One of my sorry excuses for not blogging is usually that I’m fiddling around with the blog software. When I’m not doing that, I’m likely scouring the web for other applications that may help making my daily life easier – or more fun.
For obvious reasons I take a special interest in graphic software, and although the Adobe Creative Suite is the prime choice when working with digital graphics, comicking is a craft so specialized (and marginal) that there doesn’t exist a toolbox for it in Adobe software. Then there’s Comic Life but seriously, who needs it? I’ve seen people use it for webcomics, but it just screams “SHORTCUT!” to high heaven. Enter Manga Studio EX.
The fundamental functions needed for comic creation in Manga Studio are the same as in Photoshop (basic image editing, drawing, cleanup, etc.) and InDesign (layout, text handling, multiple page documents) but Manga Studio packs a lot more than that:
[Now might be a good time to note that I am not getting any fringe benefits from the manufacturer. I'm just performing a public service to technology-hungry comics people]
Since this software was originally published for manga creation, it comes with 3,000+ screen tones, one-click speedline and focus line function, and optional left-to-right or right-to-left reading direction (for multipage comics). There are also several different drawing tools, and loads of brush settings for each, making the program a virtual studio for the Wacom-savvy, but the real eye-opener to me was the dynamic way the user can draw page layouts.
Tutorial time! First, let’s start a new document from a page template. Never mind all the settings, Dojinshi B5 sounds good and Japanese; let’s try that 
Here we are then. This is our blank document, warts and all. I took the liberty of closing the panels that aren’t needed for marking up panels. Now let’s make a new layer (Click the “New Layer” icon in the “Layers” panel or “Layer” menu>”New Layer”)
Uh-Oh, now tjis dialog appears! What do we do?!
As you can see, I have selected Panel Ruler Layer in the drop-down menu. That’s an example of my superior GUI navigation. And reading the manual. Moving on to the next picture, you will note that there is now a fat, highlighted blue line around the inner margin of the page: That’s the basic panel border.
GAAH! Don’t worry, the screen doesn’t actually look like this. There are three things we need to do before we go about turning the big, single panel into several small ones, and they are at opposite sides of a very wide screen, with nothing happening in between, so I compacted the action a bit.
- Select the Panel Ruler Cutter from the floating toolbar
- Make sure the Tool Options are set to your satisfaction. You can set individual values for horizontal and vertical gutters! Isn’t that neat?
- Be very, very sure that the Panel Ruler Layer we just created is selected. If it isn’t, the next steps won’t work and you’ll feel like a git.
Now look beneath, it’s click’n'drag like most other programs you’d be familiar with:
… then release the mouse and voilà!
Then go nuts and keep cutting the larger pieces into smaller ones until you blackout, wake up in a puddle with a tattoo of a man’s name on your arm, and the neighbours change sidewalks to avoid you. It’s what the pros do! QED:
Each of these panels are of course ready to draw your story into. If you came this far and realised you can’t draw to save your life, don’t despair (but don’t make me read the results). Manga Studio imports almost any image format imaginable (though only monochrome eps, for the sake of convenience perhaps?) AND 3D objects that can afterwards be converted to line art. That should not be an encouragement to remake Ulysses in wireframes, however.
As always with sofisticated, feature-packed software, there are pitfalls galore (I purposefully didn’t mention the HUGE MANGA CLIPART LIBRARY. Oops!) and speaking for myself, I would probably only use a few of the available functions but the panel layout tool alone is worth, well …
If we must get into pricing, that’s the real nag. The newest version 4.0 of Mange Studio EX sells at $299.99 at the manufacturer’s site. A more light-weight version, Manga Studio Debut is more reasonably priced at $49.99. Personally, I downloaded a shareware version of the previous 3.0 version for $0.00, but with limited features.
The temptation to actually buy the software is quite … tempting, really. All I need is a big fat paycheck, preferably from a job that requires I buy Manga Studio
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