I also sold the heck out of my comic book. This was what my table looked like Saturday morning:

Saturday morning, before the convention started.

…and here’s what it looked like Sunday morning, after Saturday’s brisk sales:

The day after.

I sold out of all of my trade paperbacks and several comics by Saturday night, leaving me only with comics to sell on Sunday.

Sales-wise, I did much better this year than at last year’s SPX. Part of it may have been luck, but I think these factors helped:

• Color. This year, my table was absolutely drenched in color. I had Ka-Blam printed comics, Ka-Blam printed trade paperbacks, Ka-Blam printed flyers, color signs, and color business cards.
• Better cover art. The covers of the two 40-page comic books caught attention and advertised the Lore, Vol. 1 trade paperback. I’m happy with the cover art for Lore, Vol. 1, but it’s passive. The 40-page comic covers show far more conflict, contrast, story and dimension. Plus, they gave passers-by a glimpse of characters not shown on the Lore, Vol. 1 cover.
• Handing out free stuff. I brought older Pocket Editor and Lore comics, tucked a color business card into each one, and handed them out like trick-or-treat candy. After I ran out of those, I handed out the full-color Ka-Blam flyers. After I ran out of those, I handed out my full-color business cards. After receiving a freebie, some attendees stopped to look at my table to see what else I had. Some of those visitors would then make a purchase.
• Free sketch with EVERY purchase. In the past, I lacked the confidence that I could draw fast enough. I would offer a free sketch for trade paperback purchases but not for comic book purchases. This time, I drew several sketches in advance and had them ready-to-go so that I could offer a free sketch with every purchase:
  

  Sunday Sketches

  Even then, I had to keep drawing through the convention and Saturday night to keep up. However, I always had at least two sketches ready to offer a customer.

• Vertical displays. At previous conventions, I used only two plate stands to display my work. The rest of the comics would lay flat on the table, nearly invisible to passers-by. Not this year. I bought three extra plate stands from Bed Bath & Beyond, and I used them to prop up everything. This made my work more visible, blasting everyone with Ka-Blam color within a 10-foot radius.
• Complimenting attendees who wore cool T-shirts. SPX attendees this year wore some of the coolest T-shirts I have ever seen. One girl walked by with a “Self-Rescuing Princess” shirt. As a video game addict and *huge* fan of Legend of Zelda, I had to compliment her on her awesome shirt. We struck up a conversation, and I showed her the Lore, Vol. 1 page where Missy did her own self-rescue. She got a laugh, and within minutes I got a sale.

Many thanks to Pam Bliss and Suzanne Baumann for being excellent roommates and for the pro tips, John Bintz for the tech tips, Carla Speed McNeil for the business tips, Shawn P. Murphy for taking pix of me at my table, and Roberto Ortiz for the VFX discussion. Also, congrats to Denise Sudell for winning this year’s SPX posters! And thanks to everyone else who helped make SPX 2010 one of the most fun convention experiences ever. You are all the best.

I compiled Lore #9-12 into two 40-page comics and drew these covers for the two reprint issues. I have also relettered Lore #9-11 with my more legible “Lore” font.  Both reprint issues will be available soon through IndyPlanet and DriveThruComics.

I drew each of these covers in Manga Studio EX 4.0 on my Motion Computing LE1600 Tablet PC at 1200dpi resolution for a 5.5×7.5″ image. I modeled the pipes, chairs, ceiling and tables in LightWave 3D and imported the LightWave object files into Manga Studio for rendering as background elements. When finished, I exported the layers in Photoshop format as an antialiased 300dpi PSD file. I then used Photoshop for coloring, compositing and text elements.

The perceived resolution also looks much, much higher than the true 300dpi of the images. At a reading distance, each page looks like a 600 or 1200dpi print, even though the images are only 300dpi.

This higher perceived resolution is made possible by two things: antialiasing and Ka-Blam’s ability to print insanely fine grayscale tones.

I’ll explain the easier one first. Page 4 of the Ka-Blam sampler (a sample page from Sara Turner’s The Search for Lennox) and the very first “puzzle piece” page of Lore, Vol. 1 demonstrate Ka-Blam’s supremely fine grayscale tones. Ka-Blam may request 300dpi originals, but they use a machine capable of far higher resolutions than 300dpi, and they lavish this high resolution on the grayscale tones.

In short, each pixel element on a 300dpi image is made up of even finer dots when printed through Ka-Blam.

