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A
guide to creating the best looking line art in print in the new
digital print world
Greetings!
Mechanical tone that has shifted and shrunk over time, cleaned and adjusted and whole again
Welcome to the first
installment of Ink to Pixel to Ink Again,
a (mostly) weekly series that will be running here at A
Moment of Cerebus until I run
out of time or things to say.
Are you a fan of a long-extinct comic or illustrator, looking to produce new editions of that work? A graphic arts professional looking to wring every bit of detail out of a pile of originals? A publisher tearing your hair out over dealing with photographic negatives, or problems with your printer? A pen and ink enthusiast sitting on your first masterpiece, but unsure how to best bring it to print? A Cerebus fan wondering how we've been producing the newly restored books? My mother, wondering why I don't call anymore? Then this series might be for you!
As
I'm writing these weekly, with time constraints, each post might not always end up breaking neatly into separate topics, but my
hope is that, read sequentially, they'll be able to function as a
how-to to creating the best looking line art in print in the new
digital print world.
A
Little Bit About Me
My
name is Sean Michael Robinson, and I'm a writer, illustrator,
musician, and father (and not necessarily in that order.) I've done a
lot of different kinds of things with my 37 years, but none have been
quite the same type of challenge as the Cerebus
restoration project.
In
September of 2013 Dave Sim began posting messages on A
Moment of Cerebus detailing his
problems working towards getting new versions of the first two
volumes of Cerebus
back in print. The two books were plagued by image quality problems,
the most dire of which was moire, an undesired pattern resulting from sampling a screen with another screen, visible across most of the screen tone.
As
the news from Dave became more dire, I chimed in more and more
frequently in the comments. Being a lifelong print obsessive, and
having recently completed my own first commercially-available book
(Down in the Hole: the unWired World of H.B. Ogden,
co-written with Joy Delyria and
illustrated and designed by me), I had plenty of opinions about the
subject of reproduction. (Most of which I would upend over the next
few weeks!)
After
a few months of this stalemate with his printer and production person, Dave sent me unbound
copies of the two books along with the production files. A few weeks and one successful print test later, I had a new mission — to restore the 6,000 page Cerebus
page by page, book by book, using the best available materials on a
page by page basis: aged original art, photo negatives, scans of
print materials of all kinds. Combinations of multiple sources. Nothing was off limits.
Now,
several years after coming on the job, I've restored almost 150
issues, over 3,000 pages of comics. What was once an intellectual
challenge has now become somewhat routine (if still laborious).
Having finally hit the plateau, it seems like it's time to share a
bit of the knowledge I've picked up along the way.
a negative "cleaned" of developer schmutz solely with curves/levels adjustments in Photoshop
On the right: a scan from the 8th printing of Cerebus Volume One.On the left: the same panel restored from a print scan of the original monthly issue. Click to enlarge.
On the right: a scan from the 8th printing of Cerebus Volume One.On the left: the same panel restored from a print scan of the original monthly issue. Click to enlarge.
Some
Caveats, Some Analogies
If
you're a cartoonist at the beginning of your journey with your
skills, if you're mainly interested in making a zine, getting 200
copies of your latest work into the hands of some readers, don't
waste your time here. Make your originals proportional to a folded
sheet of 8.5” x 11 (or 8.5” x 14”) paper and use the copier at
your office or school to run off some copies. Access to a copier and
a long-armed stapler, an afternoon of labor, and you're done. Need to add some printed text?
Some clip art or something? Print it out and paste it on with a glue
stick. A nice copier in good shape, with a clean drum and good toner,
running in “line art” mode, is going to give you results that are
as good or better (and most likely faster!) than most other
“prosumer” options out there, i.e. printing on your laser
printer. And you'll save yourself a lot of aggravation and money.
(For
more advice on cartooning and developing your abilities without
burning yourself out, please see “How Not To Make a Graphic Novel,”)
(I'm
adding this analogy as a parenthetical because I doubt it's relevant
to everyone reading this. I've also worked as a recording engineer,
one of the few things I've done in my life with any regularity that I
was actually trained to do. And I met a lot of beginning bands who
were hot to trot to record their first glorious masterpieces, just
to, you know, hear what they sounded like. And so they bought
themselves a four track or eight track, or later, a dedicated
recording computer and software, and set about trying to teach
themselves everything they needed to know about modern multi-track
recording, driving themselves nuts in the process. In my estimation,
they would have been best served to stick a single mic up in their
practice space and record themselves while they practice. Listen to
that in their spare time. Then practice some more. And if they
really, really want to document themselves in a more thorough
fashion, hire a professional to do it.
In
other words, if you're just now making your first comics, you don't
need to be worrying yourself over the merits of one scanner versus
another, or comparing sheet-fed offset versus web offset processes.
You need to be making more comics, and anything that helps you make
more comics is a net positive.)
More
Caveats
Many
of the things that I'm going to be discussing here are, in the grand
scheme of things, small differences. Some might say, nit-picky
differences. Especially considering we are talking about a narrative art form. If people are already invested in the story of your comic, yes, they're most likely happy to forgive a huge range of reproduction issues.
And
in working for print, it's worth remembering that, even if you
prepare your files perfectly, all of these fine distinctions can be
wiped out by the printer, in an instant, by checking the wrong box,
or starting your job on a poorly-maintained press.
