Posts Tagged: Printing

101: Patrick Yurick & Rachel Beck (ComicFuel 5) – MakingComics.com Gutter Talk Podcast

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“This is the real secret of life — to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. And instead of calling it work, realize it is play.”  – Alan Watts

As we walk out into the world we are entering a story. This story defines us and the way that we interact with our beliefs, actions, society, etc. As much as we are always entering into the story that others have defined for us, we are also given the gift of writing our own story in every action we take. This month I sat down with Rachel Beck, founder of Storyforge Productions, and we discussed the nuances of story telling. We looked at our society and how we are working to rectify our long history with marginalizing females – specifically in the comic industry. We also looked at the basic construction of worlds and characters and how those construction create compelling reasons that keep us reading.

Reflecting on the talk I am reminded that complications are what keep us interested in the world around us. As comic artists we create fiction where our character confront and battle those contradictions. Theoretically that gives us the inspiration to fight our own demons. That’s what the #ComicFuel show is all about right? For us to join together to turn away from just consuming art and to bring us into the battle – the battle to create art.

So get out your pens and papers. Sit down. Join us as Rachel and I provide the fuel you are going to need for the coming battle.

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95: Patrick Yurick (ComicFuel 1) – MakingComics.com Gutter Talk Podcast

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I was staring angrily at my computer screen. My final in my advanced composition class was due, and I was hours later in the process than I thought I would be at the time. My phone rang. On the other end was the excited voice of my younger sister who had just graduated from high school and was making her way slowly through her freshman year. I was starting my second year as a graphic design major and was struggling to take care of myself.

“Patrick! You’ll never guess what I discovered today!” I was annoyed at the sound of her voice. Mostly I was agitated at being behind on my assignment and was only thinking about how quickly I could get off of the phone with her.

“Yeah, what exactly did you discover?” I grumbled into my bulky Nokia cell phone (it was 2004).

“I’m an artist! I just took an elective art class and I absolutely loved it! I’m an artist like you!” I choked at the sound of this. How could she think that she was an artist after taking just one class? I had been trying to become an artist since I was ten and here was my 19 year old sister claiming that she was an artist after only one day.

“Well, that’s great sis. You know though, you aren’t a real artist.”

“W-what…?”

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D.I.Y. Comics: Cutting Out The Middle Man

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[Tweet “…comics are about story, art, and innovation.”]

When I committed to creating a comic, I knew that publishing with one of the big companies anytime soon was not a reality. I was introduced to web comics as a serious avenue at Comic Con New Orleans 2010. I’ve since created two web comics. Comics have been in my life as long as I can remember. For me, comics are about story, art, and innovation. I rarely bought for the sake of collecting. Coming to terms with that, I had no problem with the web comic medium.

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32: Dan Mashburn – MakingComics.com Gutter Talk Podcast

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The Gutter Talk syndicate moves forward into its eighth month and yeah, we also feel like this thing just started yesterday, too. And in those eight months, we’ve had a mind-blowing array of guests, from artists to writers to editors to publishers. Still, there’s one area of making comics that we would be remiss if we didn’t talk about, marketing and printing your comic. Even if your main avenue is webcomics, there’s something in here for you. How so? Listen and find out.

Adam takes the podcast on the road and heads to the site of Haichris Inc., a local San Diego marketing and print shop, to talk to the president of the company, Dan Mashburn. Listen in as Dan discusses building relationships with the Comic Making Guys (CMGs) and even defines happiness.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:31:02 — 83.3MB) | Embed

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Self-Publishing Tips: Offset Printing, Part 2

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Continued from part 1, which covered resolution, color space, page size and position.

Number of pages:

While diversification of printing techniques means this is no longer always an issue, it remains an issue to be aware of when using offset printing. I am talking about the fact that the number of pages in a book needs to be a multiple of 16. This is due to the way offset printing, which makes use of large plates, works:

16p

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Self Publishing Tips: Offset Printing (Part 1)

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Comic authors today benefit from increased choice in terms of how to publish. Digital publishing, i.e. webcomics, are the obvious and nearly-universal choice both for those who wish to print at some point an those who don’t intend to. Print-on-demand (PoD), similarly, makes it possible for everyone to make their work available as a book; and despite its many limitations it’s still much better than no possibility at all. Digital printing and various means offered by copy centers also present opportunities for enterprising artists to print small runs of books at a relatively modest cost, with more control over the final product than PoD allows. But the most exciting development, as far as I’m concerned, is that today sites like Kickstarter give everyone a chance to access good old offset printing, which this post is dedicated to. Here I’d like to discuss a number of things to know, to do, and to avoid in order to make the most out of offset printing, based on my personal training and experience printing comics and other books with various printers (with a lot of trial and error.)

Qualities of Great Comics

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I recently finished Habibi by Craig Thompson. It’s an amazing piece of literature to say the least. The degree of experimentation, intricacy, and precision with which Thompson approaches his art is on display with each page. It blew me away! Reading Habibi has led me to start thinking about the nature of what makes a “great comic,” so that I can pass that knowledge along to my students.

Habibi

Image from Craig Thompson’s Habibi

The qualities of great comics are important to discern, especially when learning how to make comics. The following five qualities are the standards around which we at Making Comics (dotCom) are constructing our MOOC (massively open online course). Follow these principles when creating your own MOOC project.

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DIY Comics: Cutting Out The Middle Man

Posted by & filed under Underdogs.

[Tweet “…comics are about story, art, and innovation.”]

When I committed to creating a comic, I knew that publishing with one of the big companies anytime soon was not a reality. I was introduced to web comics as a serious avenue at Comic Con New Orleans 2010. I’ve since created two web comics. Comics have been in my life as long as I can remember. For me, comics are about story, art, and innovation. I rarely bought for the sake of collecting. Coming to terms with that, I had no problem with the web comic medium.

(more…)