Okay now we have already had some wonderful help with this as far as online posting is concerned, someone has been kind enough as to give us a standard size of 468 pixels by 720 pixels or 16.516 by 25.408 inches. However we are confused because we have seen wider online comics andor various sizes too?? And we are assuming that a high quality jpg. will suffice for posting? If anyone can add some enlightening feedback on this we would be very grateful. As well we have questions on what to save these images as for printing purposes, if this was to come about?? We are assuming that if we save our work as a high quality Tiff we are safe and can then work from there to accomodate any format needed later. Now, if one was to "print" a comic, is the size the same as the online, or is it in a small comic book form or a larger magazine form?? How is this all determined?? Is there any anticipation or is this just a hit and miss or can this all indeed be planned as we assume it can be??? In other words, if someone was to have a comic online and also wishes to have it as a printed comic some day are they better off to stick to one size or do they have to have different sizes?? I am confused here. Comicdom is new to me and I want to make sure it's right before we save everthing and size everything the wrong way and then have to do it all over again later. Thank you for any help ;-) ~3D

Comic book artists generally work on what looks like a 3'x1' page; once they have the layout right, it's reduced to the standard (8"x10" I THINK) size, colored, and text added. Most graphics programs allow you to create a page of the right dimensions and fit the images into it (though a publishing program would probably be better). I don't remember DPI settings (I've seen so many numbers tossed around that I lost track!). Do the images in whatever size you NEED them to be, then resize to fit the page is my suggestion. Either that, or follow the Time Extreme/ Pieces model and do one image per page, all with a uniform size. This seems to work best for online work, actually. Essentially, find out the size and medium you're going to publish to (web (any size), magazine (8.5x11), traditional comic (I THINK 8x10), mini-comic (4x5 or 3x5; I've seen both)) and then tinker until you have something that is both visually appealing and properly dynamic. There are some good books on the subject - Eisner's "Comics and Sequential Art," as well as "Understanding Comics" and its sequel by Scott something (I can't remember his name off hand).

You might be aware of this already but just in case here's a url. http://www.piekosarts.com/blambotfonts Nate's got some tutorials that deal mainly with printed comics so you might get some answers. I'm sure he brings up the matter of how to save and what size because one of the tutorials is about adding text on pc so he should cover all aspects for printing it out. Can't do much better than that, I'm afraid.

This all helps a lot!! ;-)

Printed comics are done at 11"x17". -JH.

Thanks ;-)

Check out www.comicolors.com.This is a pro comic book colourists site with links to all sorts of comic book resourses pages which should answer all your questions. As a quick guide,comics are drawn on a 11" x17" art board and scanned in normaly at 300dpi.They are normaly coloured in photoshop & lettered in illustrator at this dpi (there are tricks to reduce to work faster,but thats the end result).This is for printed comic book work.If you hope to print at sometime you should produce at that standard & reduce it down to go on the web.When it comes to displaying on the web you can go as low as 72dpi ,and its pixel dimentions not print dimentions that count.

Online display will never do you any good and in fact mess up size if you shoot for more than 72ppi. In truth the dpi means nothing for onscreen... What counts is the xy pixel size. 72 ppi will only actually measure out to 72 pixels in a single physical inch on a 14 inch monitor at 800 by 600 pixel resolution. (800/72 is just over 11, 600/72 is just under 8.5, 118.5 inches is the size of a 14 inch monitor). For print you want a resolution in 'ppi' that is equal to the 'line screen (lines per inch)' of the printer times 1.5 lpi for even the best professional printers is rarely above 150 (2400 dpi (printer dots per inch) printer). Newspapers print in the 70's somewhere. This is assuming color with 256 tone levels per color. Which means a single 'halftone dot' will be a 16*16 square of printer dots at full strength of that color. Which is the level at which you will see professional printing. Home inkjet printers obviously don't have resolutions of 2400 dpi color. So they trick it. They sacrifice line screen to get good tone value and use a variety of guessing algorythms to make it seem better than it truely is. In the end your home printer will have a linescreen equalvalent to somewhere between 70 and 100 lpi as far as what you'd use to determine quality of the images you send to it. For a proffessional printer ask them their lpi. Paper quality affects this also. But anyway... That's printers. Once you know your printer's lpi multiply it by 1.5 (some say 2.0, 1.41 is the minimum) and that will give you the ppi (pixels per inch) resolution you'll want. Above that you won't notice the added resolution giving any benifits to the printing. Below it and you just might.

http://art.sdsu.edu/courses/art240/lessons/raster%20graphics/scanning/scan.htm http://www.google.com/search?q=print+rule+of+16+lpi+halftone&hl=en&safe=off

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3dS- When I started HCK one thing I realized was that the web afforded me the opportunity to escape from 11x17 bristol (and from panels for that matter). Still way way in the back of my mind I have thought about producing printed versions. In truth the images you see on HCK now have been batch modified just before uploading for resolution and size (8x10 @72ppi). I intend to add contrast adjustment to that mix as well to get around that annoying PC gamma problem that the site suffers under as well. But the "real" images are off on CD. in their hi-res form, uncompressed and unflattened. Just for info purposes I work in a 10x12 @150ppi space and find that I can create just about anything I want from there. jje

I have lots to look over here, thanks a bunch ;-)

Newspapers are 85 lpi for the most part though some go as high as 100lip (I work at a newspaper) Magazines and higher quality graphic novels etc print at 133 lpi .. Or 266 res needed at minimum. Many are higher. A cover shot at DC, for example, is 366 dpi if I remember from last year.

I used to do comics, and I hated working on the boards. But I did all my inking and coloring on the boards, and used halftone overlays for anything that required it. Damn, my memories lousy, but as I recall, my publisher them used some kind of machine that took a photo of it, and reproduced it on a thick sheet of plastic that was then used to drive the Xerox printer. I never did learn much about the process unfortunately, but if you're going to want to print your work, most printers prefer you deliver high quality Tiffs saved on CD or zip media. This is so they do color adjustments and transparency adjustments on the various channels. You might also want to look into getting a color safe palette to use in photoshop. If you have a printer in mind, he can perhaps supply you with a photoshop compatible palette that you can plug in to make sure your colors match the colors he has available for printing. There are several palettes and different printers prefer using different palettes. jje's 150 ppi should be suitable for almost any printer.

Well, this all makes sense to me, a lot of this I actually did learn in school once but how fast we tend to forget when we don't work with it day after day ;-) We are a long ways from printing, (if ever), cause first, (when it IS finally done), we have to run it by a lot of folks including you's HERE and provided it MAKES IT through THAT, then comes the real fun; the REAL world, hehehe, hoo boy, (where's my suit of armor)!! Thanks for everything, this gives us lots to think about ;-)