Todd Klein's Blog, page 36

Rereading: GREASED LIGHTNING by Sterling North

Before his big success with “Rascal,” Sterling North wrote shorter books for young readers, at least two with excellent illustrations by Kurt Wiese, already a favorite of mine as the illustrator of the Freddy the Pig series by Walter R. Brooks. The color technique used is different and appealing, I think Weiss prepared each color plate in black ink and added texture with grease pencil. There are pictures on most pages, some in color, some black and white.

Zeke lives on a farm with his parents, and in addition to growing corn, they raise some pigs. As the book opens, a new litter has been born, twelve normal-size piglets and a smaller runt, which Zeke begs to have as his own pet. He names the slippery piglet Greased Lighting. Zeke’s pig soon proves a wizard at escaping from the pen and getting into trouble: eating plants in the garden, and running away into the deep woods, where Zeke has to find and rescue him. Finally Zeke’s dad has had enough, and takes the pig to town to sell in the big Fourth of July weekend gathering. Zeke secretly follows his father into town on his pony to see what happens to his friend. Greased Lightning ends up being purchased by the town for their greased pig event on the fourth, and Zeke is determined to catch him, because whoever catches the greased pig can keep him. It’s the only chance he has to get his pig back.

Great fun, charming story and illustrations.

Greased Lightning by Sterling North

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TOM ORZECHOWSKI – Letterer

From X-MEN #125, Sept 1979, © Marvel

A new generation of letterers — my generation — began entering comics in the 1970s. What set us apart from many who came before was that we didn’t view working on comic books as a stepping stone to more prestigious and potentially lucrative work like comic strips, advertising, illustration, or fine art. We loved comics, we were readers and fans, and that’s where we wanted to be. Leading the charge was Tom Orzechowski, whose finely-crafted lettering I first saw at Marvel in the early 1970s. The example above is from perhaps his best-loved Marvel work, on X-MEN, a series where his unique title skills and elegant calligraphy, as featured on PHOENIX, were an important part of a very successful franchise. I’ve known Tom for many years, and I interviewed him by email in 2020 to help fill in details of his career. Quotes from that appear below.

Tom Orzechowski, 1983, © Lois Buhalis

Thomas Paul Orzechowski was born March 1, 1953 in Detroit, Michigan. He began reading comics when he was five. Tom wrote:

Most of what I saw were DCs…ACTION, DETECTIVE, BLACKHAWK, HOUSE OF SECRETS, JERRY LEWIS. What really caught my eye, though, were the Atlas monster and suspense comics by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and Steve Ditko. DC’s covers were so dull by comparison.

Tom started going to the Detroit Triple Fan Fair when he was fourteen, in 1967.

It was $4 per day, which put a big dent in my budget. Their stated focus was on comic strips, films, and fantasy literature, and they had programming. But, all I cared about was the dealer room, which was about the size of a large living room. I bought a few Charlton hero comics and THUNDER AGENTS issues.

The following year, Tom joined the Fantasy Fans Comicollector Group and worked on their fanzine, the Fan Informer. Tom said the art in the club was better than what he could do, so he gravitated toward lettering, which no one else wanted to do. In addition to copy-editing their scripts, he was soon editing the zine. It was a talented group, many of whom would go on to pro careers in a few years, including Rich Buckler, Jim Starlin, Al Milgrom, Mike Vosburg, Greg Theakston, Arvell Jones, Keith Pollard, Terry Austin, and Mike Netzer. Tom also met future pro writer Tony Isabella through some other fanzine work he did. That happened because he’d had a fan letter published in a Marvel comic with his home address. Tom earliest comics work was a logo for Spidey Fan, a southern California fanzine in 1967. Tony Isabella was hired as an assistant editor at Marvel Comics in 1972, and in late December he called Tom, who reports:

Tony called my folks’ house on December 26th, 1972, and my mother gave him my work number. My hospital job as an x-ray attendant was part-time, but paid double-time-and-a-half on holidays, so I worked all the holidays. I got the call in the break room: “Come to New York in the next week and you’ll have a table to work at in the bullpen. Otherwise, they’ll put an ad in the paper.” I went to my supervisor, told him that I had a get-here-now job offer at Marvel, and that it was awkward because I wouldn’t be able to give him two weeks’ notice. He stood up, pointed to the door, and said emphatically, ”GO.” I arrived at JFK a week later: January 2, 1973. Took a cab from the airport straight to the office. The job was such a royal pain that the great-looking young woman who’d been doing it, upon learning I was there to take it over, kissed me on the mouth. Welcome to Marvel, kid!

From TOMB OF DRACULA #11, Aug 1973, © Marvel

Above is an early story lettering job by Tom at Marvel. The title and balloon lettering are not much like his later work, he was still finding his way. Tom was hired to make lettering changes on a line of British reprints Marvel was starting, where American spellings had to be changed to British ones. Tom told me:

The gig was actually freelance, but I was given a drawing table in the office while I learned the job. My duties soon included lettering retouch on the black and white mags. The first was SAVAGE TALES, featuring Barry Smith’s two final Conan stories. The line expanded to half a dozen titles very quickly. For VAMPIRE TALES #6, I lettered my first Chris Claremont script, which is when we became acquainted. Those black and white mags ran original stories, but also ‘50s suspense and horror reprints with art by people who would have been familiar to the fan audience like Syd Shores, Carmine Infantino, and Bill Everett. The story title designs were low-key by ‘70s standards, so it became my job to draw bold new ones. By May, I was sufficiently good enough to be lettering some stories, uncredited, on the black and white books [which never had lettering credits], while still doing the British retouch as well. I believe the TOMB OF DRACULA #11 pages came to me then. I was terrified. They were so delicate, in a pencil technique that resembled ink wash. It took me in the range of four hours per page. Also at this time, my immediate boss, Sol Brodsky, told that I didn’t need to come in every day, but could work from my flat. Soon, I was busy enough to give up the Brit reprints in favor of CAPTAIN MARVEL, as arranged by Starlin, and BLACK PANTHER, as arranged by Buckler. Other color books began coming to me as well, though rarely sequentially.

From CAPTAIN MARVEL #29, Nov 1973, © Marvel

Another early lettering job from Tom. The vertical and gradually more shaky title lettering is a nice touch. This series is where I first saw and enjoyed Tom’s work. Here’s what Tom told me about his lettering tools, learning process, and getting work assignments at Marvel:

From the start, my friends made me aware of Speedball nibs. Later, at Marvel, John Romita Sr. showed me how to hone the nibs on a knife sharpening stone. During the ’80s, at Lois’ suggestion, I used an Osmiroid India-Ink Sketch Pen, which held a refillable ink supply. It saved a lot of time. Surprisingly, neither Danny Crespi nor Morrie Kuramoto, veteran staffers and letterers, said a word to me about my work, though it had to have been coming to them for corrections. Roy Thomas, then the editor (the term Editor-In-Chief wasn’t used before Shooter), commented to me that my black and white story titles “looked too much like underground comics.” I took that as a personal victory! Danny may have been prompted by Roy to offer me some guidance. He did offer to teach me to letter the covers, a job that had been increasingly his for a few years. “You don’t want to keep lettering all those pages,” Danny said. I replied that I LIKED lettering all those pages. And so, idiotically, I turned down the chance to learn at the right hand of the master. On the other hand, I then followed my muse. My eventual approach might have been very different had I taken Danny up on his offer. In the ’80s, when Bob Harras edited the X-books, I lettered their covers for a couple of years, always with Danny in mind. During Roy’s stewardship, Sol was production boss for the Brit reprints, and the black and white books. John Verpoorten handled the color comics. It was they who handed out the assignments at that time. The people below Roy were proofreaders, not true editors (Marv Wolfman, Steve Gerber, Don McGregor). A few years later, during Shooter’s tenure, the place was organized along the same model as DC. So, Roger Stern, Al Milgrom and a few others were responsible for all assignments on the half dozen books they each controlled. Following John Verpoorten’s death, Danny Crespi became in-house traffic manager. He supervised the office flow, but did not make assignments.

From STAR*REACH #1, April 1974, image © Mike Friedrich and Jim Starlin

I next saw Tom’s work in comics from a new independent publisher, Star*Reach. Tom wrote:

Mike Friedrich had been an established writer for a few years at DC when he shifted over to writing for Marvel. In the office one day in July ’73, as I was burning out on life in New York, Mike introduced himself. I was familiar with his work at DC and on IRON MAN, where he’d already written a script for Jim Starlin. Mike suggested that I join a small group that was soon to be moving to northern California. His upcoming Star*Reach comics project was to be creator owned, which attracted Steve Englehart, Alan Lee Weiss, Frank Brunner, and Jim Starlin to this rather audacious proposal. Mike pointed out that none of us were from New York in the first place, so here was an excuse to try another part of the country that might be more to everyone’s liking. Surprisingly, it was as easy at that. We all moved west in a matter of weeks. Work on Star*Reach began in the fall of ’73.

