We are delighted to offer a beta of our upcoming Comic Life Magiq 1.0.3 update.
It has numerous stability and significant performance improvements over 1.0.2.1 - so we would love previous users to download and let us know if you come across any issues.
A free update for Comic Life Magiq is available for all users.
Identical to 1.0.2c in all but version number, which has been changed to ensure 1.0.2 users are made aware of the 1.0.2c update via the menu: Comic Life Magiq > Check for Updates...
This 1.0.2.1 update is recommended for all 1.0.2 users and fixes a serious saving issue introduced in 1.0.2 that caused images to be left out of the document.
If you're already running 1.0.2c (v10939) you can "Skip This Version".
Head to the plasq downloads page to get the 1.0.2.1 update or update from within Comic Life Magiq.
Comic Life is great for sharing those funny little moments from school, in the office, or while on worldwide progressive-rock-legends tours.
Robert Fripp and Tony Levin have been sharing the day-to-day stories of touring within one of the most influential prog rock bands - on King Crimson’s 40th Anniversary Tour.
Ever wished you had the fun of Comic Life handy at all times? Ever been out at a party, family gathering or on public transport and wished you could add your 'comic touch' to a photo? Now you can!
We're giggling with glee to announce Comic Touch for iPhone and iPod Touch. Add various speech balloons and captions to your photos. Choose a fun special effect to warp and bend your family and friends, then email the results to them!
Re:Pricing - 2005/04/23 17:41I LOVE this program. Funny story:
I'm a wedding photographer. (www.sunbeamphotography.com) I was recently talking with my wife and my sister, who was getting married the next day, about my desire to do a "comic book" wedding shoot. I wanted a really fun couple who would pose just like a comic book, and then I'd design a comic book in Corel Draw and get it printed.
THE NEXT DAY I was reading at www.macobserver.com when they announced this software. I perked up like never before. I downloaded a copy immediately and threw in a bunch of photos from my sister's wedding that morning. I added captions, then showed it to my family. EVERYONE is excited about this. I've done more for a couple other brides. I'm going to go back through all my old weddings and design at least a one page comic for all of them and see if I can get them to buy some copies.
Which brings me to my questions:
1) Has anyone else experienced a problem where you save the document, close the program, open it up later, and only the thumbnails are still there? This happened to one of my layouts. Very frustrating because it was 12 pages, very carefully laid out over a couple hours (this was wedding album quality, not 5 minute playtime quality). Everything was perfect. Now I can only see the photos 5 pixels tall in the thumbnails. When I click on each thumbnail the page template appears, but the photos inside are all gone. I haven't opened it yet with the new version 1.01, but I'll try in a second.
2) I would be thrilled to have a Comic Life Pro. I'm planning on using these things to market my work to people, as it's something that no other photographer is offering. Here's what I want in Comic Life Pro:
a. Ability to create custom page sizes b. Ability to specify resolution of exported jpg, independant of the page size. (Scalable, like Photoshop/ImageReady's Save For Web command) c. Ability to change tone of photos without going out to Photoshop or whatever else. Like i click a button and the selected photos (already in the page) become black & white or sepia or washed out, etc. d. The possibility of being the only person you sell Comic Life Pro to so I won't have any competition
THANK YOU for such a wonderful product. I will likely be buying the full version as soon as I try out the new download and see if it behaves better than the first.
Re:Pricing - 2005/04/23 17:44I want to second everything Adam just said. Like him, I'm also a former Marvel comics writer -- in my case, about twenty years back -- as well as having worked in their production and graphics department. I've also worked for other comics publishers, both print and online. It would be fair to say that a large portion of my professional life has involved the creation of comics in one way or another. And Comic Life is exactly the sort of program I've been wishing for all this time. For it to come from such obviously cool people is a mind-blowing added bonus.
First, I'm recommending this app to every Mac-using comics creator I know. Second, I'm working on a new comic series of my own, and the artist and I will be using Comic Life to develop layouts and produce quick versions of the stories -- comps that can be endlessly fiddled with and tweaked and rejiggered. This tool will allow us to focus on the content rather than the method.
