Metapost: Josh sells out
Normally, I don’t use this space to promote comics-related commercial products. But then again, most comics-related commercial products aren’t nearly as cool as Balloonist, and aren’t the creation of my friend Dave Horlick, as Balloonist is. Dave is both a cartoonist himself (anyone who went to Cornell in the mid 1990s remembers the odd genius that was Gerald Gazelle) and a computer programmer, so he’s the perfect guy to create the next great thing in computer-based cartooning.
What is Balloonist, you might ask? Dave (or, technically, this product announcement that he wrote) will be glad to tell you:
Balloonist is cross-platform comics layout software. For busy comics professionals and comics-minded graphics designers, Balloonist represents a big improvement over lettering guides, rulers, and general-purpose illustration software.
Balloonist seeks to accomplish for comics what word processors have done for writing. Using traditional tools, it’s an effort to trace a page full of panels. It’s work to draw or position cut-out word balloons. And lettering the text inside those balloons is tedious.
But the real disadvantage of existing comics workflows is their inflexibility. Want to nudge an overlapping word balloon, or shift a panel? You usually have to start over from scratch. Often, time constraints make us settle for second-class layout.
Not anymore!
With Balloonist, moving and re-sizing the components of a comic is as easy as dragging your mouse. You can even move the gutters between panels! Throw in support for vertically-oriented languages, shape merging, ties, font styles, and multiple levels of Undo, and you have the underpinnings of a comics revolution. Or at least a great new tool.
Anyway, those of you who live to modify and mock the daily funnies might be particularly interested in Balloonist’s Gouache tool, which lets you replace the text in word balloons from somebody else’s comic with your own bon mots. I’ve been pimping this fine piece of software in my adstrip for the past few days, so some of you may have already checked it out. The rest of you can learn more by heading over to the main Balloonist page.
In slightly less meretricious news, my latest Cartoon Violence column is up on Wonkette. (If you want to read my political cartoon commentary but can’t be bothered with the rest of Wonkette’s offerings, you can subscribe to this RSS feed.) And I’ve got another Geek Comic of the Week up on ITworld.com. Since these are weekly occurrences, I won’t be promoting them every time they happen from here on in, but you can see when each has been updated last in the Other comics-related stuff Josh does section of the sidebar.
Uncle Lumpy
March 12th, 2006 at 7:19 pm
Josh, you’re a one-man comics conglomerate!
Chet McCord, Wildlife Defender
March 12th, 2006 at 8:36 pm
I almost downloaded it, but apparently we don’t get to find out about the registration cost until after we’ve downloaded. Does anyone know how much it costs?
Sassy_Rocks
March 12th, 2006 at 8:50 pm
Chet, you actually read the ULA? I thought everyone just scrolls to the bottom without reading the mind numbing legaleaze and clicks okay.
AwfulArt
March 12th, 2006 at 9:24 pm
Paris Hilton got wacked today by Mark Tatulli in “Heart of the City”… Would make Tony Soprano proud…As does Seaton Hall making No. Jersey proud as a 10 seed…
Howard Roark
March 12th, 2006 at 9:41 pm
I like cats.
Howard Roark
March 12th, 2006 at 9:42 pm
I like cats .
Chet McCord, Wildlife Defender
March 12th, 2006 at 9:48 pm
No, didn’t read the mindnumbing ULA– I believe that comes after download and during installation. I don’t remember where I saw it, but it did say somewhere that the software had to be registered to work. I don’t want to get all the way through download and installation to find out how much it costs to register, although I suppose they figure if they get you this far, you’ll do it.
I wonder how many of us have signed away the rights to our first-born in the ULAs we’ve clicked OK for.
loudfan
March 12th, 2006 at 10:07 pm
I got an “XML Parsing Error: undefined entity” when I tried to subscribe to the Cartoon Violence feed.
Uncle Lumpy
March 12th, 2006 at 10:12 pm
Apparently, Howard Roark likes cats.
Chet McCord, Wildlife Defender
March 12th, 2006 at 10:16 pm
Oops, I just looked again, and there it is, right in an exploding balloon on the bottom of their opening page: $88!
Duh…
$88 is still quite a few shekels in my modest world. I’ll pass, recognizing that my potential for comic mockery is probably only mediocre at best, even with the jazzy balloon feature.
AwfulArt
March 12th, 2006 at 10:35 pm
Stephan Pastis wacked Celine Dion in “Pearls Before Swine”… This would have made Tony Montana proud….
sally
March 12th, 2006 at 11:12 pm
Josh, I can’t be bothered to become a registered Wonkette commenter, so I’ll have to say it here: Your column on cartoon violence directed at kids is really, really good. Particularly the two examples using eight year olds.
Firegoat
March 13th, 2006 at 5:32 am
Please, someone tell me what Randy is bringing his date on Judge Parker? Flowers and malt liquor?
meep
March 13th, 2006 at 7:20 am
Continuing on sally’s remark: for your “the ugly” on the morning-after pill cartoon, two 8-year-olds having sex is the =nice= interpretation of the cartoon.
