Start reading the Duo-Shade edition of “Twilight’s Last Gleaming” right now!

Ohio Graphic Arts Systems was founded in 1963, then became The Craftint Manufacturing Company, then Grafix in 1990. The product was officially called “Doubletone Drawing Board”, but was more commonly referred to as Craftint (company name) or Duo-Shade (the 2-tone paper, as opposed to their single-tone Uni-Shade). The most popular pattern was Doubletone #214 (diagonal lines and crosses), though Howard Chaykin used #269 (mezzotint dots) on American Flagg!.

Duo-Shade had two hidden tones, made visible with separately-purchased developer fluids. Dark tone developer (No. 21/31) revealed the darker tone, Light tone developer (No. 22/31) revealed the lighter one. Masters of this technique include Roy Crane, Alex Toth and Wally Wood.

Graphix discontinued Duo-Shade and Uni-Shade in 2009, citing obsolescence from digital media.

Emulating Duo-Shade with Photoshop

I tried matching Doubletone #214, which wasn’t as easy. The most common solution was to make a masked layer for each tone, “brushing” the mask away to reveal the tones. I was determined to use a pattern instead, eventually landing on this process:

1. Make a Photoshop document, grayscale square at 400ppi (matching resolution of my work. Your resolution may be different.)
2. Fill entire square with 20% black.
3. Temporarily convert document to Bitmap: resolution 400, method Halftone Screen, frequency 25 lines per inch, 45 degree angle, with shape of Line.
4. Define a pattern of this screen. To keep track, name the pattern with the style, tint and resolution (example: 20% crossed 25dpi 400ppi)
5. Repeat process for 30%, 40%, 50% and 60% black.
6. Make a new Photoshop test file , 7.5 x 10 inches, 400ppi grayscale. Apply your new patterns in flat squares. Print.
7. Compare print test to original art (ideal) or printout of high-resolution scan of pages with Duo-Shade/Craftint.

I tested my print tests against Duo-Shade pages of Wally Wood EC Stories Artist’s Edition. My first tests were at higher line frequencies (85, 65, 50 and 30) didn’t look good. Trial and error eventually lead me to 25.

If done correctly, some art historian decades from now will think Twilight’s Last Gleaming appeared in a Jim Warren Publication.

— Dave M!, emulating obsolete techniques with modern technology.

Updates will be less frequent and predictable, but hopefully more satisfying.

When I started this site, I followed the widely-adopted release schedule of a page per week. The Weekly Update Model combines newspaper comics expectations with blogging technology. It works best for single story web comics, where each page is an installment for a much larger story. According to social media experts on web comics, releasing new work on a dependable schedule:

• keeps your current audience engaged
• makes you discoverable for new audiences
• convinces editors & critics you’re reliable
• forces you to finish your work on time

Inky Stories, however, isn’t a web comic. It’s a collection of short, self-contained and unrelated web comics. Applying this method away from it’s intended purpose didn’t increase my audience one bit. They don’t want weekly installments of short stories; they want finished stories.

Updating weekly was also time consuming, especially around a full time job and personal responsibilites. I wrote extensive author notes, and customized plugs on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and Google+, for every weekly post. Other than adding to Internet pollution, I’ve very little to show for all that effort.

If you can keep a secret, here’s a big reason to avoid weekly updates: Some weeks I’ve got nothing. Some of those times I’m writing, researching or doing thumbnails. Other times I’m just not in the mood.

So from this time forward, new works will be published in their entirely. Updates will be less frequent and predictable, but hopefully more satisfying. I’ll use social media a bit more responsively to the world I’m alive every week.

Thanks to everyone who’s spread the word about Inky Stories and supported my comic-making addiction: the best is yet to come.

– David Marshall