Thought you might like to know that your work will turn out to have even more uses than you may have realized...
Re:Pricing - 2005/04/23 17:47Okay, I opened the file in the new version. Still no luck. I can see all the photos in the thumbnails, but the pages are empty EXCEPT TEXT. Any captions or sound effects I added are still there, just no photos.
I'd appreciate any help as I don't want to have to do it again.
Re:Pricing - 2005/04/23 18:29I thought of another improvement. I'd love to be able to click one button and have the whole page layout reversed. Just mirrored down the center or across the center. Picture orientation wouldn't change, just the left and right or top and bottom locations would. Does that make sense? I have that as a single button in Corel Draw ( for mirror left/right, and ^--v for mirror top/bottom). That would save me some time as I'm doing many page layouts, and would like to reuse the same template and just flip it for variation.
Re:Pricing - 2005/04/23 23:14a. Ability to create custom page sizes b. Ability to specify resolution of exported jpg, independant of the page size. (Scalable, like Photoshop/ImageReady's Save For Web command) c. Ability to change tone of photos without going out to Photoshop or whatever else. Like i click a button and the selected photos (already in the page) become black & white or sepia or washed out, etc. d. The possibility of being the only person you sell Comic Life Pro to so I won't have any competition
Hi there Jonkun227, thanks so much for the praise, and I'll try to answer your questions as best as possible.
a) custom pages sizes we are looking into, but remember there are quite a few in the Page Format menu.. what other sort of sizes did you need?
b) The new version 1.0.1 available now adds the feature of user definable resolutions...does this solve your problem?
c) We are looking into these effects. Tiger plays a part here.
d) arrgggh, no can do. But great artists always ascend
Now, on to your missing photos. Unfortunately, there was a rare bug in version 1 which meant your photos weren't saved with the actual file. This has been solved in the 1.0.1 version, and we do apologize for the problem. But the photos are still missing in your comic life document. Lets see if we can fix that for you.
Do you know which fotos you used? or at least which roll/shoot?
If you can find your original photos, or simply all the ones you think they could have been chosen from, you can put them back into the comic life document.
1. Remember to always work with COPIES of the photo files here, don't move the original file.
2.Also make a copy of your Comic Life document just in case, before we start
3. go to you Comic Life document in Finder. Right click (control+click) on the file, and a menu appears.
4. choose "show package contents"
5. Open the Image folder that appears after you open the package
6. Now, drag all the copies of your pictures into this folder. If you can't remember which pictures you used, you can drag all the ones from that roll, etc. The more you drag, the bigger the file will be.
7. Now, open the file in comic Life. Your photos should appear as you placed them
Let me know if that works for you. If you have trouble finding where your photos are, then use iPhoto to find your picture, then use Show Info with iphoto, down the bottom it will say the actual file name. Run a search for that name in your home directory with Finder. All the photos from the shoot will be in the same folder.
Re:Pricing - 2005/04/24 05:20Thanks Keith. I'll try the fix. I have a pretty good idea which photos were used. If I dump them in the folder and then open it again, any that I've forgotten should still be blank and I can then add the missing ones, right?
That sounds WAY easier than redesigning the whole book.
Shame I'll have competition. Shame I can't pay you enough that you'd consider otherwise. I know that as soon as I post these on my website other photographers will start asking and/or researching how they can do them. I don't have much time to build up my market domination before they catch up so I'd better hurry and publish a few of these.
Custom page sizes: 8x10. I get discount bulk printing on 8x10 size through www.pictage.com, MUCH cheaper than any color copy or printout, and it's real photo paper. As it is I'm just using letter size and setting my margins to bring me down to 8x10 with a little extra white, then cropping in photoshop or acrobat, whichever way I export. But I have to set up the page size and margins and all that every time I start a new one. 8x10, 5x7, and 4x6 would be great to have because they're so easy to print through a pro lab or Walmart, and look so much better than my inkjet printouts at home.
Hadn't noticed the custom resolution export in the new version yet. Thanks!
