My exploration into cheaper programs for comic making has been mostly fruitful. Running GIMP via X11 works very well. It’s way faster than Photoshop CS2, and I’d say favorably comparable to the CS3 beta I had been using. Rapidweaver turned out to be a lot more like iWeb than Dreamweaver. I didn’t learn how to code XHTML for nothing so I kept looking for a more hands-on web design program. Pagespinner was the best solution I found. It has a coding window and a preview window that runs off of Safari. It’s fast. It doesn’t have some of the conveniences of Dreamweaver, like GUI editing, so my first foray into coding a table took a while. It also lacks a strong FTP function where it synchronizes only altered files, and other features. Another program, Cyberduck, fills that void very well.
There is no replacement for Illustrator though. It’s line smoothing feature is unique as far as I can tell.
Using all of these tools, the next segment of issue 3 is done! It covers pages 5, 6 an 7. I’m off to Peru in a week and a bit so the next part won’t be on the web for a while. I’m going to take some reference photos before I go though so downtown Columbia and the Cosmo Skate Park don’t look suspiciously like Lima.
{Pagespinner at work. In the background, some Warcrafty action.}