That
being said, the finer the lines/tone/whatever being used to make your
line art originals, the more these fine distinctions make. The larger
you work/the more reduction you're applying to the image, the more
these fine distinctions matter. The better the paper you're printing
on, etc etc etc.
If
everything you draw is rendered with super chunky lines made with the
tip of a sharpie, all drawn on blotter paper, it's not going to
matter a whole lot how much sharpening you apply to an image.
Conversely, if you're reproducing a Victorian-era mezzotint or
aquatint original and printing on coated stock, all of the sudden all
of those “tiny differences” mean a hell of a lot.
It's
just these unique set of circumstances that has led to the knowledge
I have now. Cerebus
is
a unique series for a lot of reasons, but it also presents some
pretty unique challenges to a printer. Namely, use of sometimes
extremely fine mechanical tone, extremely fine-line rendering, and
large, bold application of blacks, combined with a large reduction in
size from the original artwork. (60 percent reduction from the
originals).
Actually
Getting to It
Oh,
hey, what do you say we start this thing?
The
Work Space
Here's
a shot of my current work space. When Cerebus Restoration alum Mara
Sedlins was also on board, this room actually had two standing desks,
instead of just the one you see now.
a.
the computers
Even
working at the high resolution we are for this project, it doesn't
take much money to purchase some serious power these days. These are
two Dell XPS models, designed as gaming computers and purchased at
the start of the project. Other than running the system on a solid
state disk and having a ridiculous amount of RAM, these are pretty
standard desktop models. (If you're purchasing a computer purely for
production work, I'd recommend going with a desktop, as you'll get a
lot more bang per dollar spent.)
b.
the monitors
The
computer on the left is mostly used for audio these days, but I also
use it for “Action” tasks in Photoshop. I'm going to mention
making “actions” (poor man's scripting) an awful lot in this
series, because, really, doing a bunch of boring repetitive stuff in
the background is really what computers are best at. More (much much
more!) on this in a later installment. Having a second computer
enables me to run a script on one while continuing to do
processor-intensive work on another, with no slowdown.
Anyway,
the two monitors on the left are standard-definition monitors I've
picked up used over the years for a few bucks apiece. On the right
though, you'll see my DellP2715Q,
a 27” 4k monitor that has changed my workflow completely. More on
this in a future installment.
c.
a scanner!
How
does your artwork get in this here little box?
Used
to be it took a giant stat camera and a copy stand and a whole lot of
patience and skill to produce production negatives from artwork. Now
all you need is a scanner.
For
the Cerebus restoration project, almost all of the artwork is scanned
by Sandeep or by Gerhard, and delivered to me via jump drives (which
you can see scattered in front of my keyboard in the photograph of my work space) But
regardless of who's scanning the art, all of the original artwork is
scanned on this same type of scanner, the best flatbed scanner known to man —
the Epson 10000XL.
(If
you want to buy one new, you'll need to purchase an Epson 11000XL
instead. But the 10000XL is optically identical, with only the type
of ports being different on the new models.)
More on this in the very next installment...
****
And that's where we'll have to leave it for now!
I'll be adding new installments to this series weekly, every Wednesday morning. And I'll be updating the bottom of this post with links to the new installments as they come, so feel free to bookmark the post to keep current.
Questions? Things you want me to touch on in the series? Hit me up in the comments!
Edit: Part two is here!
Part three is here!
Part fooooorrrrrr!
Part the Fifth
Sean Michael Robinson is a writer, artist, and musician. See more at LivingtheLine.com.
Edit: Part two is here!
Part three is here!
Part fooooorrrrrr!
Part the Fifth
Sean Michael Robinson is a writer, artist, and musician. See more at LivingtheLine.com.
6 comments:
Very excited to get all this nit-picky detail! Thank you for taking the time to explain everything.
Yes, thanks, Sean!
As I told you earlier today, CEREBUS V1 came in and it looks MORE THAN GREAT!!! Checked all of the pages that I like to check for missing detail and all the detail is there. Great black coverage, wonderful sharp line detail. Particularly the Cerebus vs. K'Cor page from #9 that has been faded since it was first printed. If I didn't know the page I was looking for, I would have gone right past it because it's just that accurate! Well done!
Everyone else who has been waiting for the book: now's the time to ask your LCS to try ordering it. Diamond's system won't be accepting orders until it's actually in-house and ready to ship.
Sean? Save me a fax: can you check and see if CIH? #2 has the correct banner over the title? i.e. the one that's on the back cover ad?
This is fascinating, Sean! If I were to show my proofreading workspace, it would include me in my jammies, an easy chair, a legal pad, a clipboard, a ballpoint pen, the volume du jour, my timer, and a highlighter. Oh, and a cat who likes to butt in from time to time.
Definitely less glamourous. Maybe that's why we proofreaders always get the "oh, yeah, that other guy helped out, too" credits. ;)
I for one would like to ask Jeff to please NOT post a pic of his workspace jammies.
Steve
100% need the jammies picture. My guess is: not much more than a Batvark codpiece!
I'll post a pic when I buy some Batvark jammies.
I forgot to mention my most important tools, also in the workspace: the two-volume Shorter Oxford English Dictionary; the American Heritage College Dictionary, Fourth Edition; and the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition.
And, yes, sometimes I need all three.
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