Any good videos or documentariess on how comic books were made in the analogic age? (programming.dev)

submitted 4 months ago by ICastFist@programming.dev to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

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By analogic age, I mean before computers became widespread.

I want to have something more visual than just the description of the processes involved, especially how a finished B&W art was made into something that could be printed several times

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[-] tuckerm@feddit.online 5 points 4 months ago

If you want something physical to read, Glenn Fleishman (@glennf@zeppelin.flights) wrote a book called How Comics Are Made. https://howcomicsaremade.com/

From the description:

This covers the whole ball of wax of how artists, knowing their newsprint medium, drew their comics and marked drawings up for color reproduction; how printers put that work through the most arcane and impossible-to-believe operations to get them onto paper...

I think it's mostly focused on comic strips in the newspaper, but I'm guessing the process is mostly the same for comic books.

[-] ICastFist@programming.dev 2 points 4 months ago

Awesome, gonna take a look on that one!

[-] SGGeorwell@lemmy.world 5 points 4 months ago

I recommend a movie called American Splendor

[-] Kolanaki@pawb.social 4 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

I don't know any videos on the subject, but I do know that in addition to actually drawing stuff by hand, they often will use sheets of "fill" for adding texture, shadows, shading, etc by overlaying another piece of paper over the linework that is just a pattern of lines or dots and then cut off the excess with an exacto knife. They still use this technique in a lot of manga production. Saves a lot of time not having to manually color/shade things in.

[-] toiletobserver@lemmy.world 4 points 4 months ago

This one is pretty good https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epHCMiCtt3M

[-] ICastFist@programming.dev 1 points 4 months ago

"YOUR MOTHER'S A TRACER!!"

I guess Tracer really is carrying Overwatch on her ~~bare~~ back

[-] driving_crooner@lemmy.eco.br 3 points 4 months ago

YouTube channel ArtShutter have a lot of bios of comic artists that can be of your interest

[-] HubertManne@piefed.social 2 points 4 months ago

So like the reason you see the term micorfilm or microfiche is they made big things smaller on film. There are anolog things like that. I think it might have been the photostat. Anyway they draw it on a big drafting board to add all sorts of detail then it gets shrunk to comic panel size.

[-] ICastFist@programming.dev 2 points 4 months ago

Photostat machines, never heard of them before, seems like a good lead, thanks!

[-] jordanlund@lemmy.world 2 points 4 months ago

Long story short, the biggest differences between now and then are the coloring, printing, and paper.

Pencils and inks are still pencils and inks, but the color process was vastly different then because of the four color printing process.

You also had to take into account ink bleed because of the cheap paper being used.

As of 1983, comics could be printed in 124 colors, prior to that, the max was 63 colors.

https://www.wowcool.com/blogs/blog/cmy-ok-eclipse-comics-color-chart-1983

[-] ace_garp@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago

And having a different person for Story, Outline, Colour, and Lettering.

[-] frischkaesbagett@feddit.org 1 points 4 months ago

This is something @GuidoKuehn@mastodon.social propably could answer perfectly.

this post was submitted on 06 Apr 2026

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