Grizzly & The Bear Patrol #15 Printed

[kybearfuzz]

One of my morning errands was to finally get a printed copy of last comic book issue.

There is a little something fun about holding the printed copy of the comic book in my hands. As usual, I ran to Kinko's to get it done. Today, I was helped by a guy named Rod, who is usually an okay guy, but he must be having a crappy morning. I cracked a joke and he didn't even blink. So I made my request and he started working on it in awkward silence while I waited.


Still, the result was good. I have to admit that it seems to come out darker than it does on the computer screen. I do the comic in "RGB" and I have heard that I should do them in "CYMK" color mode. However, since the comic is primarily an online comic, RGB is supposed to be better. I need to check into some kind of conversion for the printing, especially if I go forward with any plans to print these in the future.

Once I have the printed copy, I put them in plastic sleeves, with the original artwork and the finished product on opposing pages.


The end result is pretty compact and easy to shelve, so I can pull them and take a look at them later for reference.

Comments

[texwriterbear.livejournal.com]

I want copies :-)

[kybearfuzz.livejournal.com]

I've been thinking about doing a printing of trade paperbacks, thanks to information given to me by pink_halen. I just haven't had a chance to really sit down and set it up.

I'll definitely post something if I do that.

[texwriterbear.livejournal.com]

Yay!!!!!!!

[mort-83.livejournal.com]

Yay Squared!!

[barak.livejournal.com]

Yay ...Infinity! (math is hard)

[notmypresident.livejournal.com]

While I'm sure that most printing companies these days will do the conversion for you, you might want to consider investing in some fairly sturdy publishing software so you can do it yourself. I used to work with XPress in the ooooooold days, and it had a feature like that with precise controls for separations. At the very least, you'll need to calibrate your monitor to ensure color purity and such. Then comes the "headache" of choosing between all of the available formats for the actual printing and whether to use spot colors or glazes and...

BTW, have you ever considered just simple gray tones for your work? I thought of that when I saw the colored versus the simple inked drawing of the bed scene. What a shame that the color seems to overwhelm the image!

[kybearfuzz.livejournal.com]

Do you have to have publishing software to convert RGB to CYMK? It seems like there should be an easy way to do it without too much expense. A friend has provided me some information where I just create a PDF of the comic and it gets printed on demand.

I've been working on a side project with a former LJ'er that is in grayscale and I have to admit, it looks pretty good. The only issue with doing that with this comic is that color is important in distinguishing different characters and different powers.

BTW, I kept the original pencils to the bed scene after barak and a few others told me it would be sad for me to ink over them. In fact, the bed scene in the book above was inked over a scanned and lightly printed copy of the original pencils instead.

[notmypresident.livejournal.com]

Do you have to have publishing software to convert RGB to CYMK?

No, of course not. But I was thinking first and foremost about your control over your art -- control in the sense of tweaking and fine-tuning, something you can't do with PDFs and such. But you should absolutely check out inexpensive ways to calibrate your monitor so that your onscreen display perfectly matches the final output. That will alleviate a lot of headaches for you.

[barak.livejournal.com]

You might try coloring in CYMK mode, saving it for press, then converting to RGB for sharing?

[kybearfuzz.livejournal.com]

I thought about that. I may give CYMK a try in the next issue. I'm plotting it out right now.

[mort-83.livejournal.com]

I didn't know that you saved each issue like that. Very nice!

[kybearfuzz.livejournal.com]

I started filing them this way early because I wanted to make sure the original art was kept intact and in order. It was my way of having a "real" comic book of sorts.

[mrdreamjeans.livejournal.com]

I look forward to the publication!!

[kybearfuzz.livejournal.com]

LOL! We'll see how it goes.

[geometrician.livejournal.com]

I don't know if it is the same thing, but as an artist, what I have learned is that RGB works best with radiant sources, such as an electronic display or something that is backlit. CMYK is best for opaque, non-backlit sources (such as my canvas with oils). For color mixing on my palette, the CMYK approach is what works, while using the RGB approach (what we all learned in grade school) doesn't. I've read a few books on color mixing, and find that the science stands with this thinking. So, if you want it to look best on a monitor, RGB is better.

My understanding is that there is no direct conversion method for going from one to the other, but I don't work in electronic media at all.