THE EPIC GEN13 RE-READ BEGINS

GEN13 (The Miniseries) #1

In the "Time Capsule" book, Campbell talks about drawing this first issue of "Gen13." It was plotted and laid out with Jim Lee, Campbell the young padawan learning at the side of the Jedi Master, leading to a book that reads a lot like a Jim Lee comic, with slightly different art. You can see a lot of the typical Lee panels in this book, especially the tight close-ups on the slightly tilted heads, some of the gestures, and most definitely the armor design on some of the characters.

Alex Garner's inks are definitely of the time, fitting into the Wildstorm Studio style with all the thin lines and cross-hatching. It's worse in latter issues, but it still shows itself in this issue with the rain, the facial shadows, and the radial lines/speedlines used to denote everything from an exploding head to a rising sun. Garner was new to the industry as well, and you can see him still paying his dues.

DRAWING ON TECHNOLOGY

I did not buy an iPad Pro this week, as tempting as it was.

Reading the reviews of the device became an exercise in frustration, as most of the reviewers didn't share my expectations for the device, nor my use cases. All I want from the iPad Pro is an awesome drawing experience and an awesome comics reading experience.

Most reviewers -- who are the only ones to have the Apple Pencil so far, as the accessory is hopelessly backlogged -- give short shrift to the device, saying that they can't draw but that it might be a worthy input device in a generation or two when developers find things to do with it. I can see their point there a little bit, but I know there are decent drawing apps that utilize the Pencil on the iPad Pro right now, like ProCreate and Adobe's Illustrator Draw. The rest of it is a far secondary issue to me.

The other issue is whether comics will look good on the device. Is this the ultimate digital comics reading experience? Remember, you're reading a columnist who has attempted to read comics on a 46" television screen and a 13" MacBook laptop tilted on its side. I want something big, legible, and easy to use. (Where's the Comixology Apple TV app?)

Andy Ihnatko, so far, is the only one to appreciate this question beyond paying it lip service. He gets the Tweet of the Week honors here:

Later, on Instagram, he mentioned sending the Pencil he has to a comic book artist for review. This is hopeful...

I anxiously await his full review to read more about the comics reading experience, but still: It's an actual size comic, digitally. That's what we've all been waiting for.

Now we can hope Apple makes an iPad Pro Plus to handle the Franco-Belgian comics. ;-)

In the meantime, I did buy something else. You might remember my angsting a couple weeks back over which Wacom Cintiq-like device to buy.

I'm happy to say that as this column sees digital print, I'll be accepting delivery of the Yiynova 20" display. I have not yet bought an arm to mount it on. I want to use it for a little bit before I spent that money. A review will no doubt follow in the weeks ahead.

Now excuse me while I go stare out the door for the UPS guy to show up with my 16 pound package....

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