So it’s been two days since the first mockups of Operation Flashback went live on my group. I’ve had a couple of replies privately so far and the feeling is positive so far. It looks like it’s a go.
One thing I’ve noticed about producing comics is that it’s always a learning experience. You can always learn a new trick to make the books look better. Just recently I finally learned how to make curved tails on my word balloons. I know that doesn’t sound like a big deal, but it is. Rather than bore you with the long of it, the short of it is that besides looking more professional, it really influences how I use space when doing captures and how I lay out text as I’m writing the story.
I think you can see it illustrated in the old vs. new album. Besides using a smaller font than before, I’ve learned to use space to give enough room to tell the story without having to make the reader jump around too much between word balloons. I don’t know if this style change will impact my new work, but it really is making me think about shots before I plug them in to the new old issues.
Another big advantage to redoing all the old stuff is the fact that I’ll finally have all the files in one format. I don’t actually have any of the save files for most of the original series. They were done on a MAC that I no longer have on hand. Even if I had it, they’d still be a different file structure than what I have on my PC. Compounding that, most of the old issues are all different page sizes. Every program I used to create comics was intended for a different page format so I didn’t finally “standardize” things until I downloaded a template from a comic book publisher and started using that with issue one of @insanity. Once I’m done with reworking these issues I’ll have everything saved in indesign format. I’ll be able to print to PDF or upload to a publisher’s site without much of a problem. Yes, one day I want to make these all available to be printed out and shared like “real” comics, but hey, one dream at a time.
With that, the only thing left to say tonight is that my goal is to give you something every week. I’m really trying to stick @insanity on a bi-weekly schedule. Every off week we’ll have something. It may be a handful of revised issues. It may be a new pinup gallery, or a bunch of blogs, but I’m committed to trying to keep things going here for as long as I can before life gets in the way again.
And now, I’m off to bed.
Jim