Look what's on the Tube, it's a video for issue two!

Alright so another video down. This is the first one I did at home using the movie software that came on my computer and a CAD U1 USB Recording Microphone I got recently. The sound quality is different with the mic. Not sure if it's better or worse. Let me know what you guys think of the sound quality and volume.

I tried speaking unscripted into the mic for this video, hoping it would sound more natural. Not sure if that worked, but it's okay. Since I didn't script it, I forgot to mention that this was the first comic I inked digitally in the video, but I'll probably be devoting some later videos to process, so it's alright.

Unsurprisingly, it's a lot more difficult to do it with free software than the type you pay for. I used Windows Live Movie Maker to create the slideshow since it can export HD video but doesn't have the ability to record a voice over. So I used Cyberlink Director (which can record voice overs but can't output HD video) to record little snip-its of sound, which I then brought into Movie Maker. Trimming the sound clips and slides in Movie Maker isn't as easy as I'm used to, but it gets the job done. The only real restriction is it will only let me determine the general direction of a slide's movement and gives me no control over anything else (now fast it moves, how much it moves, exactly where it moves, ect) so I don't think the slide movements are quite as nice. The Intro clip is taken from previous videos and put in there using YouTube's video editor since videos with sound already in them won't work when I drag them into Windows Live Movie Maker. It's a longer, more convoluted process, but it gets the job done.

And with that, I'm off to issue three!

Issue Two...The Random Tribute Variant Cover!

A variant cover for a digital comic??? I'm not sure if that even makes sense, but inspiration hit me and I just had to do it.

So when I was creating issue two's cover, one of the references I used was the Captain Power card

back pictured to the right. As I was doing the cover, I spotted a font in Photoshop Elements pretty darn close to the Captain Power logo. I'm a huge fan of the old show and toy line and the idea of doing the cover styled after Captain Power packaging just popped in my head.

It was an irresistible force, I found myself just fumbling around with the cover one morning changing the  background color to red, redoing the logo in that font and making a few other minor changes...and it looked great!

I wanted to take it further and actually mimic the circuit board and sparks in the background.  I put that part off because it would be time consuming to do so, but I knew if I didn't complete the variant, it would feel like I was leaving the issue unfinished. So there it is below. I got to say I love it to death. Say what you will about Mattel in the 1980s, but their package artists and designers were second to none.

I'm calling this a "Random Tribute Cover" since it pretty much makes no sense with the series or story for the issue...just like most variant covers! I've got an idea for a variant for the first issue too I'll do at some point. I'll try to do one per issue as a way to lampoon variant covers.

I should be able to put it up on Amusedom at the very least for anyone who'd rather have this cover when it's released. Even if no one buys it, it's still too much fun not to publish.