From QUACK! #1, July 1976, Star*Reach, © Mike Friedrich and Frank Brunner, logo and lettering by Tom

I loved the Star*Reach books, the first place I saw work by Steve Leialoha and Frank Brunner, among others. I admired Tom’s lettering there as well. Friedrich continued to publish sporadically through the 1970s. While living in the Oakland and Berkeley area just east of San Francisco with various collaborators and housemates, Tom was still doing lots of lettering for Marvel. He said:

I lettered Mike’s books IRON MAN, KA-ZAR, and WEREWOLF BY NIGHT as well as random issues of lower-rank Marvel books, including GHOST RIDER. A Marvel staffer told me years later that it was astonishing they continued to send work my way, once I left town. I assume that my lettering, though still very rough, was acceptable enough, and that it was easier to keep me on than to break in someone new. My lettering was done in ink over the penciled art. I would then send those boards by Special-Delivery Mail to the inkers. Special-D Mail took as long as five days to cross the country. But, a lot of pencilers lived far enough from Manhattan that they mailed the work rather than coming into the office. So, a few days to the west coast didn’t really take that much more time than mailing to Brooklyn. Plenty of time was built into the production schedule to accommodate unaccountable postal delays.

From THE AVENGERS ANNUAL #7, May 1977, image © Marvel, original art courtesy of Heritage Auctions

Tom’s calligraphy is on display in this story title, and his balloon lettering is beginning to take on the style it would have for most of his career, but it’s not quite there yet. Tom wrote:

I was lettering AVENGERS, CAPTAIN AMERICA, and DR. STRANGE for Steve, and CAPTAIN MARVEL, then WARLOCK for Jim. In addition to the books already named, I became Roy Thomas’ letterer on INVADERS, and SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN. STAR WARS would follow. Marvel continued to send me random issues of their second and third tier books. X-MEN #94 was among them. My workload was now heavy enough that I hired my first assistant, Frisco Del Rosario. He didn’t continue into comics work, but instead became a notable chess player and editor of Scholastic’s chess magazine. Life in Berkeley was just the thing I needed. New York City was a nonstop business office. Berkeley was a place of learning, with leisurely bookstores and cafés. I bought an armload of cheap Dover editions of old calligraphy manuals, century-old European theatrical posters, and Hollywood movie posters. This was the start of my education.

By 1977, my work with Englehart and Starlin had dried up, and there wasn’t enough from Mike, or Roy, to provide a steady income. So, I made an exploratory trip back to New York. A chance meet-up with Chris Claremont led me to letter X-MEN #105. Better, it gained me the work on MARVEL PREVIEW #11, which featured a Star-Lord story by Chris, drawn by newcomers John Byrne and Terry Austin. When Dave Cockrum gave up penciling X-MEN a year later, this art team took over. I began lettering the book nearly every other issue, starting with #108. 

From X-MEN #108, Dec 1977, image © Marvel

My move back to Manhattan was a year later, in August of ’78. In the interest of regular work, and because I was on X-MEN half the time anyway, I convinced its editor to let me have it full-time. My work, while improved, was still not very Marvel-looking, so most of my assignments were on side projects: anthology stories for Epic Illustrated magazine, stand-alone Marvel Graphic Novels, and the non-canonical WHAT IF.

From TARZAN #13, June 1978, Marvel Comics, image © Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc., original art courtesy of Heritage Auctions

The title on this story is beautifully designed in the style of the Tarzan newspaper strip logo, above it, and Tom’s balloon lettering has almost reached its mature style.

From X-MEN #137, Sept 1980, image © Marvel, original art courtesy of Heritage Auctions

One of Tom’s most memorable lettering design choices was the brushed border on the balloons for Dark Phoenix. His letters are now very even and most fit into a square space. There was little of the stylized shapes common in comics lettering at the time, it was more of a classic sans-serif alphabet with just a hint of the thick and thin lines from Tom’s slightly wedge-tipped pen points. His other balloon shapes were also very regular and symmetrical. The generally small size of the lettering helped Tom fit in lots of text, which was particularly handy on scripts by Chris Claremont.

From UNCANNY X-MEN #168, April 1983, image © Marvel.

One of Tom’s most memorable story titles, and also probably his largest word balloon! The creative team of writer Chris Claremont and letterer Tom Orzechowski was consistent, so even when the penciler and inker team changed, the book had a strong feeling of continuity. Tom’s reputation as one of the best letterers in the business was firmly in place. Tom said: My favorite part of the X-Men books was designing story titles.

From NIGHT MUSIC #1, Nov 1979, Eclipse, image © P. Craig Russell

While still busy at Marvel, Tom began working for other independent publishers starting with Eclipse in 1979. Tom wrote:

I’d met Dean Mullaney at a comic shop in Greenwich Village in the summer of 1979. The owner of the shop had told me that, at the end of the month, his customers were looking for more books to buy: that is to say, he felt there was enough fan money to support another publisher. Mullaney had noticed it, too, and was contacting the fan favorites to see who had new projects in mind. The first Eclipse publication, the SABRE graphic novel by Don McGregor and Paul Gulacy, had probably already come out by then. Since I was up for non-Marvel work, I agreed to letter Craig Russell’s book.

From ELRIC #2, Aug 1983, Pacific Comics

That led to other collaborations at other small publishers like this one with Thomas, Russell and Michael T. Gilbert. The title here is another large balloon with well-crafted letters. Tom wrote:

By ’81, New York City had defeated me once again, and I moved to San Francisco. Eclipse and Marvel remained as clients. Mike Friedrich gave up on Star*Reach Comics, though, and became a rep for creators as well as properties, such as Elric. I handled the lettering for that character’s Marvel graphic novel as scripted by Roy Thomas and illustrated/colored by Craig. I continued as it became a comics series, originally for First Comics and then for Pacific Comics. Roy continued doing the adaptation for Michael T. Gilbert’s pencils with Craig’s inks and colors. At that same time, for a year or so, National Lampoon carried a sardonic Prince Valiant-style strip that Craig drew, and which I lettered as well. My approach to title design was not in sync with Marvel, but did suit the more eccentric attitude of Eclipse. So, I did about half a dozen logo designs for them and lettered a few series. By the mid-‘80s, the X-Men had spun off into several titles and special projects, and, increasingly, I focused my time there.

From UNCANNY X-MEN #186, Oct 1984, image © Marvel

Another unusual and memorable title by Tom.

From NEW MUTANTS SPECIAL EDITION #1, 1985, image © Marvel, original art courtesy of Heritage Auctions

Tom’s title on this story is reminiscent of early 20th century sheet music, showing continuing exploration of lettering styles from earlier eras. The lettering credit is to Buhalis and Orzechowski. Tom wrote:

Lois [Buhalis] and I were introduced in ’83 by a friend who knew I was looking for an apprentice. She had done hand-lettered signs for a science fiction con, and had read comics her entire life. Before long, she moved in. Thirteen years later, we married. No sense in rushing into these things.

From UNCANNY X-MEN #205, May 1986

Another great story title by Tom, and I envy his chances to work with Barry Windsor-Smith.

In 1988, Tom and Lois began working for Toren Smith’s Studio Proteus, lettering English translations of Japanese manga, which were published by Viz, Eclipse, Innovation and Dark Horse over the next few years. It was that workload that convinced Tom to begin creating his own digital fonts, covered in THIS article. Meanwhile, he needed further help, and formed his own studio called Task Force X. Tom reported:

It made sense to tutor a group of apprentices. They got a background in calligraphy, and full access to my reference books in order to make it clear where I was coming from. The group included Lois, Irene Kerth, David Cody Weiss, Kevin Cunningham, Molly Kiely, Tomoko Saito, Angeler Tripajayacorn and Susie Lee. For the Task Force X gigs, I did titles, copy placements, balloons and sound effects. The dialogue was done by whoever came by that day. The system ran for about two years.

Five of those apprentices, Buhalis, Weiss, Cunningham, Saito and Lee, went on to their own careers lettering comics.

From WOLVERINE #3, Jan 1989, image © MarvelFrom UNCANNY X-MEN #245, June 1989, image © Marvel

Another fine title page and some cover lettering by Tom for the X-Men franchise, toward the end of his time on it. Writer Chris Claremont left in 1991. Tom wrote:

The X-Men brand had been my only Marvel gig for so long that I didn’t know any other Marvel editors. After half a year post-Claremont, though, it just didn’t sound like “my” book anymore. So, I quit, while wondering, “what will I do now?” Fortunately, a few weeks later, Todd McFarlane called to tell me about the new company that he and several of the top-selling Marvel artists were forming. He had me in mind because I’d lettered his first comics work seven years earlier, in COYOTE #11! The fact that I’d spent years lettering Marvel’s top-selling book was also a factor. I don’t recall that he knew I’d quit, so the timing was almost poetic. 

