Tools of the Trade with Francis Manapul

Francis Manapul is a New York Times best seller and multiple award winning comic book writer and artist living in Toronto. Currently working out of The Raid Studio, Francis has contributed to numerous projects including:

•  Witchblade and The Necromancer for Top Cow
• Covers for G.I. Joe comics from Devil’s Due Publishing
• Artist for DC’s Legion of Superheroes with Jim Shooter as the writer
• Artist for DC’s Flash series written by Geoff Johns
• Writer and artist for the DC Rebirth comic book series Trinity

In 2011 Manapul was awarded the Joe Shuster Award for Outstanding Artist and the All-in-One Award (Favorite artist known for almost-exclusively inking his/her own interior comic book pencil work and rarely the work of others in ’10) from the Inkwell Awards. 

His most recent work includes Batman: the Merciless with Scott Snyder, Kamandi Challenge #10 (of 12), Flash Unwrapped, and lots more to come.

Francis has been a Microsoft Surface for a number of year. Microsoft Canada started working with Francis a few years back when the Surface Pro 3 was launched — Surface Pro 3 has been called a tablet that has the full power of a laptop. 

The kickstand allows you to so set it out and recline it as you like. This makes for a natural angle when drawing especially when used with the Surface Pen. The keyboard also acts as the cover — naturally called  the Type Cover).  It snaps onto the base and comes in a variety of colours so you can customize the device as you like.

Francis now uses the Surface Book, which offer a more traditional laptop form. The uniquely designed hinge allows you to position the device at multiple angles. The vivid screen detaches for use as a flat tablet separate from the keyboard base. Both devices are compatible with Surface Pen.

According to Cara Inglis, Consumer and Education PR Lead, Microsoft Canada: “We’ve worked with a variety of creative professionals from wallpaper designers to fine artists to comic book artists, like Francis, and we’ve found, consistently, that Surface is a great tool for them. It’s portable, light-weight and with its screen and Pen, allows a really intuitive drawing process. The feedback is that artists can really get into their work, directly on the screen vs. using multiple pieces of hardware to create their designs.”

For more information with product specifications and details,  please visit https://www.microsoft.com/en-ca/surface. 

For more information about Francis, please visit https://twitter.com/FrancisManapul and http://francismanapul.com/

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