Hi guys, just want to ask regarding the title of this post.

Is it possible to turn my PC into a comic publishing machine? Or should I buy a Mac?

What are the peripherals needed to make it possible? All I can guess is, I need to buy a printer & a scanner. Anything else?

What about software? What softwares would you recommend for coloring, page-making, inking, etc? Adobe? Macromedia?

What is the industry standard for comic coloring?

Inking?

Page-making?

What are the books out there would you recommend for guiding me through these comic-making processes?

What's an estimated budget for making a 40-page comic per week? Per month?

Anything else I should know?

Thank you.

Here at Radio, we use Macs. This is because we've always used Macs (our head of production is a Mac enthusiast), but also helpful because the printer we use (Brenner Printing http://www.brennerprinting.com) is Mac-based. So we never have any kind of conflicts with their equipment. But, I know a lot of freelancers who use PCs, so it is possible. ^_^

The main programs we use are:

--Adobe Photoshop- for coloring, grey-toning, lettering, and scanning the pages to prepare them for printing
--Adobe PageMaker- for laying out the pages of the book, preparing the covers, etc. We used to letter in PageMaker, but found it easier to letter in PhotoShop, since then there are never font-printing conflicts.
--FreeHand- for making logos for covers or advertisements
--Microsoft Word- for writing up scripts, editorials, etc. (This is really the only Microsoft program we use, actually.)

Those are the four basic programs we use on an almost-daily basis in the production of our comic books. (And of course, our scanners. ^_^)

Sadly, I don't know of any books about how to make comics- not any recent ones anyway. I'll have to dig through my collection and see if I can come up with any.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by expenses- do you plan to print out your comics yourself on a home printer? (Like zines, or minicomics.) Or are you planning to have them professionally done with offset printing? For pro printing, an average black & white comic can cost between $1500.00 to $1900.00 for a 40-page comic with a print run of 3000 copies. (These prices may vary depending on time of year, how busy the printer is at the time, which printer you use, what kind of paper you ask for, etc. But it gives you a ballpark area.)

Hope this helps!

--Elin Winkler http://www.radiocomix.com

Damn I wish I had more time to answer... I'll come back when I do.

Yes, you can do this on PC. I've done extensive amounts of this on PC, most of the early Mystic For Hire ( www.pagancity.com ) was done on PC, and even today I actually use both Mac and PC to work on it interchangeably with the same files... because at home I work on the Mac, but at the day job (where I often work on MFH in idle time) I have an NT box on my desk.

Elin's covered most of it, but I've got stuff to add. Key things you'll also want are Adobe Illustrator (equivalent to FreeHand and more compatible with Photoshop and Indesign, even easier to letter), a graphics tablet (I use Wacom Intuos), and as much RAM as you can afford to put on your machine. If you're using Win9x/ME, you'll want MINIMUM 256MB, with XP you'll want 512 at least. If you can max out the RAM on the system, DO IT. No such thing as "too much RAM," EVER.

More to follow.

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Jeff Zugale
Pagan City Comics
www.pagancity.com

I'm a PC guy. I used to be a Mac guy, but not anymore. Most reputable printers will easily utilize both PC and Mac platforms. Check with them first, of course.

I'll tell you what I use my computer for:

lettering (I bought my font at COMICRAFT)
coloring (Adobe Photoshop)
layout (Adobe Pagemaker)
Like Jeff said... just buy lots of RAM. As far as peripherals, you'll need:

1. a scanner (11x17), or smaller depending on what you want. I dearly WISH I had an 11x17 scanner. Instead, I downsize the art at Kinkos and scan it in at home.

2. a laserprinter (with lots of RAM) for printing up copies of your stuff. This is essential.

3. A big monitor. You'll thank me later.

You're getting sound advice, by what I read up above.

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______________________
Fernando H. Ramirez
nando_ramirez@hotmail.com
http://www.fernandoramirez.com

www.comiccolors.com

May be useful.

I don't work in the comics field. But I am a graphic designer, I work at a publisher, I have about 16 years experience. I deal alot with cross-platform conflicts. Creating things to go to press as well as dealing with files provided from ad agencies, freelance designers, and novices with new computers.So maybe I can help with the technology and platform questions.

Whenever dealing with a printer, even one you trust, its better to know alot about what you can do to make them do less and keep your cost down, and give yourself more control. Things alway go wrong it's the nature of the communications business that we are notoriously bad at communicating. So the more you can do for yourself, and computers make this incredibly easy these days, the better for you.

If you chose to use a PC don't use Publisher for anything bigger than a page or two, trust me! I know the later versions are supposed to have the bugs worked out but is it worth the risk??

Photoshop is the best thing ever invented! That was easy.