Spawn logo by Tom, ™ and © Todd McFarlane Productions

Todd faxed me a pin-up style shot of Spawn and asked me to design a logo. The character looked midway between Batman and Dr Strange, so I played to that attitude: physicality, crossed with the unexplainable. My final Uncanny X-Men issue was #287, cover dated April 1992. Spawn #1 was May 1992.

From SPAWN #1, May 1992, images © Todd McFarlane Productions

Tom created unique balloon and caption styles for the main character…

From SPAWN #1, May 1992, images © Todd McFarlane Productions

…as well as the villains for the series. He has remained the Spawn letterer ever since. Tom said:

Todd’s approach was rapid-fire and high-stakes from the start. His cast of characters ranged from the comfortable to the despairing. I was encouraged to be expressive with the dialogue stylings, and to insert sound effects at will. It’s been an enviable working relationship.

Tom copy-edited McFarlane’s scripts, and by issue #5 was being credited as the book’s editor. I think his contributions helped make the book the best of the Image Comics lineup. It’s a working partnership of impressive longevity, the title is still being published today, and has topped 300 issues, with Tom lettering every one except issue #44, lettered by Lois. This lengthy run on a single title has won him an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records.

Tom has worked on countless other projects for a variety of publishers I haven’t room to cover here, including DC Comics, Dark Horse, Image, and even a reunion with Chris Claremont at Marvel for a while in 2008. His logo design work has been sporadic, but always admirable. A few more examples are below.

Wolverine, 1982, image ™ and © MarvelEclipse logo/corner symbol, 1979, ™ and © EclipseGates of Eden logo, 1982, ™ and © Fantaco EnterprisesMysteries of the Diogenes Club cover title, 2010, MonkeyBrain Books

Tom continues to be held in high regard by fans and readers as well as his fellow letterers like myself. We first met at a comics convention in 1990, and have spent time together at a number of others since. He’s always good company and fun to talk to about lettering and comics in general. Long may it be so.

Tom Orzechowski and Todd Klein, San Diego Comicon 2008

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And Then I Read: THE KINGDOM OF GODS by N. K. Jemisin

Third and final book of the Inheritance trilogy. This one centers around the godling Sieh, trickster and god of children, and it takes place about 100 years after the previous book, though of course all the gods and most of the godlings are still around. The world of the books is one where the magic of the three main gods, and their fights and feuds, has a large impact on the normal human-like population, some of whom are of the ruling Arameri clan, who live in the capital city of Sky. Many others live below the sky-high city among the roots of a giant tree that wraps around it, and far more again in the lands elsewhere. Sieh is the eldest godling, first child of two of the main gods: Nahadoth representing night, Itempas representing day, and Yeine, a new incarnation of the goddess representing dawn and dusk. Sieh befriends twin Arameri children, Shahar and Dekarta, sister and brother, and somehow they take away his godhood and make him mortal in a process none of them understand. The event creates a destructive blast in the city, and Sieh is sent away to the gods’ realm to recover, which takes years. When he returns, he must try to find out what happened, and also help deal with a new problem, mysterious and powerful masked assassins who are attacking and killing members of the Arameri clan. Even the three gods seem unable to solve this mystery, but Sieh has some ideas.

Recommended, I enjoyed this entire series.

The Kingdom of Gods by N K Jemisin

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LETTERING ALTERNATIVE COMICS Part 3

From CEREBUS THE AARDVARK #1, Dec 1977, Aardvark-Vanaheim, Dave Sim

In the final part of this series I’ll look at creator-owned work, both self-published and at smaller publishers, with a focus on stories lettered by the creators. At the top of that list is Dave Sim’s CEREBUS, not only one of the first self-published series, also one of the longest and most successful, and definitely the best lettered.

Dave Sim was born May 17, 1956 in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. He was reading comics by the age of eight, and began creating his own soon after. He began placing work in fanzines and comics like QUACK! from Star*Reach in the 1970s, and in 1977 he and his partner, Deni Loubert, began self-publishing CEREBUS bi-monthly through their own imprint, Aardvark-Vanaheim.

From CEREBUS #1, Dec 1977, Aardvark-Vanaheim, Dave Sim

At first the comic was a parody of Marvel’s CONAN THE BARBARIAN with humorous elements along the lines of HOWARD THE DUCK, but the stories gradually grew longer and more intricate. Sim’s balloon lettering was always excellent, with regular, even letters and creative balloon shapes.

From CEREBUS #29, Aug 1981, Aardvark Vanaheim, Dave Sim, original art courtesy of Heritage Auctions

In issue #26, Sim began a 25-issue storyline, “High Society,” in which swords and sorcery took a back seat to politics. That trend would continue for another 250 issues. Though “LATER” on this page is type, the rest shows how Sim’s lettering became ever more varied and creative, with the (perhaps) telepathic balloon shape of many bubbles the most interesting. The large sound effects are outlined with a small pen and then filled in, leaving texture created by small white spaces. I also like the way Dave indicates Cerebus’ tone of voice by the shapes of his balloons in the third panel, and unlike many letterers, he always leaves plenty of air in his balloons around the lettering, making them easier to read.

From CEREBUS #53, Aug 1983, Aardvark-Vanaheim, Dave Sim, original art courtesy of Heritage Auctions

Parody and satire of mainstream comics, as well as musicians and politicians, continued to play a part in the stories, as in this Sim version of Marvel’s Wolverine. His over-the-top melodramatic “comic book caption” speech gets ever larger and more heavily bordered balloons, and the character’s letters are given texture by multiple small pen lines.

From CEREBUS #106, Jan 1988, Aardvark-Vanaheim, Dave Sim & Gerhard

Beginning with issue #65, Sim had help from the artist Gerhard, who did the backgrounds, but Dave continued to draw and ink the main characters and do all the lettering. At times that lettering was incredibly detailed and busy, as here, but all in service to the story. Dave’s balloon lettering also gained new elements like reverse white-on-black letters. The thought balloon in the last panel needs only a bubble tail to be understood as that, and I like the frameless captions at the top.

From CEREBUS #214, Jan 1997, Aardvark-Vanaheim, Dave Sim

As the CEREBUS epic entered its final third on the way to an incredible 300 issues, the stories became increasingly internal as Cerebus wrestled with personal demons and addictions. Sim’s ability to express all that clearly through a wide variety of lettering techniques is remarkable. With the second-by-second interplay here between the character and his inebriated alter-ego, the lettering makes it interesting and easy to read, even when some letters are touching and running together. The small detail of extra emphasis by a single curved line through open letters, as with NEVER and SECONDS here, is something I believe Dave created.

From CEREBUS #216, March 1997, Aardvark-Vanaheim, Dave Sim and Gerhard

This page is one of many with tour-de-force lettering. There’s so much going on here, but it all serves the story. I love the folds in the large sound effects and the fragmented balloons. The shaky letters in the balloons evoke mood perfectly. Has a hangover ever been done better in comics? I could fill this article with more excellent Dave Sim lettering, but I need to move on. Aardvark-Vanaheim also published other creator-owned series like JOURNEY by William Messner-Loebs, FLAMING CARROT by Bob Burden, normalman by Jim Valentino, NEIL THE HORSE by Arn Saba (Katherine Collins), MS. TREE by Max Collins and Terry Beatty, and PUMA BLUES by Stephen Murphy and Michael Zulli. Some of those moved to Renegade Press, the company Loubert started after she and Sim split.

From FANTASY QUARTERLY #1, Spring 1978, IPS, © Richard & Wendy Pini

ELFQUEST was another long-running self-published series from Wendy and Richard Pini, even though the first issue was put out by a small underground comix publisher, as seen above. With issue #2, the book came from their own WaRP Graphics imprint. Wendy did the lettering on the first 20-issue series, but hired others to letter for her later. Her lettering is easy to read with a few stylish touches in the credits and title. Like CEREBUS, the story is pure fantasy, this time about elves with complex relationships in a dangerous world, one that readers quickly came to love. The series continued for many years from several publishers, but always under the control and copyright of Richard and Wendy. They also published series by others, including Marty Greim’s THUNDERBUNNY and the first issues of Colleen Doran’s A DISTANT SOIL.

From E-MAN #1, Oct 1973, Charlton, Nicola Cuti & Joe Staton

Before I go further, I have to acknowledge E-MAN, a wonderfully funny and appealing science fiction superhero series from Charlton created by Nick Cuti and Joe Staton. Charlton was an old-school publisher working on the same model as companies like DC and Marvel, and retaining all rights to their non-licensed properties, but this book was so original and unique, it stood out from the crowd there. Joe Staton did his own logo, cover lettering, and fine balloon lettering, slightly cartoony and leaning left a bit, a perfect companion to his art. Nick’s writing was charming and chock full of great characters and ideas. When Charlton went under in the 1980s, Cuti and Staton bought the rights to the series, and were able to put out more of them at other publishers like First Comics and Comico. Later Nick sold his half to Joe, who retains the copyright. It wasn’t self-published or originally creator-owned, but it got there eventually. Backups by others also became creator-owned, like Rog-2000 by John Byrne.

