Tag Archives: digital

Comics

The Best Digital Comics of 2012

December 31, 2012 – 11:12 pm

This year saw the comic book industry continue its inexorable move into digital publishing. Along the way we’ve seen innovation, exploration and inspiration as writers and artists pushed the creative envelope, expanding the definition of digital storytelling. While there isn’t enough space to highlight everyone’s attempts to further the medium it is worth taking a moment to recognize some folks whose efforts were especially noteworthy. Without further ado, and in no particular order, COMIC BOOK THINK TANK takes a look back at some of the most innovative digital comics for 2012.

InsufferableINSUFFERABLE: By Mark Waid, Peter Krause, Nolan Woodard and Troy Peteri

Billing themselves as an “experiment in new-media publishing” storytelling maestro Mark Waid and the gang at Thrillbent are regularly exploring how print comics can evolve in a digital environment – with fantastic results!

 

xkcd

XKCD: By Randall Munroe

A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language…and in this particular instance about the exploration of the infinite canvas.  If you haven’t already seen Click and Drag you owe it to yourself to head over there and spend some time exploring. You wont be disappointed.

AvXAVENGERS VS. X-MEN: INFINITE: by Mark Waid, Stuart Immonen and Marte Garcia

Kicking off Marvel’s Infinite Comics experiment in digital storytelling in a way only Marvel can – big! The House of Ideas didn’t shy away from pushing the digital envelope with this introduction to the mammoth Avengers vs. X-Men event.

madefireMADEFIRE

Melding comic book storytelling with animation and special effects, the Madefire team describe their comics as “Motion Books” and are trying to do nothing less than “revolutionize how stories are told.”

 

instacopINSTA•COP: by Kwanza Johnson and Andy Belanger

A hard boiled action adventure delivered one panel at a time across multiple platforms. The fine gents behind Insta•Cop are exploring the increasingly thin boundary between comics and social media.

 

Operation AjaxOPERATION AJAX: by Daniel Burwen

Based on a true life spy thriller, this multi-media comic is chock full of extras and support documents that let the reader dive deep into a truly immersive digital storytelling experience.

 

America: Elect!AMERICA: ELECT!: by The Guardian

The interactive team at The Guardian used a creative scrolling digital comic format to tell the story of Barack Obama, Mitt Romney and the US Presidential election. The results were far, far more fun than the election itself.

 

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Process

Relaunch Page Process 1

October 22, 2012 – 5:29 pm

At New York Comic Con one of the things I was asked most about Our comic RELAUNCH was “How was it made?” or  “Is this all digital?” The answer is no. While the pages and scenes were put together in Photoshop and colored in Photoshop, each page has a basis in traditional art if not inked work for the base art. Below are some smatterings of art from the comic with notes below each.

Cover ideas – Everything was thumbnailed for Relaunch and these were possible cover ideas we were talking over before deciding on the right one with a reflection. We actually came up with a backstory that is hinted at in the comic; that she is on a craft that repairs sattelites and various space machines – that Cris’s a space mencahnic of sorts. The image on the left was going to be Cris in space illuminated against a derelict satellite she is cutting into with a laser torch.

The inked art for the cover to Relaunch.

For some pages, we found it was easier to scan the pencils in and then build each scene and page by inking and coloring digitally. Backgrounds were fully realized seperatly from the characters and moving objects to retain the cinematic feel and allow for subtle changes to lighting, monitors, wires, etc.

Other scenes were easier to develop using scanned inked work, then coloring the artwork in Photoshop. This was especially true for pages which had blur effects and pages where monitors were the focal point of specific panels.

The more elaborate panels required that the panels be built digitally from the ground up. They were drawn with multiple layers so that elements could be easily moved and in this particular scene, really helped in keeping the proportions and likeness of Cris from page to page.

To make a panel digitally, we started with a rough gesture of the character and the background. From there we would create a new layer and use the layer below as a “pencil” layer, fleshing out the panel more and giving the character weight. Finally we wold create a new layer and treat this as the “ink layer” – refining the chracter and scene further. The layers below this are then trashed and the ink layer becomes your line-art.

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