You know, there’s a feeling you get when you know all a program’s features — including hot keys — that I think few people have experienced lately.

SuperPaint. A one-meg program from 1993. I know by muscle memory everything it can do. Vector graphics. Bitmap graphics. Transparency and fill-modes on both. All palettes accessible via hotkey. Filters. Vector textures. And, most importantly, drag-stretching a vector object is treated differently from other transformations. What I mean is this: In a normal draw program, if you stretch a 45-degree rotated square, you get a squat diamond shape. In SuperPaint, the “stretch” applies to the original square, before the rotation applies, so that you get an elongated, tilted rectangle.

This one trivial attribute of SuperPaint’s internal logic makes it the most perfect available program for drawing Isometric. No other vector graphics tool I have used works this way.

With online cartoonists, you can go back through their archives and watch their knowledge of their software get progressively cruder. While their latest work, if they’ve been doing it long enough, shows a really refined usage of their software. Assuming they’re not Steve. It’s like there are all these different media out there — the way traditional artists learn oils, acrylic, water colors, we learn PhotoShop, Flash, or whatever. Because it all comes out through the computer screen, there’s an illusion of unity.

Anyways.

ANGST