need help, trying to find software to make a comic.

[Shape D.]

As the topic says, I'm looking to start making an online web comic and am trying to find software for the artwork. I'm running a mac (osx 10.3) and am looking for somthing either free or cheap. I know Adobe Illusrator would work well for what I need but the $500 cost of the program doesn't look to nice for my already empty wallet. ( or for explaining it to my wife. )

I plan on using a shareware program called Comic Life to splice it all together, and add text bubbles. The program works with any Jpeg image so I would need the art to end up in that format.

<edit>I guess it's not a shareware program anymore, still $25 isn't to bad.<edit>

Any suggestions would be great. Thank you.

P.S. I hope this is the right tread for this.
I'm looking for a program.                                 = Software forum.
To make cartoon art                                          = Artwork forum.
Which has nothing to do with arcade controls  = Everything Else forum.

This one made the most sense to me though.

[DaemonCollector]

I would have to say use The GIMP...I believe theres a version for OSX

[RayB]

Note: You don't want to save as JPEG until your comic is completely finished. JPEG "destroys" parts of the image to compress it down.

[Crowquill]

Awesome comic fonts at blambot.com. Free for non-commercial use. I bought the ZAP pack from ComiCraft's web page (comicbookfonts.com, $30), but I prefer the Blambot fonts.

Are you scanning in the artwork? If so, at what stage is the scanned artwork (pencils, inks)?

[Havok]

As the topic says, I'm looking to start making an online web comic and am trying to find software for the artwork. I'm running a mac (osx 10.3) and am looking for somthing either free or cheap. I know Adobe Illusrator would work well for what I need but the $500 cost of the program doesn't look to nice for my already empty wallet. ( or for explaining it to my wife. )

I plan on using a shareware program called Comic Life to splice it all together, and add text bubbles. The program works with any Jpeg image so I would need the art to end up in that format.

<edit>I guess it's not a shareware program anymore, still $25 isn't to bad.<edit>

Any suggestions would be great. Thank you.

P.S. I hope this is the right tread for this.
I'm looking for a program.                                 = Software forum.
To make cartoon art                                          = Artwork forum.
Which has nothing to do with arcade controls  = Everything Else forum.

This one made the most sense to me though.

Should have bought a PC, and Illustrator - still would be less than what you paid for the Mac...

 

As far as for a usefull suggestion - Gimp is pretty good, but it is more like Photoshop, not Illustrator.

[Shape D.]

Are you scanning in the artwork? If so, at what stage is the scanned artwork (pencils, inks)?

I will probobly be scanning it in after inking it and then coloring in and shading with the computer.

Should have bought a PC, and Illustrator - still would be less than what you paid for the Mac...

I've had the mac for 4 years now. I've been using it for audio recording, and "home office" use.

I did however find a copy of illustrator 7.0 That I bought off a friend for $5. Now I just need to install Mac Classic (9.2) back into my computer so I can run it.

[Crowquill]

It sounds like you should be in pretty decent shape.

You can download GIMP for free, and use it to color your artwork. You can then use Illustrator to create word balloons and effects. Some good tutorials can be found here:

http://www.balloontales.com/tips/index.html

The most difficult part is going to be figuring out how to use GIMP to do the coloring since pretty much all tutorials talk about Photoshop. It shouldn't be too much different though. I wouldn't worry too much about versions and fancy new features, 10 years ago, me and some friends experimented (successfully) with coloring and lettering comics with Photoshop 3 and Illustrator 5.5. One of us even ended up coloring professionally for a while using PS3. And all of that was done on PowerMac 7500s. The only thing that will be a slight pain is dealing with the Classic environment.

Comic life looks like it might work pretty well (I'm downloading it now to try it out). If the balloon and effects are adequate you could probably just color the artwork with GIMP and use the Blambot fonts directly in Comic Life. You'd have more control with Illustrator, but ease-of-use may beat it out.

Good luck with the comics! You'll have to update us how it's going.

[Shape D.]

It sounds like you should be in pretty decent shape.

If I could draw, yes. Unfortunately I can't. luckally most comics are rough outlines, and then colored in. And I have a tendency to think of funny situations. But that still doesn't change the fact that I can't draw.

[RayB]

A good way of coloring scanned in line drawings is to first set up a top layer with the line drawing, LOCK the layer and set it to MULTPLY blend mode.

Then create layers underneath for color and color away! (don't color on the top line layer!)

[Chris]

It sounds like you should be in pretty decent shape.

If I could draw, yes. Unfortunately I can't. luckally most comics are rough outlines, and then colored in. And I have a tendency to think of funny situations. But that still doesn't change the fact that I can't draw.

Being funny is far more important than being able to draw...

And why restrict it to a Web comic?  Unless it's "adult" humor, go for broke and submit it to one of the syndicates!    It won't hurt to try.... (And remember that even Dilbert was rejected by at least one syndicate before United Media bought it...)

[SirPoonga]

Because it's easy to do a webcomic

See the webcomic thread in EE.

[RayB]

There's way too much competition with the syndicates. It's better to build up a following online first.

[Shape D.]

And why restrict it to a Web comic?  Unless it's "adult" humor, go for broke and submit it to one of the syndicates!    It won't hurt to try.... (And remember that even Dilbert was rejected by at least one syndicate before United Media bought it...)

Because it's easy to do a webcomic

It would be, in my naive opinion, easier to work on a web comic than dealing with some kind of a syndicate and a "hard deadline" . Plus It's a D&D based comic so my marketability for it wouldn't be great.

[AmericanDemon]

Here ya go.  Fresh off the presses. 

Welcome to Comic Book Creator, the automated program that allows you to easily take graphic images and turn them into an action-packed, fun-filled comic book story! Comic Book Creator provides over 500 page layout templates and a library of graphic images you can select to create your very own comic book.

The provided graphic images are from the Massively Multi-Player Online Game RYL: Path of the Emperor, a role playing game from Planetwide Games. You can also use your own graphic images in your comic book as well.

Comic Book Creator also provides text and graphics formatting tools you can use to create your comic book content. With classical comic book features, such as word graphics, story boxes, and text, you can create a truly original comic.

With Comic Book Creator you can make the high-quality comics you always wanted. Simply print your comics on your home printer and share your comic book with your friends!

http://www.planetwidecomics.com/content.php?article.3.255