The font[s] should be legible. Do you think we should use all caps, or just write it normally? Unless the font is all caps. On this site, you can download more fonts.

Everyone's drawing in his/her own style, right?

I like the idea of a cover contest.

We'll also need a page with all the contributors to the Jam. And that leads to who is actually going to do this. So if you are, tell us.

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Brilliant.
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Shameless plugging, hurray!

I like the contest idead too. :) Maybe the person who ends up designing the cover should do the credits page as well? That way they'll match?

Font legibility depends on the font we choose, the size of the font, and the page resolutions. The higher the res, the crisper the fonts will look. The fonts in comics usually are all caps; that's probably to make it easier to read as well. I'll toss in a vote for all-caps fonts.

And yes, the pages will all be done in the artists' individual styles.

High res would be good, All caps sounds good to, I'm up for about anything on the rest of it.
Bleeds are something I'm not sure of, I could go either way on those.

Cover Contest sounds like a good idea.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I've never has a heart, Never know love.

Yet you expect me to care, to care about you.

Now you're staring at me, You stare at me as your love fades to grey.

What did you expect, Did you expectg me to love, love you with a heart I've never had?

Well specs for viewing on the net are much simpler than for print. Just to be safe though, I think the intial specs of making the pages should be for print and then they can be adjusted for the net.

Here are the specs that a printer would want for a traditional comic format that we can use for reference (and at best case we know we can send it to a Print On Demand printer if we get to that point).

Trim: 6.625x10.25"
Live Area: 6x9"
Margins: Top .5", Bottom: .75", Sides:.3125'
Bleed: 6.875x10.5"
Resolution 300 DPI
File Type .Tiff or .PSD (I vote for .Tiff but that's the format I'm used to).

The Cover contest is a good idea. I may be able to swing some sort of prizes for the winner.

I'm cool with those standards. On the other hand, I feel more comfortable saving at a higher resolution than just 300. I don't like that it's the bare minimum for good print quality.

Heh... have we even chosen a title for this thing?

Okay, I'm goona go and ask the questions everyone thinks is going to make them look stupid,

What is the difference between trim and Margins?

What is the difference between .Tiff and .PSD

And for the Margine measurements, I don't understand the the side one, .3125' What is that?

Okay, I think thats all for know, I really hope the other artist notice this thread.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I've never has a heart, Never know love.

Yet you expect me to care, to care about you.

Now you're staring at me, You stare at me as your love fades to grey.

What did you expect, Did you expectg me to love, love you with a heart I've never had?

Trim: the total, final dimensions of the actual page in the book.

Margin: the white space between any given side of the artwork and the actual edge of the paper it's on (think lined paper and the space between the edge and the pink line).

0.3125 is...well, exactly what it says. Three-thousand one-hundred twenty-fve ten-thousanths of an inch.

Or 3/10 of an inch. Whatever floats your boat. :)

As for *.tiff vs. *.psd, I couldn't really tell you the technical differences. All I know is that art looks loads spiffier when saved as one of those (that and they retain layers for future edits). I'm certain David could explain it, though. :) *nudges David*

Well here's the terms as per what a printer is looking at:

Trim – the edge of the comic book page. This is the finished size of your book.

Live Area – the middle of the comic page. The area that all important art, type, word balloons, etc should appear. No necessary art, type or graphics should appear outside this area. If your supplied art contains type or image outside the live area there is the possibility that it will be cut off during trimming.

Margins – the white area above, below, left and right of the live area. Art can continue outside the live area into the margins, but this should never be a crucial part of the page as it comes close to the trim line and could be cut off.

Bleed – the portion of art at the edge of the comic page that extends beyond the trim size. If your art goes to the edge of the page, it is important that there is enough extra art to extend past the trim line. This is so that we can cut into the art so no white edge will be left on the page after trimming. Art that extends into the bleed will be cut off at the trim line, and should never include type or word balloons (unless you want them to be trimmed off at the page edge for some artistic reason).

And for TIFF and PSD, they both can hold the layers of image (like how you can have layers in Photoshop). PSD is this the specific file format for Photoshop (Hence the PS of PSD). TIFF can also contain mutliple images in a single file (like a fax) and doesn't lose compression like a JPEG can.

For more of Tiff (in a way more techinical term) you can go to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tagged_Image_File_Format

Basically they're the same type of files, it just that Microsoft made one and Photoshop made the other.

And I just realized I repeated alot of what Joey just said :P

Title? Uhm, title? I vote to just keep it simple and call it "Mangapunk", but I'm open to suggestions.

Hmm. "Manga Punk Comic Jam '06" could suffice, but even so I think we should at least have a more specific title pertaining to the story itself--at least as a subtitle.

Thank you! I knew what a few of those menat, but most of them I was guessing on, its never good to guess on things if the project invloves other people.

