It takes me the better part of a day to make one of those title banners, but I do them like animation cells so they can lie them on top of my paintings.  That means I can re-use the same title banner as many times as I need.  How very economical of me.
 
Way back before issue #1 came out I made a bunch of banners all in different colors and gloated over how I'd cleverly rotate them depending on the compositional requirements of each painting.  I did a yellow on blue banner, two yellow on reds, a pink on purple and several others, all with those picky little shadows.  I spent five long and tedious days on the project and I ended up with a handful of differently colored logos.  Problem was, (and clever me, I only took the time to discover this after I'd finished making them all), none but the yellow on red banner worked with any of my paintings.  The others looked wretched. 

So I was feeling kinda. . .  I don't know.  --I was standing there with about a sixty hours worth of work floating around my studio, (bedroom), and a great deal of it had been for nothing.  --Well, nothing except experience, I suppose.  And experience is good.  I can tell you more about hand-made special effects cell painting than most people would care to hear.  But then it all seems like a walk in the park compared to. . . 

I still get people coming up to say, "You know, you coulda done that on a computer in about twenty minutes.  How come you didn't do that?" 

Get this: Rob Walton, the guy who does Ragmop, (a Way-Cool comic.  I'm going to try to get him to do a page for me sometime),  was telling me the woes of doing his covers on computers. . .  Here's an official Rob Walton quote: 

"The perception that computers are a miracle tool invaluable to every aspect of business is the single largest con ever perpetrated on the public." 

The current pre-press cost of a T&K cover is $56 for the transparency from which I master color separations.  That's it.  $336 a year.  Not knowing how the 'Pros' did it, I worked out the 'animation cell' solution, and in doing so apparently stumbled upon one of the single most effective and least expensive methods known to man for putting pretty words on a comic book cover.  Rob sort of blinked and laughed when I told him how little I was paying, and how I was toying with the idea of perhaps using computer graphics to 'save time and money.' 

In this day and age, to achieve the same cover using a computer, I'd need to pay for: A high end drum scan of both the logo and the painting ($40).  Digital manipulation and coloring of title bars and lettering, (since I don't own all the expensive bits of hardware required, (and neither does Tara, incidentally, so l can't use her stuff), I'd have to pay a professional to sit down and do it for me.  Computer design pros get paid between $50 and $120 an hour.  Plus I'd have to deal with all the back and forth of: "Gee Mark, I thought you said, one inch BELOW the margin. " Or  "Well, we just upgraded our system and now your file won't load.  When did you say your dead line was?"  (I'm not kidding about this stuff. Rob tells me it takes an average of two to three weeks to get his covers done.) 

And then there's all those annoying little charges here and there.  "What? I need a read-write CD to store my image on?  Sure.  Whatever.  Put it on my bill." Or, "What?  I also have to pay to have the image saved on my brand new CD?  Well, if you say so. . . "  Or, "Huh?  You mean I also have to pay a courier fee to have my new CD shipped to your graphics people?  Gee, that seems a little. . ."  Or my favorite: "WHAT? You mean I STILL have to pay for the $56 dollar transparency?  But that's what I was doing before!  In fact, that's ALL I was doing before!  And I was getting it done overnight."
 
Now, don't get me wrong.  I'd be happy to use a digital drafting board.  I can think of all kinds of projects I could tackle with the right hardware.  My job at the moment, however, is writing and drawing black & white comics.  And right now, it seems, I have a sleek and inexpensive operation set up for doing just that.  I heard somebody say once, "Don't fix what ain't broke!"  It wasn't Rob, but I'll thank him anyway.
 
Lessee. . .  oh right!  Hey, look!  I finally did a cover where I got to use my yellow on green logo! Ain't that peachy?  (Now, where on earth am I going to use that pink on purple. . ?) 

See you all in issue 12.  The text blocks will return.  Promise.