Shatter is a comic created by Peter B. Gillis and Mike Saenz, and published by First Comics. The comic is dystopian science fiction fantasy somewhat in the mold of Blade Runner, "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale", and other cyberpunk stories. Shatter was written by Gillis and illustrated directly on a computer by Saenz. Shatter was the first commercially published comic where all art for publication was entered by hand on the computer as opposed to later methods of scanning in inked pages for color application. Until the late 1970s to early 1980s computer generated comics were done with traditional text and line-printing techniques or semigraphics, ascii art, and BBC's ceefax teletext.

Production

Shatter was drawn on an original Macintosh Plus in MacPaint and later using FullPaint by Ann Arbor Softworks. Page data was stored on an external 800K floppy disk drive. The drawings were difficult to manage due to the limited 9" 72ppi monochrome screen (512×342 pixels) as only roughly 2/3 of the page was able to be worked on at one time. Approximately half of the issues were drawn using the standard Macintosh mouse until graphics tablet pen type digitizers and video still frame digitizers like the Koala MacVision became available. Artwork was printed on an Apple dot-matrix ImageWriter until 1985 when Apple donated a Laserwriter enabling Adobe PostScript font styles for typesetting text, and made illustration graphics smoother and less pixelated. Once printed the art was then colored by Saenz, and then photographed for mass printing using traditional comic publication techniques for page layouts and color separation. Following Saenz' departure after issue #3, issues 4-7 diverged to traditional art on board artwork which was scanned into the computer. Once Charlie Athanas was hired for issues 8 until the series end the artwork returned to a nearly all digital workflow. The only exception were that rough pencil drafts started the process which allowed editors to approve layouts and writers to begin creating the stories. Artwork was still directly drawn into the computer. The new method allowed for faster publication times for the remainder of the series.

Publication history

Shatter first appeared in the March 1985 issue (#12) of computer magazine Big K (IPC Media, London with Tony Tyler as editor) and was described as "the world's first comics series entirely drawn on a computer". During this same period, Shatter appeared simultaneously as a one-shot special and as a backup feature in First Comics’ Jon Sable title in 1985. Shatter was then published as its own 14-issue series from 1985-1988. The book was art-directed by Alex Wald. Collections have been published by First Comics and AiT/Planet Lar.

Timeline

Storyline and characters

Shatter: The Revolutionary Graphic Novel (1988) features this synopsis: "It is the not-so-distant future. All jobs are temporary. Control is in the hands of a ruthless few. And the world's biggest media conglomerate has discovered a new source of cheap creative talent: stealing other people's brains. Only one man can stop them... SHATTER. A temporary policeman with a mission. A man with a golden brain, capable of absorbing the talens and abilities of others–permanently. A science-fiction hero called... SHATTER." The Shatter (2006) trade paperback collection features this synopsis: "In the day before tomorrow, all jobs are temporary, and control is in the hands of a few ruthless men. The world's biggest, most influential media syndicate has accidentally discovered a limitless source of cheap creative talent: stealing people's brains out of their heads. Only one man can stop them: a temporary cop with a golden brain. A man on a mission whose mind is capable of absorbing the talents of others... permanently. A man named Sadr al-din Morales. His friends call him... SHATTER."

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