Kymera Press, Inc.

We're Not Asking For Permission

Translation of Comics

By Leave a Comment

By D. Lynn Smith

Earlier this year, my friend Lorraine Watson started a discussion on Facebook about dialog. Since it was very interesting, I thought I’d give a synopsis of that conversation here.

Lorraine asked, “Do you know if word and/or bubble placement changes for comics written in languages read right to left?” I had to admit that I had no idea, but when you think about the popularity of Manga, it makes sense that the bubbles would be placed differently. Mary McFarland chimed in and said that Arabic and Hebrew were also read right to left. Mary describes herself as an Aramaic amateur researcher and a girl geek, so she was very interested in the answer to this question as well.

I went out to a board I’m on and that very same day, I had the answer courtesy of Laura Sneddon. She said, “Manhua, Hebrew and Arabic comics/cartoons are all read from right to left.  Japanese, Chinese and Korean were all traditional right to left vertical languages, though left to right is now more popular, and Hebrew and Arabic are of course, right to left too—all comics and cartoons in these languages are right to left.”

I never stopped to think about how my comics would translate into other languages.  My new colorist for Gates of Midnight, Sandra Molina, is a Spanish to English translator and has offered to translate Gates into Spanish. But that wouldn’t involve the kind of changes these other languages would entail.

So when Mary asked me how I would go about getting my comics translated into these languages, once again, I had no idea. This is where Chris Krone joined the conversation. Chris said he’d seen some manga which was relettered for English sales, the artwork had been flipped into a mirror-image before the bubbles were added.

So a new letterer would have to be hired to reletter the pages. However, that’s not what really struck me. When I was talking about writing each page, I talked about placement of some of the panels. The penciller does a lot of the arrangement, but the writer has a certain rhythm in mind—meaning I place things inside the panel in certain places for a story reason. To do a mirror image of the page, well wouldn’t that change the flow that the writer established?

I know this seems like a little thing, but it really got me thinking about the integrity of the work. Maybe the mirror image wouldn’t have much of an impact except in the writer’s mind. I mean, the pages would still be read the same way, right. But if you think about the bleed and the safety zone of the pages, how much you leave on the side so that art and words won’t get lost in the fold… I don’t know.  I think there’s a lot more to this than simply printing mirror images.

The conversation then moved on to how the deaf and hard of hearing community who use sign language might be depicted in comics. A friend of Chris’ gave him a great link to a web comic that does just that. You can see it here.

You can see that putting together a comic book is much more involved than one might originally think.

I’d also like to say that this conversation was probably the most fun I’ve had on Facebook. It’s amazing how we have all of these connections where we can get answers to questions that stump us in less than 24 hours. Thank you Lorraine, Mary and Chris for expanding my mind!

A Glimpse Inside the Comic Book Production Office – Part 2

By Leave a Comment

By Paul Daughetee

Last week I went over the hardware a production office needs to put a comic book together. Today we’ll be covering the software and processes involved in getting your comic ready to print or to submit to an online publisher.

SOFTWARE

Here at Kymera Press, we use Adobe products almost exclusively in the production of our comics. However, for all of the Adobe products I list below, there are applications from other companies that can do the job equally well.

ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CC – All of our freelance artists submit their finished artwork in a digital format—typically either Photoshop’s native PSD format or the TIFF format. Photoshop will likely be what you use to verify the submitted art meets your specifications. If it does not, you may need to use it to get the art to meet your specs . You’ll also need this if your production office is creating ads or other content for your book.

ADOBE INDESIGN CC – InDesign is the application you’ll be using to pull all of your art together in book form. It’s forte is the creation and layout of digital projects such as your comic book. When you’re done with your layout, you’ll use InDesign to export your book to a PDF document; a PDF being the preferred file format for most printers and digital publishers.

ADOBE INCOPY CC – InCopy is software used for copy editing. It feeds your copy directly into the layout you’ve created with InDesign. Although it’s not strictly necessary, it is quite useful as it allows copy editing without directly modifying the InDesign files; the InCopy files will simply be links that appear in your InDesign layout.

ADOBE ILLUSTRATOR CC – You’ll use Illustrator for creating illustrations using vector graphics that are scalable without any loss of resolution. This is very useful if you’re publishing online and need that ability to scale. You may find some artists prefer Illustrator as their primary drawing/painting tool and it is often used by comic book letterers.

