Magic Paintbrush started out in 1978 with a photocopied manual in a zip-lock bag. Originally sold with the company name "MP Software", it was unclear whether the "MP" stood for "Magic Paintbrush", "Mark Pelczarski", or as Mark joked in a SoftSidemagazine column, "Magnificent Penguin". Another MP, "Monty Python", had to do with the latter. But David Lubar, a columnist with Creative Computing magazine, picked up the joke in a review of the software, and a new company name was born.

Mark thought it was cool that computer stores would trade things like RAM chips and printers for his disks in a zip-lock bag... but he took a side track to New Hampshire to write and edit SoftSide magazine. But after a year a much more thorough set of graphics utilities was published in 1981 as The Complete Graphics System from "Co-op Software". Mark had started a mail-order software company called "Micro Co-op", patterning it after the still-flourishing outdoor company REI Co-op. The graphics software took off much faster than the mail order, and Micro Co-op was soon sold (although, if it could have survived the very competitive late 80's, it could have been a really neat company today...).

Complete Graphics System II in DSK archive (62Kb)
"de-Penguined" by Gareth Jones (thanks!)

Dave Lubar, the columnist from Creative Computing, and Mark began exchanging ideas, and soon another graphics program, Special Effectswas also published in 1981. From David's creative mind came the first software for manipulating existing graphics images, plus the new idea of computer "paintbrushes". ("An idea I wish we'd patented" -MP) In a phone conversation Dave described how it would be neat to be able to do shading effects, create soft edges, and move the "cursor" around like a paintbrush. That same night Mark adapted some of his previous work to this idea and sent a disk off to Dave the next day with his wishes. These became the "paintbrushes" in Special Effects, and eventually one of the staples of all computer painting programs!

Special Effects was soon combined with Complete Graphics System into The Complete Graphics System II.

Mark and Dave turned their attention to animation and adventure games. Dave was fascinated with some of the animation effects that people like Bill Budge were able to produce with programs like Raster Blaster, the first great pinball simulation. Mark was intrigued with the graphics Ken and Roberta Williams (Sierra On-Line) produced in their first adventure games, Mystery House and The Wizard and the Princess. Dave figured out some cool animation techniques. Mark figured out how to put graphics from CGS into small amounts of space. In Doug Carlston's house in San Rafael (which doubled as headquarters of Broderbund Software at the time), Mark met Chris Jochumson, who had the idea of how to make animation techniques accessible to novices. Programming Chris' ideas with Dave's animation routines, and then adding his own "compact drawing" program, the result was the third and most successful of the graphics trilogy: The Graphics Magician.

The Graphics Magician in DSK archive (42Kb)
"de-Penguined" by Gareth Jones (thanks!)

This was 1982, and The Graphics Magician would dominate the sales of graphics and utility software for years. It won sales awards in 1984, readership polls in 1985, and the animation and graphics routines would be licensed by almost every software publisher of the time.

My creative friend and cohort David Lubar has gone on to many wonderful things, including a career as an award-winning book author.

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