SFX are text, so they take gradient fills, strokes, blend modes and effects. Flatten one (Alt+Shift+F) to push the letterforms around.
MAKE A
COMIC!
Panels that are real masks, balloons with tails that point, a halftone that stays sharp, and trim sizes the printer actually wants. Thirty-three layouts to start from. Your pencils, inks and letters, all in one file.
The classic comic page template in the editor: three tiers of panels on a trimmed page. The view moves down the page tier by tier — the establishing shot with a caption and speech balloon, three beats with a thought balloon, then the reveal with an inset, an impact star and a sound effect. A panel is clicked and the inspector shows it, a masked group, then the whole page comes back into view.
KAPOW!
WHY BOTHER
Comics deserve a real tool
Most design tools treat comics as a pile of rectangles. You draw boxes for panels, paint the art in another app, paste it in, crop it by hand, and pray the printer does not ask about bleed. Then you move a panel border and have to re-crop everything by hand.
We are a pop-art company. Comics are in our blood (look at this page). So comics in PopCraft are not a template pack bolted on. Panels are masks, so framing is a live decision. Balloons are components. The halftone is a real effect, not a filter. The page sizes come from print, and spreads know where the fold is. And because it is the same canvas as everything else, the comic, its cover, its launch post and its landing page can all live in one file.
33
comic layouts to start from
6
print trim presets
6
halftone dot shapes
1
file for pencils, inks and letters
THE GRAMMAR
Tiers, panels, balloons
Open the six-panel page. Each tier is a row of panels in the layers panel: an establishing shot with a caption, three quick beats with a thought balloon, then the reveal with an inset, an impact star and a sound effect.
Click a panel and the inspector shows what it is: a masked group. The gutter is the gap between panels and the keyline is the border around them. Because panels are ordinary frames, you can nest one inside another for an inset.
The classic comic page template in the editor: three tiers of panels on a trimmed page. The view moves down the page tier by tier — the establishing shot with a caption and speech balloon, three beats with a thought balloon, then the reveal with an inset, an impact star and a sound effect. A panel is clicked and the inspector shows it, a masked group, then the whole page comes back into view.
THE SHELF
33 layouts, one page
Every layout that ships, laid out like a page of its own. They are a good way to learn the grammar even if you redraw every panel: the silent page, the talking heads, the hourglass, the grid-break that lets the hero punch out of the frame.
Pages
19
19
- Six-panel
- Nine-panel grid
- Action (slanted)
- Cascade
- Chase
- Flashback
- Grid-break
- Interrogation
- Talking heads
- Parallel
- Silent
- Splash
- Widescreen
- Hourglass
- Negative space
- Modular
- Nested
- Overlapping
- Radial
Manga
2
2
- Manga page
- Manga action
Covers
3
3
- Modern
- Pulp
- Pin-up
Strips
3
3
- Daily strip
- Four-panel gag
- Webtoon
Other
6
6
- Whole issue
- Two-page spread
- Polyptych
- Quarter-fold zine
- Risograph
- Letters page
REAL MASKS
Slant it. Crop it. Change your mind.
The action page cuts each tier into slanted shards for a chase that will not sit still. Those wedges are not drawings of borders. Each is a mask, and the street, the runner and the car sit underneath it.
Drag the art and the panel crops it live. Want the runner a little more to the left? Move him. Nothing was ever cut away, so the framing stays a decision you can change on the last day before print.
The action page template: three tiers of slanted, wedge-shaped panels with a chase across them. The view moves down the page tier by tier, then one shard is clicked and its street art is dragged inside it: the slanted mask crops it live.
LETTERING
Balloons that point at the speaker
Speech balloons, thought balloons and caption plates are components with a tail you drag to point at whoever is talking. Thought balloons get a trail of shrinking bubbles. A balloon is an ordinary layer above the panels, so slide it over the speaker and it just works.
The words inside are ordinary text, styled with a text style, so lettering stays consistent across a whole issue. Change the style once and every balloon follows.
A classic comic page. The moon and skyline art in the first panel is dragged: the panel’s mask crops it live, so the framing is a choice that can be changed any time. Then the speech balloon is dragged to sit over the speaker; it is an ordinary layer above the panels.
BEN DAY
A halftone that stays sharp
Halftones are the soul of pop art: a picture dissolved into dots whose size carries the tone. In PopCraft the Halftone effect is a single GPU pass. For every pixel it finds its cell, samples the tone, and draws ink if the pixel falls inside the dot. It never makes geometry, so you can drag a slider and watch every dot move.
Pick the dot shape (circle, square, diamond, line, cross or triangle), the angle, the size and the ink. Split light, mid and dark tones and give each its own shape and scale. Take tone from the layer, or lay the dots out along a gradient for that classic fade.
The six-panel comic page template, zoomed in on the establishing shot: a city skyline under a moon. With the panel’s sky selected, the plus button in the Effects section of the inspector adds a Halftone, and the sky turns to Ben Day dots, drawn live on the GPU. The view zooms in close on the dots, which stay sharp, then pulls back.
