News Report:
History of Digital Comics
- The first digital comic was Shatter, written by Peter Gillis and illustrated on the computer by Mike Saenz. It appeared simultaneously as a one-shot special and as a backup feature in First Comics' Jon Sable title in 1985.
- Shatter was initially drawn on a first-generation Mac using a mouse and printed on a dot-matrix printer.
- Mike Saenz went on to create Iron Man: Crash, the first digital graphic novel in 1988.
- Batman: Digital Justice was published by DC Comics in 1990.
- The Black Diamond Effect was created and started publishing by George Peter Gatsis in 1990, incorporating all the 3-D rendering and 2-D techniques of that time to mimic an animation still. The majority of the comic book was produced with the Vector Format.
- Mike Saenz and Norm Dwyer created Donna Matrix, the first digital graphic novel utilizing 3-D rendering, in 1993.
Chronology 1985-1990
- March, 1985: the first episode of Shatter, written by Peter Gillis, illustrated by Mike Saenz and edited by Mike Gold, appears as a double-page spread in the British computer magazine Big K.
- June, 1985: Shatter appears as a backup feature in Jon Sable: Freelance #25, and Shatter Special #1, published by First Comics.
- December, 1985-1986: Shatter continues as a 14 issue series by First Comics.
- 1988: Iron Man: Crash, the first digital graphic novel is published by Marvel Comics. Drawn by Mike Saenz.
- 1990: DC Comics publishes Batman: Digital Justice.
- 1990: The Black Diamond Effect started publishing by George Peter Gatsis. The comic was generated using 3D and enhanced art by scanning and painting, using all the various graphic formats, primarily the Vector Format.
Chronology 1991-2000
- 1991: Sandman #19: "A Midsummer Night's Dream," is the only comic to win a World Fantasy Award.
- 1991: Victor Vector & Yondo by Ken Steacy is published as a CD-ROM comic.
- 1992: DC Comics publishes The Hacker Files.
- Sept. 1993: David Farley's Doctor Fun is published on the World Wide Web.
- 1993-1994: Dark Horse Comics publishes Version, with all-digital (3-D CGI) cover art.
- August 1993: Mike Saenz creates Donna Matrix, the first 3-D CGI graphic novel.
- January 1994: Adhesive Comics publishes The Eden Matrix.
- March 1995: Bebe Williams launches the webcomics portal Art Comics Daily.
- June, 1995: Argon Zark!, a digitally created Web comic, appears on the Web.
- 1995: Sinkha, a multimedia graphic novel featuring sophisticated 3-D rendering.
- 1998: The Black Diamond Effect - Syntax E.R.R.O.R. by George Peter Gatsis continued the story, with much better graphics, but still using the same techniques from 1990.
- 1998: The DOME: Ground Zero by Dave Gibbons and Angus McKie is published by DC Comics.
- 2001: The Spiders by Patrick S. Farley for his website, Electric Sheep Comix.
Tech Specs – Production of The Black Diamond Effect
The comic books production mimics more closely to that of animation techniques. Generated 3D characters and graphics, scanned and enhanced line art, all get enhanced with additional digital painting. The software used in 1990 was: Quark Xpress, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, and Swivel 3D. As the years progressed, the 3 core programs continued to be used, but the 3D programs changed to Strata Studio Pro and Infini-D.
90 percent of the graphics in The Black Diamond Effect are Vector based. This makes it possible to make creative changes at any stage of production.
The Black Diamond Effect comic books are available at: Critical Blast