The most difficult part people seem to have when making comix is finding the graphics they need to make thier own comix. While it may seem easy enough to just steal from someone elses site, I don't recomend that because you make a lot of enemies that way. Also, there are a lot more freedoms you have with comix making when you take the time to use emulation. Now to explain what emulation is.
In case you didn't know, emulation is a term for programs that allow you to play video games on your computer. Let me say this right now that this is only legal if you own the game you download. If you don't, you have to delete the game in 24 hours. Anyway, an emulation program (an emulator) itself does nothing. Lets say that the emulator is equivalent to the video game system itself. Your Super Nintendo by itself does nothing when you press power. What you need is the games themselves. In emulation world, games are called ROMs. I don't know why exactly, but that doesn't matter. ROMs are your cartridges. First you download your NES Emulator, then you download your Super Mario Bros. 3 ROM, and then you can play Super Mario Bros. 3 on your computer. Sound simple enough? Good.
Since I know the internet can be a confusing place, here are some tips to finding the correct emulation tools to start your comix.
-From my past experience, I have found that NES Games work best when making comix. This is because they have simple, clean graphics and most importantly a plain backround. You will need these for reasons I will explain later.
-The best NES emulator out right now is called NESticle. Its easy to use and it allows you to save screenshots, which I will talk about later. To find nesticle, go to any search engine of your choosing (my favorite being www.google.com) and type in NESticle or NES Emulator. Then go to any site that has it and download it. You'll probably then have to unzip it, putting it in a new directory. Call the directory NESticle or somehting. If you need more help on un-zipping or creating a directory, ask me. Then just run the .exe file to start the emulator.
-To find the ROMs you want can sometimes be tricky. My advice is go use your search engine, and type in simply NES Roms or Nintendo ROMs or ROMs or Nintendo Emulation or Super Mario Bros ROMs, ect. Try every combination of words to get what you're looking for.
-When you download a ROM, you'll probably have to un-zip it as well. Its best to place it in the same directory as your emulator. Then start your emulator. Go to load, and you should see your game on the menu. Select it, and you game pops up, just like on your TV. Then all you have to do is set your command keys and you're ready to play.
Well that about does it for emulation. For now, try out this first step. Play with some games and get a good feel of how the emulator works. Soon I'll put up the next step. Again remember, you can only legally download games you own.
Step 2
Unzipping
More On How To Get The Pictures You Need For Comix
OK, it seems like I misjudged the computer skills of some of the people who are trying to make comix. So heres a more detailed and I hope helpful companion to the previous part. I hope that I don't have to get much more detailed then this. The main questions I got after the last part where "Where can I get Emulators and Roms" (in spite me telling you this in the last part) and "How the heck do I unzip"? So I decided to touch briefly in this part on how to unzip and include all the files you need to start off right HERE. OK, here we go.
First, if you don't have an unzip program or if you don't know, then download this file. PKZ204G.exe
To do that, right click and select "Save File As" or something of that nature and remember the directory you save this to. No, go to your Windows Explorer and make a New Directory called PKUnzip or something. Move the file that you just downloaded to this directory. Now, run the file. PKUnzip should self-extract. Now you have a Unzipping program.
Next: Copying Screenshots From Emulators
Step 3
Screen Copy
Getting Pictures From The Emulator
OK, its been a while, but I promise to finish up this tutorial someday. I hope today's lesson is nice and simple. But like always, if you have specific questions, please feel free to e-mail me. OK, hopefully you have downloaded your Emulator and Rom. Also, hopefully you have installed NESticle. Now load up NESticle and run Zelda. You should have Zelda up and running now. Play the game as normal, and when you get to a part that has a picture you want to use in a comix, go to the File menu and choose "Save PCX Snapshot F9". Doing so will save a picture of the game screen into a file called "snapXXX.pcx" where the XXX starts at 000 and goes up with each picture you take (the first is 00, the second is 001, third is 002, ect). The file is saved into your emulator directory. If you want a shotcut to this command, so you don't have to do all of this when you play, just press F9, which will take a picture automatically. This works just like a camera, saving the exact picture as you see it. Use this for character pictures and backround pictures. Well, thats all for Screen Copy. Next: A little trick called "Print Screen" if this doesn't work.
Step 4
Print Screen
When All Else Fails
There are a few nice features that can be found on most computers. One of them is the Print Screen function. You should be able to find it on your keyboard. If you can't find it, then I don't know what to tell you. But you should be able to find it right next to the F12 key at the top of your keyboard. Right above that little section with Insert and Delete. Print Screen. What this button does is copies the entire computer screen as an image into memory. At least in theory. So, if an image that you need is on your computer screen, then you can copy it the easy way with Print Screen. Now, once the computer screen is copied, what do you do with it? Paste. You can now paste this image in any Picture Editor that you have on your computer. Just open up something like Paint and then Paste the image out. But thats enough for now, as long as you understand what Print Screen does, we can move on. Next: We finally move into more advanced stuff with Copying and Pasting.