This site and the Comic Developer were made for our 2008-2009 Drexel University Senior Project. The team was assembled in the fall term of 2008. We pitched our idea for an interactive comic developer that lets the user build their own comics using a custom designed and built interface. We also would provide a sample comic of our own design and story which would be built using our Comic Developer. Once the idea was approved by our teachers, we began working on it in January 2009. We assigned tasks to the team depending on their special skill sets.

The team, a group of six individuals with different skills, was made up of Tom Bergamini, Sean Bongwa, Stephanie Gelish, Jesse Mauro, Greg McGee, and Mike Meth. Tom and Greg were in charge of building the Flash Comic Developer using ActionScript3. Stephanie was in charge of 3D modeling and texturing the scenes which would be used as the backgrounds for our sample story. Jesse was in charge of designing and building the website using HTML, CSS and PHP. Mike and Sean were in charge of writing the story, laying out story boards, and creating the illustrations and assets for our sample story.

Mike and Sean worked with a screenwriting teacher at Drexel University named Matt Kaufhold. With Matt’s advice, the story was improved and storyboards for each shot were created. Stephanie, using the 3D modeled scenes that she had textured in Photoshop, created the proper angles for each scene with the help of the storyboards. Mike drew the characters for each scene, coloring them in Adobe Photoshop. Once all the assests where completed, they were put together using our Comic Developer which Tom and Greg coded using ActionScript 3. The Comic Developer was then integrated into the website that was designed and built by Jesse.

The end result of all of our hard work these last two and a half terms is a fully functional interactive comic book creator. For people who want to take their love of comics to the next level, this is the place. The possibilities are endless when you create digital comics. You can draw images and scan them in, create images on the computer, or 3D model comic book scenes just to name a few. Explore the many creative options that are at your finger tips and who knows, you could be the next Stan Lee!