PROCESSES

SPECIFICATIONS – You’re going to be taking art that’s passed through the systems of numerous creative types and trying to fit it into your book’s format. To ease that process, it’s imperative that you provide your artists with a detailed specification that delineates exactly what you want from them when they deliver their files to you.

ART PAGE SIZES AND RESOLUTIONS – For Gates of Midnight, we specified that we want our pencils and inks drawn/scanned at 300/600 dpi and at 150 percent of the finished size. For us, that corresponds to a page as follows:

• BLEED: 10.3125” x 15.75” (6188 x 9450 pixels @ 600 dpi)
• TRIM: 9.9375” x 15.375 (5963 x 9225 pixels @ 600 dpi)
• SAFE: 9.1875” x 14.625” (5513 x 8775 pixels @ 600 dpi)

Our “Final Page Format” that will be sent to our printer for offset printing of the comic is as follows:

• Bleed:  6.875” x 10.5”  (2063 x 3150 pixels @ 300 dpi)
• Trim:  6.625” x 10.25”  (1988 x 3075 pixels @ 300 dpi)
• Safe:  6.125” x 9.75”  (1838 x 2925 pixels @ 300 dpi)

FILE FORMATS – Our artists typically are working in Photoshop so all artwork is in Photoshop’s PSD file format typically. As an alternative, files can be saved and uploaded as TIFF files with NO file compression.

LAYERS – The artists should be consistent with your policies concerning layered art. Ours are as follows:

• Pencil/Inked pages will have their layers flattened prior to submission.
• Colored pages may have their layers flattened prior to submission at the discretion of the colorist.
• Lettered pages will have all lettering in a single layer separate from the art to aid in changes, corrections and the translation of the comic into other languages.
• Cover art that is submitted should always include the various graphics (art, credits, titles, etc.) in separate layers. During the production process changes and corrections are much easier if the separate layers are intact.

COLOR CALIBRATION – We urge the use of a color calibrated monitor as we here at Kymera Press use color calibrated monitors and printers when reviewing submitted art.

COLOR MODE – Our artists work in either RGB or CMYK mode but we require all art to be submitted in CMYK. We recommended that the Gamut Warning tool be used in Photoshop prior to submitting the CMYK files for review. We use the tool and art that has out-of-gamut colors is returned to the artist to have the color corrected.

COLOR SETTINGS – We provide our artists with a color settings file (.csf) to be used with Adobe products (Photoshop, Illustrator, etc.) when creating art for Kymera Press. The color settings file is based on the color settings advocated by Hi-Fi Colour Design in their book Hi-Fi Colour for Comics.

ASSEMBLY – So the creative team is done and now some assembly is required. Besides the twenty two or so pages of your comic, you’ve got a front cover, a back cover, a credits page and whatever pages you need to fill your comic book. The total number of pages must be a multiple of four as commercial printers assemble a comic book out of sheets that have two pages printed on one side and two pages printed on the other.

INSPECTION – The first step in the assembly process is to open each and every page and verify that it meets your specifications. If a page does not, either make the adjustments yourself or return the art to the creative team and let them decide how best to fix the issue.

DOCUMENT SETUP – Open Adobe InDesign and create and save a new document. Our setup is as follows:

Intent: Print
Number of Pages: 32
Start Page #: 1
Page Size: Custom
Width: 6.625 in
Height: 10.25 in
Orientation: Portrait
Margins: 0.5 in (Top/Bottom/Left/Right)
Bleed: 0.125 in (Top/Bottom/Left/Right)
Slug: 0.75 in (Top/Bottom/Left/Right)

DOCUMENT BUILD – At this point I have all of the art that’s going to go into the book in a single folder on our Dropbox site. All of the artwork at this point is in the TIFF format (no compression/no layers) and in the CMYK color space required by commercial printers. The content of this folder is a copy of all of the art that has passed the inspection process. I do not work with the original artwork as it might be altered in later printings and I want to be able to archive exactly what is going into this printing.

Open the folder containing your art and drag and drop the issue’s cover from the folder to the first page of the InDesign document. It should completely cover the white page and extend out to precisely fit the red lines that indicate the document’s bleed edge. If not, then there is a mismatch between the cover’s size and your documents settings. Go back and inspect your artwork and your specifications and adjust your InDesign document and/or artwork until there’s a perfect fit.

Repeat this step with each and every finished page that’s been created for your comic book. Save your work along the way and pat yourself on the back when you’re done. You’re close to having a finished book.