From The Buyer’s Guide For Comic Fandom #177, April 8 1977, Alan Hanley cover

In pre-internet days, finding back issues of comics was often difficult. One way to shop was through ads in this tabloid-size newspaper started by Alan Light in 1971. Most of the content was ads, but TBG also ran a small amount of editorial content, like a news column by Murray Bishoff, a comics history one by Don and Maggie Thompson, and occasional short new comics by self-published artists like Alan Hanley’s “Goodguy.”

From The Buyer’s Guide for Comics Fandom #225, March 10 1978, Fred Hembeck

The most successful of these artists was Fred Hembeck, who began submitting pages like this one in 1977, a combination of fanboy love for comics, humor, and gentle criticism. Hembeck narrated through his own caricature, and fans loved his work.

From THE BEST OF DATELINE: @#$%”, 1979, Eclipse

Here’s a section of another Hembeck page so you can see the lettering. It’s loose and cartoony, just like the art, a good match. Hembeck’s pages were collected in several trade paperbacks from Eclipse, Fantaco, and other publishers, and he went on to do regular features and comics for DC and Marvel, generally spoofing the company’s characters. Fred almost always used trademarked and copyrighted characters in his work under “fair use” for humor, so the strips are not exactly creator-owned in the same way as others shown in this article, but he was still able to profit from the printed collections of his pages. TBG became Comics Buyer’s Guide in 1983.

From LOVE AND ROCKETS #1, 1981, Los Bros. Hernandez

The 1980s brought more independent creators to comics, including Gilbert, Jaime, and Mario Hernandez, though only the first issue of their LOVE AND ROCKETS was self-published. The property was quickly picked up by Fantagraphics and became one of the company’s most popular and successful creator-owned series. Jaime’s stories take place in Los Angeles, while Gilbert’s are often set in Central America. Both have large casts and complex storylines that drew in readers.

From LOVE AND ROCKETS #3, Summer 1983, Fantagraphics, © Jaime Hernandez

Each of the brothers did their own stories, though Gilbert and Jaime were the main artists. This one is by Jaime. The lettering is all italic and closer to printed writing than comics lettering, but it reads fine. I like the wavy balloon in the last panel. The series ran for decades, and included spinoffs featuring the work of just Jaime or Gilbert.

From STARSLAYER #2, April 1982, Pacific Comics, © Mike Grell

New publishers were springing up to take advantage of the direct market’s growing number of comics retailers. Pacific was a distributer which became a publisher in 1981, attracting popular artists from the big companies like Mike Grell by offering to let them keep ownership of their creations.

From STARSLAYER #2, April 1982, Pacific Comics, © Dave Stevens

The backup story in this issue was the first chapter of Dave Stevens’ THE ROCKETEER, which went on to its own series, and eventually became a film. Dave’s art and lettering on this first page is already accomplished, and would improve, though Dave elected to have the entire Rocketeer story relettered by Carrie Spiegle when it was collected later. The handsome feature logo and Art Deco “Aerodrome” sign show that Stevens knew how to design letters well. Pacific Comics did not last long, but creators were able to take their properties to other publishers under similar deals. The success of these smaller publishers forced Marvel and DC to try their own lines of creator-owned comics, Epic from Marvel and Vertigo from DC, which had their own popular hits.

From NEIL THE HORSE #1, Aardvark-Vanaheim, Feb 1983, © Katherine Collins

NEIL THE HORSE from Aardvark-Vanaheim by Arn Saba (now Katharine Collins) was full of Art Deco style and early animation cartoon characters. The lettering is quiet but effective, I particularly like the question mark in the last balloon. The series was full of characters that sang and danced.

From JOURNEY #1, March 1983, Aardvark-Vanaheim, © William Messner-Loebs

JOURNEY: The Adventures of Wolverine MacAlistaire by William Messner-Loebs is another popular creator-owned property that began at Aardvark-Vanaheim, telling of frontier life in 19th century Michigan. The lettering is somewhat uneven, but easy to read, and improved over time. Bill went on to a long career as a writer for DC and other publishers.

From ECLIPSE MONTHLY #1, Aug 1983, Eclipse, © Marshall Rogers

Eclipse was another independent publisher that welcomed creator-owned properties like Cap’n Quick and a Foozle by Marshall Rogers. Marshall had made his reputation drawing Batman for DC a few years earlier. This project is quirky and unique, and features his own lettering and logo. The lettering is small, but shows skill and variety.

From ECLIPSE MONTHLY #1, Aug 1983, Eclipse, © Doug Wildey

Also in that issue was the first installment of RIO by Doug Wildey, a veteran of comics and animation who was able to do a creator-owned project for the first time. Wildey’s skill and experience on western comics is clear, and his lettering is professional and appealing.

From MARS #1, Jan 1984, First Comics, © Mark Wheatley and Marc Hempel

First Comics was another small publisher that welcomed creator-owned projects. One of the best was MARS by Mark Wheatley and Marc Hempel, an innovative approach to science fiction and fantasy storytelling. Marc Hempel’s logo is a brilliant design that defies genre and tradition to create something new and unique. Nothing like it before or since. His lettering on the first issue also shows creativity in the balloon shapes, and is very well done. He was joined on the lettering by Kathy Mayer as the series went forward. MARS ran twelve issues, and is one of several successful projects and series from Mark and Marc, who formed Insight Studios in 1978, and who also publish the work of other creators like Frank Cho.

From TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES #1, May 1984, Mirage Studios

TMNT, self-published by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, became a surprise hit in 1984 after they advertised it in The Comics Buyer’s Guide. Drawing on ninja stories from Marvel’s DAREDEVIL and other mainstream comics, the four turtles soon had a growing fan base. The lettering by Kevin Eastman is uneven and more like printed handwriting than lettering, but as with many other small press and undergrounds, it suits the art well, and the rough brush-bordered captions and balloons add interest. This book spawned many imitators, but none lasted long. The property became a lucrative franchise spreading into toys, video games, and animated cartoons, and was sold to Viacom/Paramount in 2009.

From ALBEDO #2, Nov 1984, Thoughts & Images, © Stan Sakai

Stan Sakai was born in Japan in 1953 and was in Los Angeles by 1982, where he began working in comics as a letterer for GROO THE WANDERER by Sergio Aragonés and Mark Evanier, something he’s continued to do ever since. In 1984 he created Usagi Yojimbo, a rabbit ninja warrior wandering from adventure to adventure in ancient Japan, who first appeared in the comic above.

From a 1985 Fantagraphics house ad introducing Usagi Yojimbo by Stan Sakai

Readers loved Usagi, and he appeared in many comics from several publishers including Fantagraphics, Mirage, and IDW, always with Sakai’s charming art and professional lettering. I particularly like the open exclamation point with a drop shadow in the last panel.

From THE ENCHANTED APPLES OF OZ, April 1986, First Comics, © Eric Shanower

Eric Shanower was born in 1963 in Florida. He graduated from The Kubert School in 1984, and worked as a letterer and artist for DC and other publishers. In 1986 he began a series of beautiful graphic novels based on the Oz books of L. Frank Baum, a page of the first one is above. The lettering is as excellent as the art. It’s a bit hard to see here, but one distinctive feature of Eric’s lettering is the long central arm of each E.

From AGE OF BRONZE #1, Nov 1998, Image Comics, © Eric Shanower

In 1998, Shanower began AGE OF BRONZE, a long series telling the story of the Trojan War in great detail. Again, the art and lettering are terrific. As of 2019, 34 issues have been published by Image. Eric and his partner, David Maxine, have their own publishing company, Hungry Tiger Press, which focuses on Oz-related books and material.

From EIGHTBALL #1, Aug 1989, Fantagraphics, © Daniel Clowes

Many new creator-owned projects in a more realistic vein emerged in the 1980s and 1990s, and some rose to popular success, like EIGHTBALL by Daniel Clowes. Fantagraphics published many of them. This series has a film-noir vibe, but includes elements of humor and satire as well as sex and horror. The art and lettering are carefully crafted and professional. I like the variety seen on this cover and story page. One serialized story in the book, “Ghost World,” became a film with a screenplay by Clowes.

From HATE #1, Spring 1990, Fantagraphics, © Peter Bagge

Peter Bagge is another popular creator of the time, his series HATE uses cartoony dark humor to illustrate stories of Buddy Bradley and his young friends struggling to cope with middle-class life in New Jersey. Bagge first got attention in Robert Crumb’s WEIRDO, which he took over as editor for a while. He began working for Fantagraphics in 1985 with NEAT STUFF. I can’t find an interior page of this book, but the cover is full of Peter’s stylish and amusing lettering.

