Shatter (digital comic)

Shatter
Shatter #1 (First Comics, Nov. [Dec.] 1985. Art by Mike Saenz.
Publication information
Publisher	First Comics
Schedule	monthly
Format	ongoing
Publication date	1985 – 1988
Number of issues	14
Main character(s)	Sadr al-din Morales ("Jack Scratch")
Creative team
Writer(s)	Peter B. Gillis
Artist(s)	Mike Saenz Steve Erwin Bob Dienethal Charlie Athanas
Creator(s)	Peter B. Gillis Mike Saenz
Editor(s)	Mike Gold
Collected editions
Shatter

Shatter is a digital comic created by Peter B. Gillis and Mike Saenz, and published by First Comics. A dystopian science fiction fantasy somewhat in the mold of Blade Runner, Shatter was written by Gillis and illustrated on the computer by Saenz.

Shatter was the first commercially published all-digital comic, i.e. a comic for which the art was created entirely on the computer; as opposed to what later became the common method of drawing on board with pencil, pen, and ink and then scanning the black-and-white art into a computer for the application of color. The Shatter artwork was initially drawn on a first-generation Apple Macintosh using a mouse, and printed out on an Apple dot-matrix ImageWriter. The print-outs were then photographed like a piece of traditionally drawn black-and-white comic art, and the color separations were applied in the traditional manner for comics at the time.

The first episode of Shatter appeared in the March 1985 issue (#12) of computer magazine Big K (IPC Media, London with Tony Tyler as editor) and was described as "the world's first comics series entirely drawn on a computer." During this same period, Shatter appeared simultaneously as a one-shot special and as a backup feature in First Comics’ Jon Sable title in 1985.Shatter was published in its own 14-issue series from 1985-1988. The book was art-directed by Alex Wald. Collections have been published by First Comics and, more recently, by AiT/Planet Lar.

The Shatter trade paperback collection describes the plot like this:

In the day before tomorrow, all jobs are temporary, and control is in the hands of a few ruthless men. The world's biggest, most influential media syndicate has accidentally discovered a limitless source of cheap creative talent: stealing people's brains out of their heads. Only one man can stop them: a temporary cop with a golden brain. A man on a mission whose mind is capable of absorbing the talents of others... permanently. A man named Sadr al-din Morales. His friends call him... SHATTER.