In the 'back matter' of his and writer Ben McCool's excellent new Choker, premier comics artist Ben Templesmith mentions he's currently learning how to use his Cintiq - one of the many models of interactive pen displays made by Wacom. The company's three lines of interactive tablets - Bamboo, INTUOS Professional Pen Tablet, and Cintiq - for creative professionals have been widely adopted by illustrators and designers in many fields, and the comics industry's professional artists are no exception. Now, Wacom is introducing their newest model, the Cintiq 21UX, to their high-end Cintiq line, which unlike their others allows creative types to work 'naturally and intuitively using Wacom's patented professional pen technology directly on the surface of an LCD display'.The new large-format, second-generation Cintiq 21UX offers a massive 21.3″ screen and 2048 levels of pressure sensitivity, double the sensitivity of the previous model. Wacom's also redesigned their Grip pen interface device to incorporate new Tip Sensor technology, essentially lowering the interactive pressure needed to use the pen to nearly zero.
Wacom's also designed the new Cintiq to be ambidextrous, outfitting the model with two rear-mounted Touch Strips (allowing easy access to functions such as brush size, zooming, scrolling and canvas rotation) as well as sixteen ExpressKeys, eight on either side of the LCD screen to allow fast access to keyboard shortcuts and custom key-combinations.
The Cintiq 21UX looks to be an amazing device, sure to take comics and many other artistic fields another step forward while enhancing the work - and the workdays - of many artists and illustrators -- including, we hope, one of our faves, Ben Templesmith. The new Cintiq 21UX is available in April 2010. More information can be found on Wacom's website HERE - and if you're wondering where to buy this latest piece of comic tech, go HERE.
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