Anyway, I'm glad that was cleared up so now we're at least one step closer to the goal.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I've never has a heart, Never know love.

Yet you expect me to care, to care about you.

Now you're staring at me, You stare at me as your love fades to grey.

What did you expect, Did you expectg me to love, love you with a heart I've never had?

Sorry I'm late again. I too like the idea of a cover art contest.
The highest my scanner scans at is 300dpi x_x

http://neilak20.deviantart.com/
http://www.drunkduck.com/Soapbox_Hill/
http://www.drunkduck.com/Late_Entry_DDCW/

I've said something about the title for this on the writer's thread. It's December already and this could go well into 2007...But we started in '06 so it shouldn't matter.

The MPCJ sounds like a good abbreviation.

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Brilliant.
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Shameless plugging, hurray!

I think we have enough feedback to say a contest we shall have. :) I've edited the original post accordingly.

Caramel: Could you restate what you said in the writer's thread in here so we can have the info organized? :)

Niela: Ouch! Do you have access to another printer by any chance? If not, we'll all just have to stick with scanning at 300 dpi.

David: Would it be a bad idea to increase the dpi after scanning?

No no, I just said that we didn't have a title. ^^;

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Brilliant.
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Shameless plugging, hurray!

Oh, okay. x3

SO is everyone okay with the standard David has proposed? All those in favor say "aye," and all those opposed come up with something better. :)

If you scanned the original image at say 300 dpi and then latter in say photoshop increased the dpi to 600, that would cause a blurry image (more noticable in print). You can always scan high and then go down, but not the other way around. Honestly considering that internet graphics (like gifs and jepgs) are at 72 dpi I think that 300 is more than enough. It's good enough for the printer and for the web. Any larger DPI means the image has to be resized to fit online and the file size will be much larger.

Also I think that Manga Punk Comic Jam '06 is fine. If we want to be more "punkish" we can say it's issue #M as for Mangapunk :P

#M? Okay. xD

#M. . .Nice, I like it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I've never has a heart, Never know love.

Yet you expect me to care, to care about you.

Now you're staring at me, You stare at me as your love fades to grey.

What did you expect, Did you expectg me to love, love you with a heart I've never had?

Sorry I've been late to reply, its the week before Finals x_x

No I dont have access to another scanner/printer, 300dpi's as high as I can go. I think the dimensions David set out should work well.
I like the basic "Manga Punk Comic Jam '06" Title, with luck we can do another one next year. I bet things will go faster after the first go round.

http://neilak20.deviantart.com/
http://www.drunkduck.com/Soapbox_Hill/
http://www.drunkduck.com/Late_Entry_DDCW/

And the second would be #M2...Yay!

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Brilliant.
---
Shameless plugging, hurray!

The first time through is always a learning experience.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I've never has a heart, Never know love.

Yet you expect me to care, to care about you.

Now you're staring at me, You stare at me as your love fades to grey.

What did you expect, Did you expectg me to love, love you with a heart I've never had?

I was thinking the second issue would be Issue #A and then the third would be #N and so on...

Seriously though, it's sounds like we have our format, so we can get started on the art now (or get started after is school done for alot of you).

Oh here's some samples of my artwork so one of you can plan to do my pages :)

http://www.nightgig.com/davidsvault/page1.html
http://www.nightgig.com/davidsvault/page2-1.html
http://www.nightgig.com/davidsvault/page3-1.html

First link doesn't work.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I've never has a heart, Never know love.

Yet you expect me to care, to care about you.

Now you're staring at me, You stare at me as your love fades to grey.

What did you expect, Did you expectg me to love, love you with a heart I've never had?

Okie dokie. The specifications we've decided on are now stated in the original post.

Now we need to discuss the issues of inking vs. pencilling and lettering.

http://www.nightgig.com/davidsvault/page1.html

Thank you!

I'm all for inking, my scanner won't pick up images unless I ink them.

Lettering. . .could be some issues on my end. . .meh, nothing that can't be fixed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I've never has a heart, Never know love.

Yet you expect me to care, to care about you.

Now you're staring at me, You stare at me as your love fades to grey.

What did you expect, Did you expectg me to love, love you with a heart I've never had?

No disrespect to lettering, but isn't it possible (and more efficient) for one person to do all the Lettering?

Everyone has to either ink or pencil their work very darkly in order for the final image to have crisp, clearly defined lineart. I would personally suggest that we all ink our work because ink produces cleaner lineart and is easier to work with on Photoshop or what have when it comes to layering. Would any artists like to argue against that?

David: I suppose you're right. Are you volunteering?

Ah! I just thought of another issue: Colored? Toned? Shaded? Cross-hatched a la MegaTokyo? Are all of these acceptible?

