoon.

Then, the Eruption. The word Zombie has been bandied about for decades now, and can mean anything from a walking corpse to a poisoned individual to the carrier of an exotic disease. These most certainly fell under the exotic disease category.

Sunbathers turned a sickening shade of green, joggers became shamblers, and those tending their barbeque grills suddenly craved something not on the menu, but rather, what was in their guest's skulls.

The source of the outbreak was never determined. There were many theories. Viral warfare? Random mutation? God's wrath? Those who talked didn't know, and those who knew didn't talk. Regardless of the source, what mattered was that there was a cure.

Perhaps "cure" is too strong a word. "Immunization" is a more accurate description.

Dr. Morgen Foster isolated the chromosomes necessary to resist infection. All it took to defeat the disease was a slight manipulation of the DNA, easily accomplished with a one-time chemical infusion.

A chemical infusion that was only effective before birth.

Yes, all children born post-Eruption were 100% resistant to zombification, but the sad fact was that their parents, teachers, and babysitters were not. There were still outbreaks, but the end was in sight.

To ensure that end would be the next generation becoming adults rather than food, survival training became required coursework in all schools. The kids had to protect themselves when everyone else had become a threat. A shining example of this is the most-read children's book in history. This book.

This book, which I have taken through the escape route.

The escape route is lesser known than the book, of course. Instead of being read by millions, the escape route was only known by two, and used by one. I can't say that I knew much about Dr. Moorsburg's theories about alternate causality universes nor how to travel between them might be possible. What I do know is that the world I came from was a pit of Hell. Ruined. Although the children had some hope, there was nothing for a grown up.

Not like here.

I would hate to see this world ruined. I would hate to see it become the place I left. But just in case, I brought with me the one thing that helped ensure our survival. The book, of course.

It will probably never be used. What are the chances of an Eruption in a place like this?

*cough*