But my second thought was: why does an 8-year-old have to bother with birth control pills? 8 is =really= young for menarche, though I suppose some girls might be fertile at that point… though they tend to be overweight and better developed than the girl in the cartoon.
Either way, the cartoon is pretty perverted.
dalton
March 13th, 2006 at 8:15 am
Has anyone around these parts played around with Comic Life?. I’ve always been curious about that one.
yellojkt
March 13th, 2006 at 8:18 am
“Straw-man” must be the name of the coyote in Prickly City. Thats what I call him all the time. At least PC has two characters, as opposed to Mallard the Ditto-Head.
It’s good that eight years know enough to steal a dried-up condom out of their parents dresser. What a great tribute to elementary school Family Life classes everywhere. At least they’re trying to have safe sex.
Seaweed
March 13th, 2006 at 8:30 am
Oh Josh, you are a wonder. Your wonkette column? Made my Monday.
PS: not such a fan of cats
Sassy_Rocks
March 13th, 2006 at 11:59 am
Who else is waiting with baited breath to see Mary Worth in her form fitting, lycra spandex power walk exercise outfit? The ending to the workaholic’s wife episode leaves more loose ends than a foob ending. She found true love and is taking up flying again. That’s the simplistic happy ending after all this lawsuit and psycho woman scorned crap? Oh well, maybe things will go bad with her new soulmate and she’ll come to Charterstone to go postal on Wilbur Weston….Nah, not in Mary Worth.
Dennis Jimenez
March 13th, 2006 at 2:21 pm
MW – Mary and Toby in a sweaty workout – yikes! It’s enought to make me all but forget Jane and Cal’s Erica Jong moment.
Chance
March 13th, 2006 at 4:05 pm
Josh, ‘Cartoon violence’ is pure brilliance. Congrats on the gig, and great job!
Lor
March 13th, 2006 at 5:46 pm
Sassy, me, me, I can’t wait to see MW in a shiny too-tight ‘tard!
Actually what made me laugh was the casual insult Toby tosses at Mary: “I do MY best to take care of MY looks and health … hey, Mary, YOU could use some improvement! How about joining me?”
wrand
March 13th, 2006 at 6:11 pm
Dalton: I bought Comic Life last year and it is a cool program. Looks like it does some of the same things as Balloonist but is probably more consumer oriented (and with several cool fonts built-in.) Fun to put pictures of your family in comic situations (might be time to copy some Rex MD balloons.)
gnome de blog
March 13th, 2006 at 7:31 pm
I wonder if Mary’s new “form fitting, lycra spandex power walk exercise outfit” will go with the standard amoeba design, or if she’ll spring for the paramecia, or some other microscopic life-form?
Fred P.
March 13th, 2006 at 8:12 pm
So I have to wonder as to exactly which magazine it is that the Dastardly MT Villain (who looks an awful lot like Dabney Coleman in panel III, and that resemblence alone should clue you in as to where this disgustingly obscene storyline is going) gave to that poor little jailbait-boy Tony the Child Prostitute. While Tony is perusing whatever smut it was that Mr. Mills pawned off on him, looks like the evil Pervert is off for a little hot phone-sex action. “What do you want blown up?” Huh… What indeed?
Then again, maybe he’s calling the photographic editor at Kiddie Porn Magazine. “Well, the pictoral on page 73 – you know- the one with the aging Lothario and the innocent eight year old boy? yeah! I was hoping you could enlarge that a little… I mean, you know, my reading glasses get so fogged up sometimes…”
Dan Someone
March 13th, 2006 at 11:26 pm
Way back at the dawn of time, around 1986, I had a program for my Fat Mac or my Mac SE (can’t remember which) called Comic Works or something like that. It was awesome. It was basically MacPaint with comic-creation tools built in: panel layout (including the ability to define your own panel shapes), airbrush tool, word balloons. It totally rocked, and I made some really cool stuff with it. (All B&W, of course; color was for sissies.) Then the Mac grew and grew, and Comic Works disappeared. I have often lamented that it seemed to have left no offspring, that it had turned out to be an evolutionary dead end. But now, perhaps all that has changed, though $88 seems a little steep for a non-professional. I will definitely check out Balloonist.
Does anyone else remember Comic Works? Or were you all born after the Mac outgrew its box?
gnome de blog
March 14th, 2006 at 11:26 am
“Does anyone else remember Comic Works? Or were you all born after the Mac outgrew its box?”
I bought my first computer in 1986. I was 39. Maybe that’s why I don’t remember how to put quotations in italics.
pappy
March 22nd, 2006 at 9:06 pm
You question the MW porn – take a look at the panel during the “Tommy” episode (Nov 2004) wjere she is bending over to get an apple pie aput of the oven – look at that ass! those gams! OK, I want her.
April
August 8th, 2007 at 6:29 pm
Note for time-travellers — Balloonist seems to be down to $40 for registration.
condom assortment
March 20th, 2009 at 1:45 am
condom assortment