From BONE #1, July 1991, Cartoon Books, © Jeff Smith

One of the best loved and most popular self-published series in the 1990s was BONE by Jeff Smith. His animation-inspired art and humor drew readers into a complex fantasy world that appealed to fans of all ages. Smith started out lettering his pages with pen and ink, but soon found it quicker to use digital fonts developed from his own lettering. I think this page has some of each, the larger words are hand-drawn, the smaller ones are a font. Somehow they work well together, and Smith’s balloon shapes are varied and appealing. Special styles for some characters appeared later in the series, which ran for many years.

From ACME NOVELTY LIBRARY #1, Winter 1993, Fantagraphics, © Chris Ware

In 1993, new work by Chicago cartoonist Chris Ware, ACME NOVELTY LIBRARY, began appearing from Fantagraphics in a wide variety of formats and sizes. Ware’s art and lettering was meticulous and full of detail. It draws from old comics as well as book illustration, and the lettering is full of variety and Art Deco style. My only issue is the small size of some of it. You can see in the detail from this page of original art how consistent and creative the work is. Ware’s books have sold well and represent the acceptance of comics as literature and art in the wider world, even while his subject matter tends to be somewhat bleak and depressing.

From BLANKETS, July 2003, Top Shelf, © Craig Thompson

The world of alternative comics continues to grow and evolve, with many new projects now foregoing monthly issues in favor of complete graphic novels, with new publishers like Top Shelf emerging to publish stellar examples such as BLANKETS by Craig Thompson. Craig is another creator whose lettering I admire for its variety, texture, and energy. Traditional publishers have also entered the comics market, publishing original creator-owned works along the lines of this one. Not all are successful, but comics on a wide variety of topics are now a fixture in book stores and libraries as well as comics shops, and are sometimes award winners thanks to new generations of fine creators. There are more I wish I had room to feature here, but I encourage you to explore the world of alternative comics yourself and find your own favorites.

The post LETTERING ALTERNATIVE COMICS Part 3 appeared first on Todd's Blog.

Incoming: THE DEAD BOY DETECTIVES OMNIBUS

Images © DC Comics

Just arrived is this thick, oversized hardcover collecting all the Dead Boy Detective stories from many DC comics, starting with THE SANDMAN #25 and continuing through two miniseries and many other shorter appearances. I lettered many of them, and enjoyed the characters and the stories. Writers include Neil Gaiman, Ed Brubaker, and Toby Litt, artists include Mark Buckingham, Bryan Talbot, Steve Leialoha, Matt Wagner, and Jill Thompson. Retail price is $100. Amazon shows a release date of Oct 10th. Link below, or order from your comics retailer.

The Dead Boy Detectives Omnibus

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LETTERING ALTERNATIVE COMICS Part 2

From Science Fiction: The Advance Guard of Future Civilization #3, Jan 1933, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster

In Part 1 of this series I looked at comics professionals using alternative comics as a new market, this time I’ll focus on other ways aspiring comics creators could enter the field and existing creators could expand their options, focusing on those who lettered their own work. Fanzines, or amateur magazines on a particular genre or topic, have their roots in the 19th century. Science fiction fanzines emerged in the early 1930s, allowing fans to form friendships, share ideas, and network. Printing methods were crude, often messy, and print runs were limited by the machines involved, but Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, for instance, published the first incarnation of Superman in the one above. Another early science fiction fanzine, The Time Traveller, was produced by Julius Schwartz and Mort Weisinger, later editors at DC Comics, along with Forrest Ackerman, later editor of Famous Monsters of Filmland.

From Alter Ego #1, Spring 1961, by Jerry Bails and Roy Thomas

The crude printing methods of fanzines were also used by aspiring comics professionals starting in the early 1960s. Here’s some writing, art, and lettering by Roy Thomas in Alter Ego, for instance. I find the writing and lettering better than the art in this case! Of course Roy became a long-time professional comics writer and editor. Other early comics fanzines like Xero by Dick Lupoff, Pat Lupoff, and Bhob Stewart, and Comic Art by Don and Maggie Thompson were the beginnings of comics history research, at least in America. Don and Maggie were later editors of The Comics Buyer’s Guide, an important source of comics news from 1971 to 2013.

From National Lampoon Volume 1 #1, April 1970, © National Lampoon Inc.

In 1970, National Lampoon, a new monthly national humor magazine hit newsstands, an outgrowth of the Harvard Lampoon. It had some comics content from the beginning, though at first by veteran artists like Joe Orlando and Frank Springer. Soon, younger artists like Neal Adams were doing occasional comics parodies like Son-O’-God Comics, lettered by Gaspar Saladino.

From National Lampoon Volume 1 #22, Jan 1972

In 1972 the magazine started a small comics section in the back of each issue with a Funny Pages header by Michael Wm. Kaluta, and usually a one-page Nuts comic by cartoonist Gahan Wilson, as above. Wilson’s cartoons had been appearing in magazines like Playboy and The New Yorker since 1957. Nuts was about the grim realities of childhood, sort of the opposite of Peanuts by Charles Schulz. Gahan’s lettering seems based on comics he read as a child, but has its own personality and charm, just like the art.

From National Lampoon Volume 1 #22, Jan 1972, © J. Jones

Also in the first and in many installments of the Funny Pages was Idyll by Jeffrey (Catherine) Jones, who had already begun getting work in comics and as a magazine and paperback artist, but this venue allowed Jones to produce creator owned comics. The lettering is easy to read, and the balloons follow an early comic strip style of using a single line as a tail.

From National Lampoon Volume 1 #23, Feb 1972, © Vaughn Bode

The next issue saw the first appearance of Vaughn Bode’s Cheech Wizard, already discussed in my Underground Comix article, with Vaughn’s charming cartoony lettering. The Funny Pages was a new mainstream market that also published work of underground artists like Bobby London, Trina Robbins, and Shary Flenniken, as well as cartoonists who had not done comics previously.

From STAR•REACH #1, April 1974, image © Howard Chaykin

In 1973, professional comics writer Mike Friedrich became the publisher of a new line of comics that welcomed both established pros and underground artists, which he called “ground-level comics.” It was one of the first independent publishers that reached beyond the underground comix market, finding readers from mainstream comics as well. The content included some nudity and adult subject matter, but was not as explicit as many undergrounds. Star•Reach was both the company name and the main anthology. Friedrich used pro letterer Tom Orzechowski for his logos and some of the story and cover lettering, as here, but the books also included work lettered by the artists.

From STAR•REACH #1, April 1974, image © Walter Simonson

For example, young comics pro Walt Simonson did fine lettering on this first page of his story in the first issue. The title, based on Celtic letters, and the caption based on Old English are both excellent. Other creators lettering their own work in the series included Steve Skeates, Mike Vosburg, Lee Marrs, John Workman, and Joe Staton.

From THE FURTHER FATTENING ADVENTURES OF PUDGE, GIRL BLIMP #2, April 1975, © Lee Marrs

Lee Marrs had already published one issue of this humorous comic through underground publisher Last Gasp. Mike Friedrich put out a new printing and two more issues. Lee’s charming work falls somewhere between slice-of-life autobiography and situation comedy, and her lettering is a perfect compliment to the art. Marrs did all kinds of comics for Friedrich, and was soon also working for DC Comics and other comics publishers. Today she runs her own digital design and animation company.

From QUACK! #1, July 1976, © Michael T. Gilbert

Another title from Star•Reach featured funny animals and again provided a way into comics for creators who would have long careers. MIchael T. Gilbert’s The Wraith, perhaps inspired by Will Eisner’s The Spirit, was introduced in the first issue. Both his lettering and his balloon shapes had lots of variety and creativity. Other creators who lettered their own work included Ted Richards, Alan Kupperberg, Ken Macklin, and Dave Sim. Star•Reach comics didn’t last into the 1980s, but for a few years provided an important alternative to mainstream comics, and many other independent publishers soon followed, finding fans through comics shops, part of the new direct market.

From COMIX BOOK #1, Dec 1974, cover by Pete Poplaski

In 1974, Marvel’s Stan Lee and underground comix publisher Denis Kitchen teamed up on a new anthology, COMIX BOOK, hoping to bring underground artists to a wider audience, but generally using less raunchy art and stories than many undergrounds.

From COMIX BOOK #1, Dec 1974, Denis Kitchen

It was an interesting experiment, and featured the work of both underground creators and some established pros whose work seemed to fit, like Basil Wolverton. In this intro, Kitchen explains the premise with his own art and lettering.

From COMIX BOOK #1, Dec 1974, Howard Cruse

Howard Cruse’s Barefootz is both cute and disarming, the kind of work that regular Marvel readers might have liked. His lettering is small, with lots of air around it in the balloons, but easy to read.