The two-page spread template: pages 10 and 11 as one sheet, with art running straight across the fold in the middle. The view pans along the spread from the left page, over the fold, to the right page, then pulls back to the whole sheet.
PRINT READY
Sizes the printer actually uses
These are the print presets, drawn to scale against each other. The dashed line is the fold: spreads and wraps know they are two pages on one sheet, so an export can cut them back apart for the printer.
6.625 × 10.25 in
6.875 × 10.5 in
182 × 257 mm
13 × 4 in
13.25 × 10.25 in · two pages, fold guide
13.75 × 10.5 in · back + front, fold guide
Set bleed on the document, and export a PDF with crop marks, in RGB or CMYK. Remember that bleed needs art that bleeds: run anything that touches the edge past the trim. The print docs walk through bleed and imposition.
CENTREFOLD
Two pages, one picture
The two-page spread is pages 10 and 11 as one sheet. The art runs straight across the fold, which is the whole point of a spread, and a fold guide down the middle shows you where the book will bend.
Keep faces and words away from the fold, let the explosion cross it. When it is done, export cuts it back into two pages, so the printer gets what they expect.
The two-page spread template: pages 10 and 11 as one sheet, with art running straight across the fold in the middle. The view pans along the spread from the left page, over the fold, to the right page, then pulls back to the whole sheet.
INK & PAINT
Draw the art right on the page
Everything in Draw works on a comic page. The Inking brushes, Studio Pen, Dip Pen and Crow Quill among them, are built for line art and stay vector paths: sharp at any print size, editable forever. A page can mix those inked vectors with painted raster panels in one file.
DECORATIONS
ZOOM!Bursts, speed lines and impact stars from the Comic decorations, for the moment the punch lands.
ONE COLOUR PER PANEL
MOOD!The templates give each panel a colour role from the brand, so recolouring the whole page is one swap.
A comic page in Draw mode, with the brush library in the left panel. Oil Pastel is picked from the library and two curving strokes are drawn across a panel; each lands as a stroke layer in the layer tree.
An event poster. Command-P opens Print: what to print (every page), how the pages sit on the paper (single pages), and Full bleed, already on for a print page. Crop marks is turned on; the dialog says what each sheet will be.
THE OLD WAY
Paint app + layout app + a prayer
| THE OLD WAY | IN POPCRAFT |
|---|---|
| Draw boxes for panels, crop art by hand | Panels are masks; drag the art to reframe |
| Balloons as loose shapes | Balloon components with tails you point |
| A halftone filter that flattens the art | A live GPU halftone, convertible to vector dots |
| Look up trim sizes, guess at bleed | Print presets for pages, covers, strips, spreads, B5 |
| Split a spread by hand for the printer | Export cuts spreads back into pages |
FROM ZERO
Your first page in six moves
- 1
Pick a page
New → File → Print, or search the template gallery for "comic". Each tier is a row of panels in the layers panel. - 2
Rough it in
Click Draw and sketch right in the panels with a pencil. Every stroke is its own layer, so roughs are easy to hide later. - 3
Ink it
Studio Pen, Dip Pen, Crow Quill: the Inking brushes stay vector paths, sharp at any print size. - 4
Frame it
Drag the art under a panel to reframe it. The mask crops it live, and you can change your mind any time. - 5
Letter it
Speech, thought and caption balloons with tails you point at the speaker. Text styles keep the lettering consistent. - 6
Tone and print
Add a halftone, then export for print with bleed. Spreads and wraps are cut back into pages for the printer.
START A PAGE
Your first issue starts here
In PopCraft, click New file and search for comic. Open the six-panel page, click a panel, drag its art, then click Draw and ink something of your own over it. The comics docs cover every control.
ASKED & ANSWERED
Questions, answered
How many comic templates are there?
33 comic layouts ship with PopCraft: pages (six-panel, nine-panel, slanted action, splash, widescreen and more), manga pages, covers, strips including a webtoon, and others like a two-page spread, a polyptych, a zine, a risograph page, a letters page and a whole issue.
Are panels real masks or just borders?
Real masks. A panel is a frame with a mask, so the art inside is clipped to its shape, slanted and wedge-shaped ones included. Drag the art underneath and the panel crops it; nothing is cut away.
Is the halftone a filter that flattens my art?
No. Halftone is a live effect computed on the GPU, with control over dot shape, angle, size and ink, and separate light, mid and dark tones. It stays sharp at any zoom, and Convert to vector halftone replaces it with real, editable dots that export to SVG.
Can I print my comic?
Yes. The page sizes are the trims printers use: comic page, cover, strip, B5 manga page, spread and cover wrap. Spreads and wraps know they are two pages on one sheet, so an export can cut them back apart. The print docs cover bleed and imposition.
Can I draw the art in PopCraft too?
Yes. Everything in Draw works on a comic page. The Inking brushes are built for line art, and a page can mix inked vectors with painted raster panels in one file.
Can I letter sound effects?
Sound effects are ordinary text, so they take gradient fills, strokes, blend modes and effects. Flatten one with Alt+Shift+F to push the letterforms around by hand.
KAPOW! YOUR TURN.
Panels, balloons and halftones that print. Free to start, in your browser or on your Mac.