Highly Recommended
I just want to bring your attention to one of the great, yet under-appreciated heroes of modern comics – Tyler Martin.
It’s all well and good being an artist… you just find the tools you want to use and get on with the job. The artist gets all the credit and attention whilst the tool maker, without whom none of it would be possible, barely gets a mention.
In the case of webcomics, one of the most important tools is your website. Without it your audience is blind and no matter what great things you create, they are doomed to obscurity.
And I, like many other fine webcomics rely on Mr Martin’s work to run my site.
I estimate that 90% of Wordpress-based webcomics use the Comicpress theme in some form to present their work… It’s easy to use and does the job beautifully…
But more than that, and why Tyler is a legend, is that it consolidated the idea that webcomics can be blogs too.
I’m pretty sure that some of you would just come here to look at the strips every day, but I think that my posts are just as important to the others… and not only that, the ability to comment and converse has been a joy. It’s helped inform, entertain and even guide me and my comics – through your participation – and all because the Comicpress theme enabled me to combine my words with my pictures.
I want you to think of Tyler Martin, as I do – one of The Flowfield Unity’s benevolent benefactors.
…
I thought this might be a good time to mention the other tools that help make and present my comics. I don’t know if you are interested in that, but a lot of comic sites seem to have an entire section dedicated to how they make their work.
Perhaps the most important tool in the creation of the strips, and one the I can highly recommend, is the television. I use a 14″ Alba… It’s black and covered in dust and books and it brings me everything I need to know.
Similarly, before I start work on any strip I like to drink coffee. It helps keep my hand steady (up to a point) and my mind focused (up to a point). I prepare this using a Kenwood kettle, water sourced from United Utilities and coffee beans from Atkinson’s in town.
Whilst the television is good for ideas, when I’m actually drawing I prefer music. Aiwa (they’re rather inexpensive and last for ages) supply me with this via my Creative Muvo Mp3 player.
And on to the actual creating… I’ll soon be using a table to draw on, but for now I just sit on the floor with my A3 college drawing board, provided by Rotring. My paper is provided by Pink Pig of Huddersfield and my pens are from Staedtler in the following sizes – 0.1, 0.3 and 0.8.
I then scan my pictures using a Canoscan scanner, resize them using GIMP and upload them to my host via FTP and tada… Wordpress and Tyler Martin do the rest.
Philippa on
I observe them using a Dell laptop and think about them using a custom-made one-off brain supplied by Mum and Dad.
Now there’s some fancy gear.
Those are very nice pens. They sound like they would be a dream to write with (I don’t draw but I do write).
I’ve never tried yoga, chess, and listening to jazz music all at the same time. It sounds like it would be fun, though perhaps a challenge what with the yoga and the reaching of the chess board. Awesome people could probably move the pieces with their toes if they were in a difficult pose.
They are good pens, but I only started using them as one was to hand. Who knows, I could have picked up a coloured crayon and this comic would be very different.
Although I’ve drawn a comic about the opposite, the truth is that I don’t mind a bit of yoga and I’m particial to good jazz music… chess however is not my sport, using hands or feet.
until you made that comment, sam, i hadnt realised that i had skipped the comic and accidentally gone straight to the post/conversation. evidently i dont come here just for the comics, although i do enjoy them.
i use my my sister’s sakura micron pens, coffee, my purple mechanical pencil with the hook-thing sawn off, my desk, and my lamp. i get most of my inspiration from history class.
my sister and i received a Wacom tablet for our birthday too, hopefully she’ll leave it alone long enough for me to learn how to use it.
Wacom tablets… I do have a soft spot for them – I used them as a typesetter.
“for our birthday”
Tia, are you a twin? Have you mentioned this before and I’ve forgotten?
What do you have against cheese?
I *love* cheese, yoga and jazz.
It’s the unholy trinity of the neo
intelligensa who have nothing better
to do on rainy saturday afternoons.
By the way, Tyler is awesome.
I had the chance to meet him
and he helped me get Encore
Seraphine started. Without his
help, I would have given up in
frustration.
Isn’t he. He deserves a fanclub.
I sent him an email a little while ago just saying ‘thanks’ – I didn’t expect a reply, I expected him to be way too popular and busy – he replied with a lovely email.
He is responsible for nearly every webcomic I know.
Staedtler pens are, in actual fact, the master of all pens.
I use them when I do black and white ink based art. And they are magnificent. Plus, they take a while to run out (unless I use the same one for a whole piece…)
I am reading this comic with a custom black beast of a computer (called Sally) and a big LG monitor. Plus wireless keyboard and mouse.
They are great, they last for ages… and they’re pretty good right up until the end. I tried some other pens but they degraded slowly over time with use.
I wrote to Staedtler again, to say thanks and ‘you spell your name funny’, and they sent me a whole bunch in the post with a note saying that they liked my comic… and that’s the best pen of all – the free one.
I couldn’t agree with you more regarding Tyler Martin. I use the hell out of his comicpress theme. I’d be lost without him
I think all 3 of those activities are neato… but yeah I don’t have the time for ‘em.
I’ve done all three, plus some more.
I feel some what alienated from my peer group when I admit this.
Does conversing include me and others pointing out typo’s?
“comment an converse”
Should maybe be an “and”.
Damn, I feel anally retentive.
Noted and corrected, thanks.
I’ve stopped recieving email updates from about this point on, maybe earlier, haven’t checked.
Is it because I corrected you?
Am I being punished?
Will you ever forgive me? Or shall I forever walk in the dark shame that is your scorn?
I updated to the latest version of Wordpress and it took a few of the plugins out… including the one that emails you when there’s a comment… It *should* be fixed now, but you might have to leave another comment on a page to get updates from it.
/Ben is unbanned from the internet.
I had a similar discussion with a friend recently. I was being bitter because while information was free, the tools are not. I fantasize about what I could do with a full suite of tools, but instead I have to jerry-rig most of what I use to work for what I want to use it for.
F**k chess and jazz music.
But yoga…
You be seriously missing out there my friend.