So, an artist can get greater perceived resolution out of a Ka-Blam print if he uses antialiasing, a technique normally reserved for graphics displayed on low-resolution displays like televisions and computer screens:

The Sphinx on the left uses no antialiasing. Only black and white pixels define the image. The “staircase” look of the diagonal lines is called “aliasing.” The Sphinx on the right uses antialiasing. Black, white, and 254 levels of gray pixels inbetween define this image. The gray pixels smooth the appearance of the image.

Normally, high-resolution aliased images are used in print. This is because the printer uses only black ink on white paper, so images are best defined with only black and white pixels. A gray pixel would get translated into black-and-white pixels, and at high resolutions, the printer normally runs out of pixels. This risks making a high-resolution antialiased image look “fuzzy” when printed.

However, Ka-Blam’s printers work at resolutions so much higher than 300dpi that, contrary to conventional printing wisdom, an antialiased image can look better. When confronted with a gray pixel on a 300dpi image, a Ka-Blam machine does not run out of resolution to define the gray pixel. The resulting tone will look fuzzy when examined closely with a magnifying glass, but it will still look smoother than a 300dpi image that uses only black and white pixels.

So…an antialiased image can work best for Ka-Blam reproduction. At SPX last weekend, most people could tell the difference between an aliased and antialiased 300dpi image on a Ka-Blam printer. Some could not. For those who want to create antialiased images of their work, though, the following tutorial is for you.

STEP 1: Start with a high-resolution original.

I’m not going to discuss scanning techniques here. That’s a whole tutorial in and of itself. Just start with a 600dpi or 1200dpi original that prints perfectly on a 600dpi or 1200dpi laser printer.

STEP 2: Convert the image to “Grayscale” in an image editor

An antialiased image needs grayscale pixels. If you start with a 1-bit “Bitmap” image that’s defined only with black and white pixels, some image editing programs will not be able to antialias the image when they reduce the size. If the image is already in “Grayscale” or “RGB” mode, this step is not necessary.

This step is also not necessary if you use the Irfanview freeware program to resize your images to 300dpi. IrfanView converts bitmap images to grayscale and resamples the image while scaling in one step. An image editor like Photoshop, however, requires that the user first convert a bitmap image to grayscale for antialiasing while scaling. In Adobe Photoshop, you’ll find it under “Image->Mode->Grayscale.”

STEP 3: Resize the image

Again — if you’re using IrfanView, skip step 2.

1. In IrfanView, go to “Image->Resize/Resample.”
2. Activate “Preserve aspect ratio” and set the DPI to 300.
3. Under “Size method,” choose “Resample (better quality)” and leave it at its default “Lanczos” filter.
4. Then define the size. If you’re starting from a 600dpi image, set the new size to 50%. If you’re starting from a 1200dpi image, set the new size to 25%. You’ll find the size definition under “Set new size as percentage of original.”
5. In the upper-left hand corner, confirm that the “New size” is smaller than the “Current size.” If not, you might have to enter the percentage value again.
6. Then hit “OK” to create a 300dpi, antialiased version of your original image.
7. Go to “File->Save As” to save this image out under a different filename. That way, you can return to your higher-resolution original in case anything goes wrong.

In Photoshop, follow Step 2 and convert your image to “Grayscale” mode. Then…

1. Open up “Image->Image Size”
2. Make sure “Resample Image” is activated, and leave it at its default of “Bicubic.”
3. In the “Resolution” box, type in “300.”
4. Click “OK” to create a 300dpi antialiased version of the high-resolution original.
5. Use “File->Save As” to save out this 300dpi version under a different filename from the original.

Both Photoshop and Irfanview give you a choice of antialiasing filters. In Photoshop, the “Bicubic” filter works fine for antialiasing comics art. In Irfanview, I have not seen much difference between the filters when reducing the size of black-and-white artwork, so I leave it at its default of “Lanczos.” Now that you know the above steps, consider experimenting to see what filters you like best.

NOTE for Manga Studio users

Folks using Manga Studio for their comics don’t need the above steps to generate antialiased 300dpi images for Ka-Blam. If they’re drawing at 600 or 1200dpi in Manga Studio, all they need to do is export the results at 300dpi in “RGB” mode for antialiased 300dpi images of their work. Lore, Vol. 1 was exported at 300dpi in “RGB” mode out of a 1200dpi Manga Studio EX 3.0 project.

Happy Antialiasing!