From COMIX BOOK #1, Dec 1974, Skip Williamson

Skip Williamson was another underground artist with a cartoony style, and large rounded lettering that fills up this page. COMIX BOOK was a worthy attempt, but did not sell well, and Marvel dropped it after three issues. Kitchen put out two more on his own.

From MÉTAL HURLANT, Jan 1975, Les Humanoïdes Associés, cover by Moebius

My research is mainly focused on American comics, with a few brief looks into Great Britain, I don’t have the language skills or information to explore the wider world of international comics, but in 1975, French magazine MÉTAL HURLANT began making waves, the work of a group of young European creators that included Moebius (Jean Giraud), Phillippe Druillet, and Jacques Tardi, and a book that also featured new work by American Richard Corben.

From Blueberry: La tribu fantóme, (The Ghost Tribe), 1982, Hachette, © Jean Giraud

Of course the lettering (or type) was in French, with Jean Giraud’s lettering being particularly personal, lively, creative, and impressive, as seen in this later example. In 1988, Moebius had this to say about his lettering:

If an artist’s lettering style is truly not legible, then he should learn. I learned my own lettering from Jije, who himself was very influenced by the American masters, like Caniff. I do the best I can. My letter is alive, it dances on the paper. It reflects my personality.

I couldn’t agree more! I hope European comics historians will write about the lettering for comics in their own languages.

From HEAVY METAL #1, April 1977, Heavy Metal, art by Jean-Michel Nicollet

In 1977, National Lampoon started HEAVY METAL, a new magazine-sized comics anthology that reprinted most of the content of Métal Hurlant, as well as comics by other European artists and some Americans. While there was nudity and sexual content, it was generally milder than many underground comix, and the slick package was a success and sold well, bringing more thoughtful and adult material to a wider range of American readers. The European stories were translated and lettered with type, or hand-lettered by Americans including Harry Blumfield, John Workman, Adam Kubert and myself. The American work was sometimes lettered by the artists, as with Vaughn Bode.

From ROCKETS BLAST COMICOLLECTOR (RBCC) #120, July 1975, cover by Stephen Fabian

As the seventies progressed, some fanzines became larger and slicker magazines, perhaps using Wally Wood’s WITZEND as a model. They were offset printed on good quality white paper, and featured the work of top illustrators and comics artists on the covers. RBCC was one that did an excellent job of presenting some new comics material, comics history, comics creator interviews, comics reviews, and comics news and ads. It was another way for would-be creators to get a foot in the door.

From ROCKETS BLAST COMIC COLLECTOR (RBCC) #120, July 1975, © Don Rosa

Perhaps my favorite new comics work in the magazine was the serialized Pertwillaby Papers by Don Rosa. The series ran for years in Don’s college newspaper, the example above is reprinted from there. Pertwillaby, looking a bit like Don himself, had remarkably dangerous and exciting adventures around the world, some inspired by Don’s favorite comics creator Carl Barks and his Uncle Scrooge stories. The art was complex, crowded with detail, and perhaps not the most accomplished, but readers like myself loved it. The writing included a good dose of humor, and elements of science fiction at times. Don’s lettering was small and busy, but still well worth reading. Don also did a comics, TV, and movie history column for RBCC called Information Center from 1974 to 1979, often illustrated with his art.

From THE COMIC READER #196, Nov 1981, Mike Mignola cover art

THE COMIC READER was another comics news fanzine that ran from 1961 to 1984 under several titles and editors, beginning with Jerry Bails, and later Paul Levitz. It provided fans with news of upcoming titles and issues at a time when that information was hard to come by, and the covers were a place for aspiring comics artists, and later also pro artists, to show off their work.

From THE COMIC READER #168, May 1979, Jim Engel

Toward the end of its run, TCR also printed comics by aspiring pros like Jim Engel, above, whose lettering has appealing cartoony bounce, but also an impressive variety of styles and sizes. Other comics seen here were by Chuck Fiala and Fred Hembeck.

From THE COMIC READER #196, Nov 1981, Don Rosa

Don Rosa continued his Lance Pertwillaby adventures in this magazine under the title Captain Kentucky. I think both the art and lettering show improvement in this example. Rosa went on to international fame as a writer/artist of stories about Walt Disney’s Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge beginning a few years later, though with lettering by others.

From ARCADE #4, Winter 1975, Print Mint, cover © Robert Crumb

Another slick magazine attempting to present underground comix to a wider audience, ARCADE, ran seven issues in 1975-76. Published by underground mainstay Print Mint, and founded by cartoonists Art Spiegelman and Bill Griffith, their ambitious plan was to show how underground comix connected to artistic and literary culture. It featured both old and new work by established artists like Robert Crumb as well as newer creators. Content was raw at times, and the project did not find the audience it was looking for.

From ARCADE #1, Spring 1975, © Kim DeitchFrom ARCADE #1, Spring 1975, © Art Spiegelman

Kim Deitch and Art Spiegelman were two artists in the magazine whose self-lettered work goes beyond the usual comix topics, with well-made art and well-crafted titles and lettering.

From RAW #1, July 1980, © Art Spiegelman

In 1980, Art Spiegelman and his wife François Mouly began RAW, a large, slick magazine with excellent production values that showcased a wide variety of comics and other work by underground, European, and American creators. It sold surprisingly well, and was a critical hit, showing the tide had turned for this kind of thoughtful, adult material in America.

From RAW #4, March 1982, © Charles Burns

New artists like Charles Burns gained attention and fame in RAW before going on to their own solo publications. Burns’ careful, slick art and lettering hearken back to comics of the past, while presenting disturbing images of a new era.

From RAW #4, March 1982, © Art Spiegelman

But by far the most famous work to come from the magazine was MAUS by Art Spiegelman, serialized from 1980 to 1991 in RAW, and later a multiple award-winning book. It was the story of Spiegelman’s father in World War Two, a heart-wrenching account of the Holocaust casting Jews as mice, Germans as cats, and Poles as pigs. Spiegelman’s lettering is as cartoony as his art, but that makes the story more approachable, and the work is well-crafted and effective. MAUS can be seen as the mature culmination of both comics and comix, using sequential art to tell important stories, and it was the inspiration for many new works that followed.

In Part 3 of this series I’ll look at creators as self-publishers, and the rise of creator-owned properties in comics.

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And Then I Read: CALL IT COURAGE by Armstrong Sperry

Cover and illustration by Armstrong Sperry

Published in 1940, winner of the Newbery Award, this is the story of Mafatu, a boy living on the Pacific island of Hikueru among his Polynesian people. Mafatu was deeply scarred by the death of his mother when they were at sea together when he was a small child, and though he’d like to be brave and go out fishing with his friends, he can’t bring himself to go beyond the coral reef that surrounds their island. Mafatu is a disappointment to his father, and to himself, and treated poorly by the other boys. Finally he gets up the courage to face his fear, beginning a journey in a small outrigger canoe into the wide ocean to meet his fate accompanied only by his small dog Uri and an albatross he’s befriended, Kivi. Their voyage is perilous, through a strong storm, but they land at last on another island. This one is volcanic, with a high central cone. Mafatu finds ways to survive through skills he’s learned at home, but is troubled by a huge idol he finds that has been the site of human sacrifices by cannibals that live on some other island. Mafatu and his friends overcome many challenges, but the arrival of cannibals to the island is by far the most deadly.

Great read, this is one I’d never seen, recommended by my friend Hilary Walker Miller. Sperry’s biography is interesting, too. Today one might be skeptical of a white New England artist writing and drawing the story of a South Pacific native, but I found it worked well on every level. The digital edition I read did not include the art, but I was able to find many of the illustrations online. Recommended.

Call It Courage by Armstrong Sperry

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Rereading: OWLS IN THE FAMILY by Farley Mowat

Cover and illustrations by Robert Frankenberg

Like many of Mowat’s books, this one is autobiographical, taking place in his childhood. Mowat and his parents lived in the small town of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada surrounded by prairies and wetlands, and Farley and his friends spent lots of time exploring there, and bringing home young animals they found to be pets. This book is about two owl chicks Farley brought home. The first, Wol, was a leucistic (mostly white) great horned owl chick. Farley tried to keep him in his room, but that became a disaster, so his father built a large cage in the yard. Before long, Wol was tame and following Farley and his dog Mutt around, even riding on Farley’s bike, though it took him a long time to figure out flying. Mostly he walked. Wol was full of personality and feisty, taking no guff from any man or animal. Weeps, on the other hand, was a smaller owl chick rescued from some older boys who had caught it and were tormenting it. Farley traded his scout knife for the chick, and Weeps joined Wol, who became his protector. Weeps was always timid and never learned to fly, but Farley and his friends had fun with the owls, and the book has many funny stories to tell about them, culminating in a summer holiday pet parade in town that becomes an incredibly funny disaster. The owls appeared briefly in Mowat’s “The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be” about Farley and Mutt, this expands their story with lots of new adventures.

