Here's to the Atom Bomb

"2012 Skidoo" (c) 2011 Chrissy Spallone

It's good to be back! Those of you who "follow" me on the face may have noticed my complaints about Strathmore's new school of Bristol board. I ran out of my old batch a year or so ago, and when I restocked I noticed that inking on Strathmore board had a similar effect as inking on a roll of toilet paper. The Bristol board quite literally sucked!! -- My ink feathered and was absorbed until my once-dense black India ink faded to a dull light gray tone. To make it darker, I had to trace over some of my lines which as you might expect didn't look too pretty.

It still wasn't black, though. I was able to correct this problem somewhat by scanning my comics in, then tweaking the contrast and curves in Photoshop. Still, I was less than thrilled with the finished product, annoyed, and thought I was going crazy. I've since learned that Strathmore Bristol board now comes in "series." The 300-series board sold as the only option in many art supply stores is of horrible quality, but the two-ply 400-series I recently discovered works MUCH better for my needs as you can see.

My old PC, which had Photoshop on it, crashed, leaving me Photoshop-less. I scanned the above comic into my new MacBook with whatever scanning program comes with the computer, and what you see is an untweaked original! It's pretty good even without my usual adjustments, I think. Compared to my other stuff, I mean.

Hold up, let me get a little more excited about this, because this is truly a milestone...

I SCANNED A BLACK AND WHITE COMIC AND IT DIDN'T TURN OUT LOOKING LIKE CRAP!!! WAHOO!!!

I mean, if anyone would like to hook me up with Photoshop, though, I'd surely appreciate it. I like playing with it from time to time.