 

Next week we’ll  have the final installment of our series, How Many Artists does it take to Make a Comic Book, with part three of A Glimpse Inside the Comic Book Production Office.  Don’t miss it.

Letterer Jessica Jimerson Loves Working with an All-female Creative Team

By Leave a Comment

By Autumn Daughetee

jessicajimersonOver the past weeks Kymera Press has explored the roles of the many members of the comic book creative team, including the writer, the penciller, the inker, the colorist and the letterer. This final entry is an interview with the extremely talented Jessica Jimerson, the letterer for Gates of Midnight. Jessica shares her origins, her creative process and her thoughts on being part of an all-woman creative team.

Can you tell me a little about your professional background? Do you have formal training?

“I went to Westwood College of Technology, majoring in Game Art. I learned all the important basics of traditional and digital art, as well as the industry standard software. This in turn, is exactly the same for comic books, minus the 3D and animation programs. So the transition was an easy one.”

How did you become involved in the comic book industry? Was this a goal of yours?

“I’ve been an artist since I was very young drawing dragons and horses (my mother and late grandmother where an influence there, both [were] great traditional artists). I decided at the age of 12 I would go to college for game art and design. When I turned 21 and was finishing my last few months of college, I attended my first Comic Con in San Diego, where I met a Top Cow colorist. I ended up having a long conversation with her discussing the various programs we use and the similarities. She convinced me I should give the comic world a shot as a colorist. The following week I got an email out the blue requesting that I do pin up colorist work. I loved it and have been doing comic books ever since. I made the transition to lettering along the way, studying the various rules and techniques on my own. Since that fateful Comic Con in 2011, I’ve worked on (as colorist, letterer or both) more than 45 comic books, some of which have been showcased at several conventions and news papers, including the New York Comic.”

“Working in comic books was never a goal of mine, even though I did collect comics as a kid. My goals were set on game design. While I’ve done that too, comics have taken over as my priority.”

What is your creative process like? Can you walk me through the process you go through when you do the lettering on a comic book?

“I open up a finished colored comic page in Photoshop (I like using CS5), and check the sizing the previous artist left it at. Ensuring it fits the margins planned for, usually pages are correct and ready to go, but there are cases when a page is slightly off and I correct it. If it’s off by a lot, I consult my superior for further action. Regardless, I always check every page, because it dictates if the letters will print correctly or not. From there I open it up in Adobe Illustrator, alongside my bubble master directory where I’ve pre-created many different bubble shapes (round, off-rounded, soft-square, oval, etc.). When starting a new comic it’s important to select a bubble shape that complements the art. Most people don’t know how many different word bubble styles there are. After I select one, I try out different bubble colors, fonts, and outline stroke styles to find a unique combination that fits the comic. SXF however, unlike shapes, can never be pre-created in my book. I believe in creating them fresh and unique for every comic series. Once that is done, I usually create three variants of one page with different combinations, and send them to my superior who then decides which one (or combination of the three) works. Once that is done, I reuse the combo on the rest of the pages accordingly, mixing it up when needed for things like SXF. After a page is finished, I copy the letter work and drop it back into Photoshop where I flatten and save it out (that step is purely a personal preference, based on rendering). “

What is your favorite part of the process?

“Reading the comic! Of course I love the creative side, but once I finish a page I go back and re-read it and the way it comes together is really something special.”

What attracted you to the Gates of Midnight series?

“I love that it’s a series from an all-female team. And even though, anyone who enjoys supernatural/mystery comics will also enjoy Gates of Midnight (regardless of gender), it’s wonderful (and a first) to be part of a team that is made up of other comic-loving women. This is, and always has been, a male-dominated industry, but that is changing in recent years to make room for ladies too. To be a part of that change (even if it’s in a small way in the humble position of letterer), I was thrilled to join.”

I know it isn’t easy to get in the door of the comic book industry. If you could share advice with an aspiring comic book artist what would it be?

“Learn the tools and software involved in comic creation. Also, there are several different roles from writer to penciller to inker to colorist and letterer. Find the one that you think would best fit you and go for it. Practicing is the best way to learn anything. Then make yourself an online portfolio showcasing your work. If the jobs don’t find you immediately, don’t be discouraged. Look for them and don’t stop practicing meantime! Personally art communities like deviantART have been beneficial to me, not only for encouragement and critiques, but also for starter work as well (have to get the foot in the door somewhere).”