Recommended, and the art is good too.

Owls in the Family by Farley Mowat

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LETTERING ALTERNATIVE COMICS Part 1

From HEROES, INC., 1969, © Wally Wood

The rise of underground comix in the 1960s combined with widespread cheaper methods of printing were eye-opening to many creators and would-be publishers, and led to new types of comics, often creator owned or self-published. In this three part article, I’ll look at several trends that began then and developed to a wider range of comics through the second half of the 20th century and beyond, of course focusing on work lettered by the artists. First I’ll examine books and stories by established creators, already busy in mainstream comics, who tried to widen their market and influence through self-publishing or placing their own copyrighted creations with new small publishers or new kinds of adult-oriented magazines. One of the first to try this was Wally Wood, his HEROES, INC. is comics size and self-published, includes adult material, and unlike most undergrounds, was full color throughout like regular comic books. Wood designed the cover logo and lettering, but I think most of the interior lettering was by others. Sadly, this book did not get much distribution and failed to sell well.

Wallace Wood, 1968 © Bhob Stewart

Wallace Allan Wood (June 17, 1927 – November 2, 1981) was born in Minnesota and began reading and drawing comics at an early age. He joined the Army in 1946. After his discharge in 1948, he came to New York looking for comics work, and found it first as a letterer for Fox romance titles, working his way up to backgrounds and inks. In 1950 he began at EC Comics, and quickly became one of their best artists, working in all their comics, but particularly remembered for his science fiction stories and his work for MAD. Wood went on to a prolific career at many comics publishers, including DC and Marvel, as well as doing illustrations for science fiction magazines and comic strips. He hired assistants, and they often lettered his work, as Wood found it more cost effective to focus on his art.

From WITZEND #1, Summer 1966, © Wallace Wood

Wood’s first self-published effort was a slick black and white magazine that included some of his own art, and plenty more by his artist friends or assistants like Al Williamson, Angelo Torres, Ralph Reese, Archie Goodwin, Jack Gaughan, Frank Frazetta, Gray Morrow, Harvey Kurtzman, Reed Crandall, Bill Elder, Art Spiegelman, Steve Ditko, Don Martin, Roy Krenkel, Roger Brand, and others, who relished the chance to do whatever they wanted without censorship.

From WITZEND #2, 1967, © Wallace Wood

Wood’s own work was usually lettered by others, I believe he only designed the feature logo for this story. After the fourth issue in 1968, he turned the magazine over to Bill Pearson, though he continued to contribute to it.

From the CANNON newspaper strip, © 1970 Wood & Richter

From 1970 to 1974, Wood wrote and drew two newspaper strips for American soldiers stationed in Germany, published in Overseas Weekly. CANNON was a spy thriller, while SALLY FORTH combined humor and science fiction. Both strips included nudity and adult material. From 1976 to 1978, Wood self-published collections of these strips, and they sold well in comics shops and by mail. While many of the strips were lettered by his assistants, I think the first CANNON strips were lettered by Wally himself, as seen above. Wood used a wedge-tipped pen, and his balloon lettering is similar to that of Frank Engli on Terry and the Pirates, a comic strip he probably enjoyed reading as a child.

From THE KING OF THE WORLD, 1978, © Wallace Wood

Also in 1978, Wood self-published the first book of a planned fantasy trilogy that he wrote, drew, and lettered, sample above. It was an ambitious project, colored by his ex-wife Tatjana Wood, that he wasn’t able to finish before his death in 1981. Wood’s alternative comics were a small part of his prolific output, but they were influential and are well remembered today.

From MR. A #1, 1973, Comic Art Publishers, © Steve Ditko

Steve Ditko, one of the most popular mainstream comics artists in the 1960s, had work published in Wally Wood’s WITZEND lettered by others, including his creation Mr. A. From 1973 to 1975, Ditko’s creator owned work appeared in several comics from small publishers like this one, lettered by Steve himself. The work was often ideological and symbolic rather than typical storytelling, with lots of interesting and creative lettering, sometimes mixed with type.

Steve Ditko in his studio, 1959, image found online

Stephen John Ditko (November 2, 1927 – June 29, 2018) was born and raised in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. After high school he served in the Army in Germany, and then moved to New York City in 1950, where he attended art school. He started drawing comics in 1953, and in 1954 began a long association with Charlton Comics. In 1955 he started working for Atlas Comics, as Marvel was then known, and became a busy artist on short stories for their mystery/horror titles. In 1962 he helped create Spider-Man for Marvel, which was a hit, and followed it with his own creation, Dr. Strange. For a few years, Ditko’s Marvel work was popular and his fame grew, but he left Marvel over compensation and credit disputes. He returned to Charlton, and also did work for DC Comics. Ditko worked for many publishers, including Marvel, from the 1970s on, but in the 1990s returned to more personal ideological work co-published with Robin Snyder for the last three decades of his life.

From MR. A #1, 1973, Comic Art Publishers, © Steve Ditko

Ditko’s lettering in Mr. A is unusual in several ways. First, he uses large display lettering as backgrounds in a way that’s similar to rock concert posters, running the letters and words close together, even overlapped. Second, his captions and balloon lettering are highly stylized with Art Deco influences. It can take a bit of work to read, but is certainly creative.

From MR. A #1, 1973, Comic Art Publishers, © Steve Ditko

Only the cover and this center spread have color, and here the color helps the large display lettering stand out, while the caption on the walkway is in perspective. Whether you find this kind of comics appealing or not, Steve certainly gave readers lots to chew on.

From THE AVENGING WORLD, 1973, Bruce Hershenson, © Steve Ditko

More symbolic work appeared in this comic from another small publisher with equally interesting lettering that’s not only part of the art but part of the storytelling too.

From THE DITKO PUBLIC SERVICE PACKAGE, Feb 1991, Robin Snyder & Steve Ditko, © Steve Ditko

When Steve returned to this kind of work in 1990, he sometimes commented on the comics industry he’d long been a part of, as seen on this delightful cover with lots of fine lettering. The books from Snyder and Ditko were often long, this one is 116 pages, and crowd-funded through Kickstarter. Ditko fans looking for more of his work in the 1990s to 2010s could find plenty of it here.

From THE DITKO PUBLIC SERVICE PACKAGE, Feb 1991, Robin Snyder & Steve Ditko, © Steve Ditko

Again, the work is ideological, but sometimes also biographical, and despite his reluctance to appear in public, Steve expressed his feelings about comics and his career in graphically interesting ways that provided answers to questions fans might have ask in person if they could. The lettering is well done and often distinctive. I particularly like the folded thought balloon at the center of this page.

From THE SPIRIT SECTION, Dec 8 1940, © Will Eisner Studios, Inc.

If you were lucky enough to see them, Will Eisner’s Spirit stories were innovative and excellent. They began appearing in 1940 in comics-style inserts in some Sunday newspapers, and continued into the early 1950s. Eisner was not only talented, he was a smart businessman, and he was wise enough to secure a contract with his publisher that allowed him to retain the copyright to The Spirit and the other stories in the SPIRIT SECTIONS. Eisner employed letterers for his stories from the start, but he often did creative feature logos on the first Spirit story page, and sometimes the lettering on those too. Since the Sections were not appearing alone on newsstands, it wasn’t important to have a large, consistent logo, and that allowed Will to do a wide range of different versions and designs.

Will Eisner at work, 1941, image © Will Eisner Studios, Inc.

William Erwin Eisner (March 6, 1917 – January 3, 2005) was born in Brooklyn to immigrant parents. His father encouraged his interest in art. Will was one of the earliest comic book artists, beginning in 1936, and with a partner, Jerry Iger, became one of the first comics packagers, producing material for several publishers. In 1939, he was given the chance to create a unique comics insert for newspapers by Quality Comics publisher Everett M. “Busy” Arnold. Will sold his half of the lucrative packaging business to Iger, and the Spirit Section was born.

From THE SPIRIT SECTION, June 22, 1941, image © Will Eisner Studios, Inc.

Since Will was using letterers, it’s not always clear what was done by him on the Spirit splash pages, but I think this amazing page was probably all his own work, as the large lettering is so much a part of the story. Letterers used by Eisner included Zoltan Szenics, Sam Rosen, Martin deMuth, Ben Oda, and Eisner’s favorite letterer, Abe Kanegson from 1947-50. Clearly Will himself was a talented letterer when he wanted to be, but as with Wally Wood, he found it more cost effective to hand that part of the job to others in many cases.

From THE SPIRIT #2, March 1967, Harvey, image © Will Eisner Studios, Inc.

