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Back to The Whiteboard - Doc's Machine - Talk to the Paw

We're often asked how we create the amazing stylistic juggernaut that is The Whiteboard. Usually, our reply is a snort of disdain and perhaps a perfunctuous sip of perrier, but today, on this special occasion, we take you inside Whiteboard Industrial Studios Inc. for a never-before seen behind the scenes look at how the comic is lovingly, painstakingly created by our dedicated artists and webcomicists.

First, our artisans clear off their workspaces of all external distractions, so that they may focus wholly on the Comic, to preserve the Quality and Zest readers have come to expect for their Webcomic Dollar.

The artists are allowed no distractions in their well-lit and comfortably upholstered studios, and are provided only the finest materials available for webcomickry of this caliber.

Starting with a sheet of the finest bleached white vellum, hewn by hand from the ancient Vellum Mines of the Uzbekistan Steppes, the artist will carefully lay out the panel borders to the exact dimensions necessary for the most efficient mirth content and delivery. Only the finest and most accurate drafting tools are used, for the panel borders must be precise and accurate.

The artist will use precisely-machined and blanchard-ground straightedges for panel straightness and accuracy to twelve decimal places. No other webcomic has the panel border accuracy of TWB; our upper and lower border edges are so accurate in paralellism that the planes they inscribe will not meet for over ten light-years. MIT uses our panel borders as references in gravitic-distortion experiments, as they're directly traceable back to the NIST and ISO 9001 certified.

Our crack team of writers, using modern Neilsen statistical survey techniques and highly sophisticated funnay algorithims originally derived from WW2-era British Joke Development at Bletchley Park, provides the detailed script for the artists to work from. Using refined character templates and heavy doses of over the counter medications, the artists will bring the writers vision to life, using distinctive pencils containing a very special and unique graphite obtained from the University of Chicago's squash court in 1960.

After the pencils are laid down, the artists will then carefully ink the drawings using delicate and sensitive pens containing the finest imported Swiss quintuple-smooth #000000 Webcomic Black, made by rendering down old disused Angst Technology strips, decanting the ink off the top and filtering it through individual pages from Action Comics #1. A painstaking and expensive process, but the only way to ensure the quality our readers demand.

The finished artwork is then carefully dried, blessed by our in-house shaman and certified as Kosher, then fastidiously digitized by our immensely powerful laser raster-scan system first pioneered by the Games Division at Encom in 1982.

Once scanned, our Computer Enhancement division goes to work, scrupulously fine-tuning any small error or out-of-place line using our cutting-edge software run on powerful multi-terabyte workstations. Blacks are blackened, whites are whitened, each individual pixel is often removed for individual inspection by our in-house Pixel Assay and Quality Assurance Labs.

The tuned and refined comic remains true to the original script and the artists' unique vision, and is now ready for certification by the American National Association of Webcomic Scriveners, where TWB has consistently rated within the top three on the Straub-Morrison Quality Index for the past sixteen years.

Once certified, the strip is then stored on our special high-speed rotary-platter magnetic media archival system and given a unique file identifier for error-free electronic transmission. A copy is then hand-couriered to the FTP Office and sent to the servers via modern audio-modem technology capable of transmitting a staggering 9,600 bits of information per second.

At this point, the Comic Strip is now available for you, the reader, for a slight fee, to read and luxuriate in.

We hope you've enjoyed this tour, please come back next April for our planned tour of the Whiteboard Heavy Industries Hog Rendering and Sausage Plant, sure to be a hit and certain to leave a lasting and equally tasteful impression.


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All text, jokes, innuendo, mirthful sarcasm and inane banter Copyright 2004, Doc's Machine and Airsmith Services. All rights reserved. Uanuthorized duplication prohibited. Read at your own risk. The author assumes no liability for monitor damage from nasally-expelled carbonated drinks.