Magic’s Biggest Secrets Finally Revealed.

You might remember it.
A series of specials, and then a syndicated series, that showed how famous magic tricks were performed. The “Masked Magician” would perform the trick, and then detail how the illusion was pulled off. It was basically a show designed to ruin magic for the audience.

Except that I loved it.

When I see that show on TV, I have stop and watch it. I’ve always wanted to know how things work. It doesn’t matter if it is a magic trick, a movie, or a machine, the way it operates or how it is constructed often holds as much interest as the actual product.

Which brings us to Freddie E Williams II’s text, The DC Comics Guide to Digitally Drawing Comics. The latest in a series of DC Comics guides, this edition shows artists the path to moving from paper, pencils and, ink to the all digital world of producing comics on the computer. And if you’ve been burned before by guides that only speak in generalities, don’t worry, this is the book to get you there. Mr. Williams delivers tons of extremely specific steps and procedures that will get you and your copy of Photoshop cranking out content in no time.

No matter where you are in the comic production food chain, this guide has instruction that can help you. Need to ink hand-drawn pencils on your computer? Check. Want to produce prints of your digitally created “pencils” for someone else to ink? Check. Want to do it all yourself on the computer? Well you get the idea. Williams has a work-flow for almost any situation you can imagine. And, perhaps more importantly, that work-flow has specific instruction that details precisely how to do it. Need to create photo blue? No more guessing, cuz’ it’s in there.

So, the target audience for this book has got to be someone who can draw, has a computer with photoshop, and has interest in comics. A pretty specialized crowd to say the least. But that doesn’t mean the book is not interesting to folks who fall outside that group. I’m not a comic artist, and I’m not a graphics professional. If I were, this book might hold a different appeal. But as someone who knows a little bit about Photoshop, and even less about producing comics, the book still was fascinating. You see, Williams is the “Masked Magician” who shows us how the tricks of his trade are done.

If you listen to our podcast, you know we have talked about how impressive your average comic looks today compared to ten or fifteen years ago. I’ve always thought that was due to better printing technology, higher quality paper, and an overall higher budget per title. But what I had not considered is how creating the art digitally can factor in. Williams shows us that by using modern digital tools an artist can create more detailed art in a shorter time. And as you might imagine, since comics are normally produced on a pretty tight schedule, this results in better quality of artwork for your general run comics.

So if you enjoy comic art, you may still find this book interesting, even if you end up going glassy eyed when he delves into hard-core details. It is a testament to the writing of the book that even someone who doesn’t know the tools involved can still understand what is going on. I ran my copy by a graphic artist friend (who is not a comic artist) and he was very impressed, and took away some techniques that he will use in his work. So it works on both ends, providing serious technical detail, but also being accessible for a neophyte – quite a mean feat. Bottom line, anyone who’s hobby is art, graphic design, or comics can get something out of this book. I’m guessing you’ll enjoy having the secrets revealed, even if only Williams’ subjects wear the masks.

By Sci-Guy-Jim