City Of Heroes: The Art Of Comic Book Restoration

Remember those old comic books you loved, but look horrible now? The art of comic book restoration is brought to life. Rick Keene restores comic books for DC Comics.

Rick Keene restores classic comic books for DC Comics. Here's how computers helped land him the job.

It's hard to imagine performing any sort of art or graphics work without a computer. Before desktop computers, all graphic artists (including myself) worked at a drawing board with pencils, inks, and brushes.

These days, Macs and PCs are used in all forms of graphics work, and laptop computers are small and powerful enough to be used in the field for photo and video shoots.

Computers are now used for most tasks in comic books, especially coloring. But back in the late 1980s, the idea of using a computer for comics was rare.

How I started using computers

In the early '80s, I had already saved Earth from invading aliens countless times on my Atari 2600 and Colecovision. I was intrigued by the possibilities offered by a computer, and I was ready to try creating graphics, cartoons, and animation -- all the things I had done by hand -- on a machine.

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