Bristol Boards and PULSE OF POWER COVER

Every now and then when I need to ink something in Blue Line, I would need bristol boards. DC and Marvel comics are great because they'll supply me with boards to work on. Board from both publishers are high in quality and doesn't bleed. There's nothing worse then having to ink on a board which bleeds. For example, when you ink a line on a lower quality board, you won't get a smooth stright line. Instead, you'll get what I call caterpillars. A line with hundreds of small legs on the side... Just like a caterpillar.

So what do you do when you don't have DC or Marvel baords around? A few months ago, I went to a art store and saw something that Canson released called Fanboy Comic Art Boards. "Fanboy", I said to myself. Must be for fans. It was sitting on the shelf next to the more popular Blue Line Pro Comic Boards. I don't have a good impression with Blue Line Pro boards. In fact, I have quite a few pads in my studio which are useless to be because they bleed. What the heck, I'm gonna buy one of these Canson Boards and see what happens. It's cost less than Blue Line Pro and Starthmore Comic Boards which I blogged about earlier. My only grip about Canson is that the boards are in a pad. All twenty two boards are attached on the top where you need to pull apart. Once you pull an individual board out, there's these residue stuck to the top of the boards. Not that big of an issue because you can pull and rub them all off. There are also these pre-ruled blue lines on the board if you're planning on drawing sequential pages with them. For me, I use just the back of the board to print out my own blue lines to ink on. Doesn't make a difference to me if they have pre-ruled lines or not. It's the A3 sized bristol board that attracted me. Another note about these boards. Once you rip off a page from the pad, there's these ridges on the top of the page. Those can get annoying if they were on the bottom of the board you're inking on. If I have to give it a description, it feels like gliding your arm across a strip of sand paper. That said, when I print my blue line boards out, I make it a point where the ridges are on top of the page. To my surprise, this board is actually very nice to work on. It doesn't bleed at all. Not even a little. It's a little thinner then Blue Line Pro and Strathmore. But it's the same thickness as a DC comic board. So if you're using a printed that rolls the baord around up top to print, thsi would be perfect! I took one of the boards for a spin. Here's the results...

This is a cover to a book called Pulse of Power which will be published by Dabel Brothers Publishing. It's pencilled by Brett Booth. If you like to see the pencils, Brett has it posted on his blog here. Dabel Brother Publishing contacted me a few months ago and had me ink this cover. I still haven't see solicitations for it yet. You've seen it here first!!! If anyone sees solicitations for this cover, let me know.

Anyway, the majority of this cover was inked with a crow quill, hunt 102 nib. If a bristol board is bad, it'll bleed all over the place. As you can see, it didn't bleed with the this cover I inked. It's a nice board for the price and it does it's job. If the Strathmore Bristol Comic Board cost too much for you, I recommend getting this one.