Ultimately, where would you like your career to go? What are your goals?

“Right now I just want to finish up my current contracts. I have five books going by different people currently. After that, who knows? I might start looking for in-studio work. I’ve worked for so many studios online; I think that would be the next logical turn of the tide. But one thing is for certain, art is always going to be a part of my future so long as I can help it.”

What do you think of Kymera Press’ mission to publish comics created by women?

“I think it’s brilliant. I know I talked a bit about this already, but yes, it’s wonderful in many ways. One way is sparking the attention of a few new-to-comics ladies (along with the hard-core veteran comic reader gals, and guys). Tilting the generally aimed at target audience is a brave and admirable thing to do.”

As a woman working in a male-dominated industry, have you faced any difficulties or opposition?

“Beyond constantly working on teams where I’m the only woman, no. But it’s very refreshing working on a team where the female characters are created to actually wear clothes that cover their physical … assets. Don’t get me wrong, I think a woman being sexy can be liberating and self-confidence boosting. But it’s nice to see some other sides of women too, which I don’t think is represented nearly enough in comics today. Women should have all variations showcased not only the one.”

I’ve asked all of the other ladies who worked on Gates of Midnight this question. It’s just for fun. If you were a comic book character who would you be?

“While I’ve always loved Spiderman’s powers and costume, I’m going to have to say Loki. Shape-shifting would never get old!”

Do you have any idols in the industry?

“While I love Stan Lee (like everyone else), I’m just a general fan of how Marvel does their overall coloring. People always ask me, ‘Marvel or DC?’ Both are fantastic, but I gotta love Marvel’s art.”

Would you like to add any other thoughts?

“Comic books are for everyone, but sometimes that gets a little lost in thunderstorms of testosterone. Companies like Kymera Press help serve as a pleasant reminder of that. So don’t forget to check out mine, and everyone else’s work in Gates of Midnight! And you can see some of my solo work on deviantART at http://jesshavok.deviantart.com.”

The Letterer

By Leave a Comment

By D. Lynn Smith

We already talked about the writer…the person who puts lots of words on the page that the reader never sees. What the reader does see is the work of the letterer.

The letterer is responsible for every word and balloon you see on the page, whether it be a caption, a thought balloon, a dialog balloon or a sound effect. They choose the font, the text size, and the shape of the balloons. They also determine the size and shape of each border (rectangle for caption or oval for dialog) and, in the case of my comics anyway, the placement of the balloons.

The placement of the balloons on the page help the reader know what to read first. Let’s say you have a balloon at the top of the page on the right-hand-side of the panel. Then there’s a balloon at the bottom of the panel on the left hand side. Will you read left to right? No, you read the top balloon first.

First panel

The shape of the balloon can tell you all kinds of things. If someone is yelling and angry:

Second Panel

Or startled:

Third panel

Or maybe they are reading a letter:

Fourth panel

And then there are the panels where there are multiple lines of dialog by one person, broken up by another’s lines. The letterer uses connections to keep from having numerous tails going to one character…

Fifth panel

There are all kinds of rules that a letterer must keep in mind when lettering a panel. For example,don’t interrupt the eyeline between two people. The longest line or word in the dialog should be in the center of the dialog bubble. A square block of dialog inside a round bubble leaves a big white space that covers the art for no reason.

The tail of the balloon should always point to the mouth of the character, not the hand (though I know a lot of people who talk with their hands) and not the ears.

And the biggest rule, don’t cover the art.

There are also the ascetics to each bubble. For instance, Nikki Foxrobot, who lettered the first issue of Gates of Midnight, had these nice long tails on the bubbles that I just loved. When Jessica Jimerson took over on Issue #2, she had shorter tails. I asked her to make them longer, which she did.

Hopefully the reader isn’t thinking about any of these things. The art of the letterer means that they are invisible. Once the reader gets hooked into the story the words on the page blend into the art and the reader is swept away into a world of art and imagination.

Once again this is just a short overview of the art of the letterer. A comic book can be completely ruined by a letterer who doesn’t know what they are doing. On the other side of the coin, a comic book can be greatly enhanced by a good letterer.

Next week we hear from our letterer Jessica Jimerson on how she came to be a letter and the art behind what she does. So stay tuned…

Kymera Press Articles

Follow Us

Sign Up For Our Newsletter