I can try, but skill level on such things is pasting word balloons and caption boxes on the page. Fancy SFX stuff is beyond me and my graphic design skills may not be on par with others on the site.

Not trying to get out of doing it, just letting you know the level of quality you'll be getting out of me

How shall we divy up the pages? Such as who will be doing what section?

(I figure its probably been posted somewhere already and I just missed it. Still it doesnt hurt to ask and all.)

David, just do your best. The point of this is to have people of different levels gaining the same valuable experiance of working together on a project and learning from it.

Joey, I think the artists should render their work however they're used to working. I was going to go B/W with hatching/cross hatching. I'm trying to shy away from Tone, because I tend to OverTone x_x However, I can tone if required and I can color if required.

http://neilak20.deviantart.com/
http://www.drunkduck.com/Soapbox_Hill/
http://www.drunkduck.com/Late_Entry_DDCW/

I guess it would be best if everyone's pages were done in different techniques as well as styles. I was just wondering if there was any particular technique any one had a problem with.

David: Niela's right. This project is about learning and doing your best. :) In any case, if you decide you're not up to it, I'll be willing to do it. Niela and I probably the ones with the best idea of what we're doing in terms of lettering anyhow.

Great the project is turning against me now :P Seriously I see you're point and give it a shot. Oh lookie, old work of my lettering :)

http://www.nightgig.com/davidsvault/eod1.html
http://www.nightgig.com/davidsvault/covera.html

Here's the idea I had for the pages? But it's open to dicussion.
Neila - Pages 1 - 4
Reiko - Pages 5 - 8
Joey - Pages 9 - 12
Zombiekittykat - Pages 13 - 16
? - Pages 17 - 20
David - Pages 21 - 22 (Like how I gave myself the least amount :P ).

At the very least, I think we should keep it B&W.

That wasn't so bad, David! Here's all you need right here! :)

Free Balloons and SFX

The links for fonts are in the original post. ;)

Hmm, all those balloons are for Illustrator. I use Photoshop because well that's all I have. I'm sure I'll find stuff to work with though.

Actually, I use those exact balloons on PS; and they've done the trick just fine for me.

By the way, who is doing the omake?

Should we give David creative control in terms of fonts, or should we decide on that collectively?

Where on earth is Zombiekittykat? 0.o

Where's Lexy? Wasn't she supposed to do the lettering?

I guess not....Haven't see her since....never! O_O

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Brilliant.
---
Shameless plugging, hurray!

She was last here 27 hours ago checking out the writers' thread--at least according to the tracking system. Apparently, since her last post on October 16th, she has gone from boarder to lurker.

I'd honestly say we worry about the Omake after everything else is done. Oh and currently my home PC is MIA, so while I'll be able to draw and ink by hand (and get it scanned in on another PC), lettering will be undoable for the time being.

Then I guess we'll assign a letterer once we're done with all the art...

...not to mention the proofreading. *cough*

I should be able to get started on my pages next week ^_^ if things go well, I'll have them done next week too ~_^

(Sorry I havent done any proofreading x_x )

http://neilak20.deviantart.com/
http://www.drunkduck.com/Soapbox_Hill/
http://www.drunkduck.com/Late_Entry_DDCW/

Someone still needs to edit pages 21 and 22 (plus omake). Any volunteers?

I'll do the Omake. I think I know an artist who wanted to sign on, she tried earlier today, but this page wouldn't open for her, so she said she would try and post again.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I've never has a heart, Never know love.

Yet you expect me to care, to care about you.

Now you're staring at me, You stare at me as your love fades to grey.

What did you expect, Did you expectg me to love, love you with a heart I've never had?

Are we doing this so it reads right to left or left to right?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I've never has a heart, Never know love.

Yet you expect me to care, to care about you.

Now you're staring at me, You stare at me as your love fades to grey.

What did you expect, Did you expectg me to love, love you with a heart I've never had?

I'd say do it for the english way from right to left. That way it's more accessible to all potential readers (hmm that makes me wonder that Manga's left to right hinders possible sales, anyways) and it would be easier for a printer to process if it comes to that (like they get the files and think they're mirror flipped and flips them "right").

The english way is left to right.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I've never has a heart, Never know love.

Yet you expect me to care, to care about you.

Now you're staring at me, You stare at me as your love fades to grey.

What did you expect, Did you expectg me to love, love you with a heart I've never had?

I'll edit 21 and 22 right now...If I can find the thread...

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Brilliant.
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Shameless plugging, hurray!

Hey, always had trouble remembering my right from my left.

The thread is http://www.mangapunk.com/forum/comicking/writing/mp_comic_jam_writers_thread

*raises hand hesitantly*

I guess I'll do the omake...I doubt I'll do a good job, though...

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Brilliant.
---
Shameless plugging, hurray!