Animation by Katrīna Sadovņikova

David Schilter is the founder, director, and curator of Kuš!, the only comics publisher in Latvia. Since 2007, Kuš! has been regularly releasing comic books and anthologies, organising competitions, masterclasses, and other events, promoting the comic art in Latvia, and popularising local talents around the world. In the Nice Touch section, David talks about a feature that comes in handy when digitalising artwork.

Nice Touch Editorial April 5, 2024

«Some years ago, we had to buy a new scanner for the Kuš! office. Once in a while, I need to scan some comics. As artists often asked where they could find an A3 scanner, we considered getting one. But by researching, we found out that they cost almost ten times more than a regular-sized scanner, and — who could have imagined? — they are also twice as big. Anyone who has ever visited the Kuš! office knows that space is of the essence. Slightly disappointed, we finally got an A4 scanner. But it turns out you don’t really need such a huge machine anyway. Thanks to the Photoshop function Photomerge, you can easily scan bigger works with a smaller scanner. So if you have a larger artwork, just scan in every part until you have it fully covered. Then open all the scanned files in Photoshop and press «File», «Automate», «Photomerge», and finally «OK». About two seconds later, magic is done, and you have all the images merged into one. So in the end, with this, we didn’t only save a considerable amount of money and space, but also a lot of time, as manually merging together artworks can take quite a while.»

 

David Schilter was born in Switzerland, and he discovered the Baltics while studying law in Lithuania in the Erasmus programme. David has lived in Latvia since 2006. As comic art has always been his interests, and as it was not popular or accessible in Latvia, he decided to start his own publishing house. Kush! regularly releases anthologies and organises comic competitions on various themes. Additionally, Kuš! organises exhibitions, masterclasses, workshops, and other events. Follow Kuš! on the publisher’s website and Instagram account.