I absolutely love the half-tone dot fade in the title font!!

Have you ever tried just hand inking on a lightbox?  Taking a photo and hitting the "find edges" filter in photoshop seems to lessen the impact of the images for me.  There's something special about a human hand making marks on paper....

Too much background white/emptiness.  Maybe you can throw some "manga" speed lines back there radiating out from your center character.  And if the title is going to be color, maybe drop some hues behind your figure art.

On 10/11/2023 at 1:09 PM, Yorick said:

I absolutely love the half-tone dot fade in the title font!!

Have you ever tried just hand inking on a lightbox?  Taking a photo and hitting the "find edges" filter in photoshop seems to lessen the impact of the images for me.  There's something special about a human hand making marks on paper....

Too much background white/emptiness.  Maybe you can throw some "manga" speed lines back there radiating out from your center character.  And if the title is going to be color, maybe drop some hues behind your figure art.

 

Thanks for the feedback. It's funny that you called out how awesome the logo is, which is the one thing I didn't do on the cover. That was done by a board member, and, yes, it is really cool. Price was reasonable, and definitely worth it.

On the interior artwork, I don't know that the lightbox or the anime-style lines would fit with my style and abilities. I have some stories that had more background than others, and I like the less busy background. But you do raise a good point when I look at the pages as a whole, so I'll take another look at the overall style.

On the cover, I can definitely do more to fill in the blank space, and I'll play around with that. I'm still also trying to figure out if I want to go with a color or black and white cover. The interior art is all black and white. I just converted the front and back cover to black and white to compare them. If I do end up going with black and white, I would re-do some of the visual elements (#1, enter the bestower) as black and white, rather than just convert them like I did here.

Dad powers !! that is awesome and the comic looks great !

Version 2. Sticking with a color cover, but following the suggestions to fill in the whitespace. I also didn't love the shading effect on the "Enter the Bestower" text, so I simplified that, too.

On 10/15/2023 at 8:51 AM, srezvan said:

fill in the whitespace

Do you know how to make the "dot-fade" that appears in the title?  For my photoshop program, first place a gradient on a new layer, then go over to your "color halftone" filter (I found mine under the "pixelate" filter set) and set the channels to some combination of 90/90/90/45 (90/45/90/90, etc).  There should also be a size adjustment for the size of the dots.  Here's a quick gradient fill of the background, and then a capture so you can see the layers:

You'll notice that I have two gradient layers...  It might be more interesting to angle the gradient as was done on your title...

On 10/15/2023 at 8:51 AM, srezvan said:

"Enter the Bestower" text, so I simplified that

I like that new one better.  Nice.

Boom?

Updated back cover

This is a sample panel with the same halftone background style as the cover. If I go this route, I may use different background styles for each story, otherwise I think it would be too repetitive. I'm not sure that I love this, but I see the point about too much blank space.

On 10/29/2023 at 2:25 PM, srezvan said:

I'm not sure that I love this,

You probably will only print the cover in color, right?  No need to add distracting gradients to the inside Black and White. 

My Dad uses that same vacuum to suck up flies buzzing around the windows.  Great source of entertainment!