My First “Comic Book” (Be Gentle)
Ok, I decided to play around with Comic Book Creator this week. It’s a fun tool that lets you make comics from clipart, screenshots, or virtually any image file you have at hand.
I made a City of Heroes 36-pager. It’s something of an “origins” tale, I guess. There was alot of bungling, and it still has some rough edges, but I figured I’d share it in “Beta format” and see what people think.
You can download the pdf here (7.5mb).
This is still a work in progress- a learning exercise at that- so please, take a chance to answer my survey and give feedback. (I’m playing with a survey toy too… go figure…)
Do not try to adjust your screen. It IS black-n-white. I’d planned to try a “poor man’s sin city” using techniques shown here but issues with the first photo shoot made me try the “grayscale and gritty” instead.
Left to my own devices, I’d just keep revising this and never get around to releasing it, so I’m forcing myself to get it out and get feedback NOW, before I start the endless design loop.
November 3rd, 2006 at 11:36 pm
Read it and loved it. Some cleaning up of the images might be needed yet the grainy and indestinct pictures used seemed to make the drearyness of the story pervasive. A very well thought out story, good rythm. It flowed real well through out.
If this is just a “try-out” or a “foolin around’ test them I see some awesome stories in the future.
Excellent work. Makes me want to hear more about Partizan.
November 4th, 2006 at 1:15 am
Thanks for the kind words. I’ve definately got a few more ideas milling about… just don’t know when I’ll be able to really get them made.
Roughest part to date has been having scenes in my mind that I can’t reproduce ingame… a hero’s apartment, for example. I can use the supergroup base as a “sound stage” but there isn’t a decent bed in any of the assets…
Still, the comic was a fun challenge… I’m glad it’s being well received.
November 4th, 2006 at 6:17 pm
Excellent work. It’s far more detailed than I would’ve expected out of a comic book made with the game engine, especially the tears. There are a couple of close-up shots that got a little pixellated, but exceedingly professional for something done with free software and a video game.
November 7th, 2006 at 4:52 am
Enjoyed the work. It’s a good conceptual work, if a little rough (that program is somewhat hampering your storytelling abilities, I think. Know any artists who can help you with this?).
Also, the images were hard to distinguish sometimes. But the storytelling was SOLID. Nice job.
November 10th, 2006 at 7:10 am
Great work i loved it i made my own when i first found the CCC program so i tried the demo of it now i am looking for the full program in stores if you ever want a photographer let me know maybe we can help each other out if so i am looking forward to it you can reach me in game my global chat handle is @Hott Head but i am mostly on with my alts now hope to hear from you soon
November 11th, 2006 at 4:56 am
Really enjoyed it. I want to hear more about Shan! I found out about the comic from a teaser from one of your CoH Forum posts. I didn’t even know people could do stuff like this. Really a well done project.
November 13th, 2006 at 3:45 am
Excellent work!
Thats a lot of screenies that got pared down into panels, not to mention just a solid ton of good photoshop work. That must’ve taken a some serious work to put together.
I don’t know if you did max the game resolution when taking screenies, but it helps a lot when you have to do image resizing. Should help the jaggies on the close up shots.
I am totally in awe.
And I’ll be waiting for the next issue. There an e-mail list I can sign up on?
November 13th, 2006 at 2:25 pm
Thanks for all the feedback! Between here and the City of Heroes forums, I’ve learned alot of new techniques for the next one- and gained the motivation to do yet another.
What the story will be… well, that’ll take some thinking. I will continue Shandora’s tale… eventually… but I may want to introduce some other heroes first.
I have this idea for a 3-part story… just have to figure if the scenes I want are do-able
November 14th, 2006 at 5:44 am
Very nice. I enjoyed it alot and I liked the style.
November 15th, 2006 at 2:17 pm
Great use of assets. That’s gotta be tough trying to make a visual story with so many art limitations. You tied in a lot of stuff well.
I wonder.. Was I the only one who read “spring rolls” the wrong way the first time around on page 14? I think it’s because Shan was Asian. =P
November 15th, 2006 at 11:59 pm
Very nice work.
The writing is excellent, the pacing is good, and I got a real feel for the scenes you were going for, even if the execution was a little rough.
Best of luck if you choose to continue making them! I’ll try and stop by to read them if you do.
December 4th, 2006 at 4:51 pm
Great work! I quite enjoyed the story, and your screenshots were very well done considering the ing game limitations of taking shots of your own characters. I’m looking forward to the next issue!
December 20th, 2006 at 2:15 am
Great story! Well done. I hope to see more.
February 1st, 2007 at 11:33 pm
Very nice story. I started out thinking I’d read a page or two to see how the Comic Book Creator software looked, but I read the whole thing. Very well paced and a nice solid story.
February 27th, 2007 at 11:30 am
I loved it and I can’t wait for more!!! LoL on the spring rolls… I was thinking the same thing
March 6th, 2007 at 3:43 pm
I agree 100% with Mindkiller! “nj” I loved and wanted to hear more about all the charaters!
March 6th, 2007 at 5:25 pm
Good news! I’m finally getting around to issues 2,3, and 4. Right now, I’m planning to hit a few other character “origins” to bring the whole team together. 2,3,and 4 each covers a different hero’s perspective of the same event, so there’s some overlap in the “photo shoots” I’ll be doing.
Now, if work would only be a little more forgiving with my schedule…
April 4th, 2007 at 11:27 pm
Very nice work. The pace of the story coupled with the concise way you told it are excellent. I found your site researching Comic Book Creator. I want to make some short comics to encourage my 6 year old daughter to read better. I doubt I will equal your creativity but I am encouraged to try the product based on what I found.
I have played COH/COV, on the Justice server, and find your choice of characters to be as original as your writing. So many fall into the trap of mimicry. Good luck with your future efforts!
April 24th, 2007 at 2:31 am
[...] I’m doing it again. I cranked out the 36 pages in a few days and got good reviews, but the 8-pager is going to paralyze me. With nearing 200 entries, I’m not expecting to win any of the cool prizes (my gaming PC can’t even handle the video card prizes). I’m just [...]
August 14th, 2007 at 4:45 am
I couldn’t understand some parts of this article (Be Gentle), but I guess I just need to check some more resources regarding this, because it sounds interesting.