I noticed someone recommending Freehand.
Definately I'd like to second that! Much better than illustrator, and you can use Freehand as a layout program as well. It truly has been through many changes through the years but it is by far the best graphics oriented program out there, but you will have to learn the program very well to get the optimum results. Its great for drawing too. It has the bonus of being compatible with Flash, so if you do any animation you'l be halfway there.

I noticed someone recommending pagemaker.
Having used both Pagemaker and Quark, I'd have to say I'd disagree.
Pagemaker has some similar features to Quark, and is very easy to use when making PDF files, very easy, but after using bith quite extensively I'd recommend Quark for it's overall better design and functionality.

If you do use pagemaker, you may experience frequent crashes, if this happens, throw out your pagemaker preferences and restart. (Mac)
One woman in my office cringes everytime she gets a Pagemaker file, but I think she tends to exagerate.

I'd have to say at this stage PC or Mac really won't make much difference.
This is a new thing. Through the use of PDF files or exporting your files into a graphic format like a tif or jpg (as long as your files are MINIMUM 300 dpi ) you'll be fine. When making your files make sure your color images are all CMYK.
If you can use PDF files as your final product its the wave of the future!
It may take a little time to learn Acrobat Distiller depending on how familiar you are with Acrobat in general, but it will be well worth it. With all your images at the optimum resolution, and all your fonts embeded properly, your PDF files will be the easiest thing to give to a printer these days, tho' some printers may still not have converted completely to direct to plate, and may ask for the parent files, you can skip that too. You can easily place PDF files in Quark express, with the right plug-in or open the PDF in photoshop and save it as a tiff (at least 300dpi). Then place this in you layout program, whether it be Pagemaker or quark, you may need to take special care to study up on how to leave proper bleed while producing the original PDF.
CMYK and 300dpi the two most important things! Anything RGB in your PDF even if you did distill it from Pagemaker or Quark with the "convert to CMYK" set, will not separateproperly, it will most likely show up as BLACK.

Most printers will happily help you with problems, but sometimes their priorities are not yours, so they might not be giving you the answers that are best for you.
Knowledge is power. Learn printing, learn the programs. Don't use the manuals.

Did any of this help?
I've been dying to spill my guts.



[This message has been edited by jollyman (edited 01-05-2002).]

Pagemaker vs. Quark-- If you ask 50 people, you'll get 25 each way. Quark is the industry standard, but either will serve. I've never had problems with Pagemaker.

If you're buying new, you really can't beat the price of Adobe's publishing package. I got Photoshop, Pagemaker, and Illustrator for $999 (today's offer may be different) and used Pagemaker's serial number to get Quark for $299. That's $1300 for 4 programs--the cost of Quark and Photoshop bought separately.

SAVE YOURSELF LOTS OF TROUBLE--
--buy that 11x17 scanner! And a CD burner (cheaper than Zip disks)!

Dude, you actually use Illustrator, or was it just ballast on the good package deal?
I couldn't stand the thing, most people I talk with that use it, aren't the descriminating kind, but a handful seem pretty taken with it. My skin crawls anytime I see the ".ai" extension on an attachment...

Have you tried Freehand?

That package deal Fumetti quoted also includes Acrobat, which you will need to create pdfs, and his price ($999) is correct. The publishing package is Acrobat, Illustrator, Photoshop and Pagemaker, so that's four programs right there without even the discounted Quark thrown in.

By the way, if you go to Adobe's webstore and check out the prices of each piece of software individually, (not in the package deal), they are horrifyingly over-inflated! Don't buy from Adobe's online store unless you are getting the package deal. I was just at CompUSA this afternoon, and the combined cost of all four pieces of that software off the shelf was only a little bit higher than the package deal.

For the life of me I can't imagine why that is, but if you buy Illustrator alone direct from Adobe, you'll be paying almost twice as much as you would be if you bought it off the shelf at a computer store.

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Shikata Ga Nai

Originally posted by jollyman:
>>Dude, you actually use Illustrator, or was it just ballast on the good package deal?
I couldn't stand the thing, most people I talk with that use it, aren't the descriminating kind, but a handful seem pretty taken with it. My skin crawls anytime I see the ".ai" extension on an attachment...

Have you tried Freehand?<<

Uhm, okay, I'll have to ask, what do you find objectionable about Illustrator? Particularly, why would you feel its users are undiscriminating? Personally, I see it as a matter of personal preference. I had both for several incarnations, but dropped Freehand after version 7, finding too unwieldy and unintuitive. Hey, I'm not knocking it, if it does what you need; just not my thing. On the other hand, I find Illustrator far more intuitive, and extremely precise, and I can far more reliably count on ai files rasterizing into Photoshop than either Freehand or Canvas. I used to love the early versions old Canvas, btw.

And yes, the comic colors site is probably as good a start for coloring tutorials as any.

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T H O M A S L U T H
digital artist
http://www.thomasluth.com