This video covers how to assemble a Drop Comic. There is an embedded YouTube version right in the page. It has low video quality and mono sound. But the biggest problem is the YouTube logo obscures text in the video. Doh! There are two ways around this. One, double click on the video and you'll see it play on YouTube. This solves the logo problem. Two, a high quality stereo version is available for download. Right click to download or left click to see it in your browser. The HQ version is 34 MB.

For you behind the scenes types, the video was made on an iMac. I used the following software...

• iMovie (editing) free
• Garageband (music) free
• Amadeus Pro (sound editing) $40
• OS X Speech - Adam (computer voice) free
• Vox Machina (computer voice recording) free
• iShowU (screen capture) $20
• MPEG Streamclip (video converter) free

I made the video and did the music track in one night, so be kind in the comments.

The Good - The inking for the entire Toast drop comic is complete.

The Bad - I noticed an alignment problem with the art from page to page. This happened as I printed sample copies and had everything ready for launch. So I had to go back and reengineer the template that is used in the publishing kit. Since the kit was being updated I also had to edit the instructions. I've finished the new templates so tomorrow I'll be repopulating the new templates with the Toast artwork.

New launch date? If all goes well... let's say Thursday. See you then!

The final page (12) is more then halfway inked. I've been staying up till 4 AM inking but tonight I am knocking off 3 hours early. After page 12 is done I still need to do the cover.

Once inking is complete I will be updating the Publishing Kit to include all the little things I've learned this past week.

The tentative launch date for Drop Comics is Tuesday, October 7th so keep your fingers crossed!

Just taking a break from inking my Toast comic. I'm on page 7 of the 12 page story. Here is page 6 for your inspection.

I removed the text from the page as not to give the story away.

In other news, after completing the first 4 pages, I went ahead and ran them through the publishing process. A Drop Comic came out with a few minor flaws, like art not going to the margin. easily fixable. I also learned the difference between flipping the art vs rotating it, when it comes to text. Hint - rotate, don't flip.

It is pretty exciting. I can't wait to start dropping copies around town.

Okay, back to the ink pits.

Since this is the first ever Drop Comic, it means I am still working out the kinks of the system. So i'll be posting about the process until the Drop Comic is completed.

Here is a quick rundown of my workflow. First I made a blank Drop Comic. Folded and trimmed it. I numbered the pages. Cover and inside cover, pages 1-12 and the inside back and the back. I didn't staple the Drop Comic because I wanted to be able to lay the paper flat so I could draw a rough layout of the comic in it.

I then drew a final version of the comic on 4 Up panel sheets (soon to be included in the Publishing Kit). The Kit does contain a 2 Up panel sheet but I don't like to draw that large. Anyway, I used a blue pencil and then scanned that into the computer at 144 DPI.

Next I imported the scan into the vector graphics program LineForm. I then proceeded to use the computer tools to ink the pages.

Next up is a test, I'll copy the four completed pages onto the Drop Comics template, create a PDF and print, fold, staple and trim it. I'll report on the results in my next post.