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From: ciaraldi@rochester.UUCP (Mike Ciaraldi)
Newsgroups: net.comics
Subject: Re: Shatter #1
Message-ID: <7132@rochester.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 8-Mar-85 11:01:17 EST
Article-I.D.: rocheste.7132
Posted: Fri Mar  8 11:01:17 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 11-Mar-85 05:29:27 EST
References: <770@uwmacc.UUCP>
Distribution: net
Organization: U. of Rochester, CS Dept.
Lines: 72

> Can it be that no one else has seen this excellent comic?  Or am I
> hopelessly behind the times and missed the discussion?

I have been eagerly awaiting Shatter, but as of
yesterday (3/6) it hadn't shown up in local shops.
One manager said he was wondering, because he had
already seen a review from an English magazine!

> with MacPaint, one page per MacPaint picture.  Color was done with an
> airbrush.  They say "we could create the color on the Mac, but it would
> take far, far too much time."  Any ideas what they had in mind?  I haven't
> seen any attempt at color on a Mac.

I think the only way to do color on a Mac right now is to 
make 4 pictures of the same scene, 1 representing each of
the printing colors--red, yellow, blue, and black.
You could do this by first making the monochrome picture,
making some copies, and deleting the dots that
wouldn't appear in each color.
Then if you used, say, color ribbon on the Imagewriter,
and printed onto clear paper, you could print out the
four images (each in a different color), stack them
up, and see a full-color picture.

A comic book company would just turn the 4 pictures
(printed in black) over to the printer, and the printer
(the person, not the machine) would print them with
different color inks.  

This is sort-of the way comics are done now.
With hand-separation, the usual method for Marvel and DC,
a copy of the black and white original is colored by the
colorist, and sent to "separators".  They cut out plastic film
into shapes that fill in the colored area.  An area that is
red would go onto the copy that would be printed
in red ink, an area that should be green would go onto
both the blue and yellow copies, etc.
The film has a dot pattern on it, with different films
ranging from 25% to 100% coverage.
So, to get different shades, the colorist can specify
say, 25% blue, 100% yellow for a particular green.
The separators dutifully cut out some 25% dots in the 
pattern of the green area and stick them on the green copy,
and some 100% dots for the blue copy.

The dots themselves are physically black, it's just that
when the four originals (red, yellow, blue, black) are
put into the press, either red, yellow, blue, or black
ink is loaded in.

This is somewhat of a simplification, because a modern
press prints all the colors one after the other as
the paper moves through it, but I hope you get the idea.

Most magazines use photo-separation, i.e. a series of filters
turn the full-color original into the 4 single-color copies.
This is automatic, but more expensive.

Photo-separation (and its new descendant, laser-scanning)
permit very fine increments of shading (rather than the 3
or 4 steps of each primary color), and color changes across a
very small part of the picture, rather than just as thin
as a person with a knife can cut.

All of this explains why standard comics have large areas of
constant color, and magazines like Time (or certain deluxe
comics) have a broader palette and more subtlety.

You can see more of this in the Marvel Try-Out Book.

Mike Ciaraldi
seismo!rochester!ciaraldi