The Spirit Sections ended in 1952, and Will went on to a busy career doing instructional comics for the U.S. Army and other kinds of commercial comics, but since he retained ownership of The Spirit, he occasionally put together reprints like this one with new covers. It has one of his impressive architectural logos, though the rest of the lettering is probably by Harvey Comics regular Joe Rosen.

From THE SPIRIT #1, Jan 1973, Kitchen Sink Press, image © Will Eisner Studios, Inc.

In 1972, Eisner teamed with underground comix artist and publisher Denis Kitchen for a new mix of reprints and original stories. On this cover, Will did all the lettering himself as well as the impressive logo. I think his balloon lettering reflects the work of Abe Kanegson. There were only two issues, but they led to a regular reprint series from Warren Publishing with new Eisner covers that introduced a new generation to the character.

From A Contract With God, 1978, Baronet Publishing, image © Will Eisner Studios, Inc.

Beginning in 1978, Will was inspired by younger creators to launch a series of very personal and often biographical books completely from his own mind and hand, the first being A Contract With God. Many others would follow until his death in 2005. Eisner’s lettering on them was again his take on what Abe Kanegson had been doing for him on The Spirit about three decades earlier, and it’s imbued with his loose style and a career full of knowledge.

The Dreamer, 1986, Kitchen Sink Press, image © Will Eisner Studios, Inc.

This book was a fictionalized story of Will’s own early days in comics, and as he went on, his lettering got even better. The Eisner books were both a sales and critical success, and they’ve been kept in print. Will also taught comics in New York, and is honored yearly by the awards ceremony named for him, the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards. The Spirit continues to entertain new readers in both reprints and new stories by others.

From THE ROOK, June 1980, Warren, image © Alex Toth

One other comics creator fits into this group, though only briefly. Alex Toth was already a legend when he decided to create Bravo For Adventure, originally planned as a European graphic album. When that deal fell through, Toth placed in in one of the Warren magazines, but retained the copyright. His art and lettering for the project were excellent.

Alex Toth, 1968, by Vincent Davis

Alexander Toth (June 25, 1928 – May 27, 2006) was born in New York City to immigrant parents. His artistic talent was noticed in grade school, and he attended the School of Industrial Art, later the High School of Art and Design in Manhattan in the 1940s, with many other aspiring artists who would also end up in comics. He began working for DC Comics in 1947, and handled many popular features. Toth was drafted and served in the Army from 1954-56, and then resettled in Los Angeles, where he did comics for Western/Dell that led to a long career in animation starting in 1960. He continued to do comics from time to time for DC and others.

From an unpublished page intended for STRANGE ADVENTURES #13, Oct 1951, image © DC Comics

Toth had a distinctive writing style that was essentially comics lettering with his own personal angular look, as seen above. In his early days at DC, most of the stories he drew were lettered by his school friend Gaspar Saladino, but this early example shows his own lettering style was already in place then. Gaspar may have been influenced by it.

From THE WITCHING HOUR #1, Feb-March 1969, image © DC Comics

When Toth made later appearances at DC, after gaining success in animation, he was sometimes allowed to letter his own work, as seen here. His regular lettering is angular and bouncy, but easy to read. The letter shapes are mostly similar to Saladino’s except for the letter Y. His sound effects are also more angular than most of Gaspar’s, and I find them appealing.

From THE ROOK #3, June 1980, Warren, image © Alex Toth

By the time of Bravo for Adventure, Toth’s style was a bit more angular, and his Y was now a standard comics one. He makes great use of larger, bolder letters for emphasis, and his sound effects are still fine.

From THE ROOK #3, June 1980, Warren, image © Alex Toth

Toth’s storytelling was always excellent, and here he makes good use of sound effects and thought balloons containing only punctuation. His thought balloons are oval with only the bubble tails different from his speech balloons. His balloon lettering has appealing bounce, and some letters lean to the left a bit.

From THE ROOK #4, Aug 1980, Warren, image © Alex Toth

Toth did amazing air battles, and here the sound effect add a lot to the story. Look at the extreme perspective of EEEEE in the first panel, it adds so much depth, as do the stacked gunshot sounds.

I think Alex was disappointed this project didn’t get off the ground as planned, and he never tried another creator-owned one, but the work is loved by many, and has been reprinted several times. In Part 2 I’ll continue with other kinds of alternative comics and more creators.

The post LETTERING ALTERNATIVE COMICS Part 1 appeared first on Todd's Blog.

More About Pen Lettering

Image © Todd Klein

Recently I had some pen lettering questions from a friend that my first article didn’t answer, and I realized I could do another one on the subject using material and images from The DC Comics Guide to Coloring and Lettering (2004, Watson-Guptill), which has been out of print for many years now. The image above, which I sell as a black and white print on my website, was done in 1993 when digital lettering was just making inroads in comics, and expresses how I was feeling about it then. The following year I bought my first Apple desktop computer and began creating my own fonts (with some help) and gradually inched my way into digital lettering. While I loved working with pen and ink, I could see digital was the way of the future, and I didn’t want to be left behind. Over the next decade, digital lettering moved from an option to a requirement from most of my clients. I think I made the right move, but there are still things to learn and skills you can only develop doing lettering the old way, and if you’re interested in trying that, here’s more about it. I suggest you first read Pen Lettering for Comics before this one, though there is a slight overlap.

One question asked was, how do you break up a speech into lines that will fit into a balloon? As with all things, it takes some practice. First, look at the area available for balloons on the art. If you’re doing the art yourself, make sure you leave room for the lettering, generally it works best at the top of each panel, but it can go elsewhere. A speech balloon is usually oval or round, though there are always exceptions based on different style decisions. Assuming you want one of those shapes, you need to break up the text into lines that are longer at the middle and shorter at the top and bottom, as seen above. While you’re learning, try it first on a separate piece of paper, penciling in the letters roughly as you plan to letter them. Note that each line doesn’t have to be perfectly centered, close is good enough.

From FABLES #1, July 2002, image © Bill Willingham and DC Comics

Sometimes you need to hyphenate words, break them in two, as in the first balloon above, though you should do that as little as possible. If you must, a dictionary can help by showing syl•la•ble breaks. Already hyphenated words like ping-pong are easy, compound words like northeast are also easy to break into halves, but some words like thorough don’t break well (thor•ough reads oddly and tho•rough is worse). Never hyphenate one-syllable words. So, how else can you get things to fit? Making the letters a little narrower (or wider) can do it, as in the second line of the second balloon above. This takes some practice to keep it readable and not too obvious.

The other question I had was how do you know how much space to leave between the letters and the balloon border? This varies some depending on taste and style, but my rule of thumb is to leave about an average letter space between border and text. Closer than that makes the balloon seem too crowded. Again, try this out on a separate piece of paper when you’re learning, and rough in the balloon shape in pencil first, as above. I’ve left more than a character width in many places in this example, but then I don’t have to fit this balloon around any art, and a little extra space is okay if there’s room. In the FABLES panel above, you can see I’ve had to leave less room than I like on the left edge to make the lettering work.

From THOR #339, Jan 1984, image © Marvel

Another option if space is tight is to open the sides of the balloon where it meets the panel border, a favorite approach of John Workman, as seen above. Some letterers leave a lot more “air” around the lettering, and that can work if there’s room in the art. When you’re doing everything yourself including the art, you can leave extra space for the lettering if that looks good to you.

You also need to draw balloon tails, which should point toward the center of the balloon on one end, and toward the speaker’s mouth on the other. If you don’t follow those guidelines, your tails will seem wrong to readers, even if they don’t know why. As with all things, exceptions can be made occasionally to help the balloons fit. Balloon tails should never cross one another, and try to avoid having them go behind things if you can. It’s particularly bad to have a balloon or tail go behind something in the background and in front of something in the foreground, defying the depth of the scene. See the previous article for more about balloon placement, and for inking balloon borders. Captions traditionally have straight rectangular borders best made with a T-square and triangle, but they can be done freehand or with other shapes if you prefer, as long as they’re clearly different from speech balloons.

Other kinds of balloons are helpful to tell a story. The traditional style for whispering is a broken line, as above, but very small letters with lots of air around them is another method that works. If this style is used against a black background, it’s best to leave a thin white space between the background and the balloon so the effect can be seen.

A radio or electric balloon shape is often used for any amplified or broadcast voice such as a loudspeaker, phone, or TV. Note the electric zig-zag in the tail to help get the idea across. Other methods work, this is my preference. I vary the size of the points to add interest.

Thought balloons were extremely common until the 1980s, and now are rare, as many writers prefer to use narrative captions to let us know what someone is thinking. That can work fine, but I kind of miss this approach. It’s also more direct, a window into the character’s mind, while a narrative caption is a story the character is telling himself and the reader, which may or may not be what they really believe.

I covered burst balloons in the previous article, and how to give them more emphasis by adding thickness to the outside of the border. Here I’ll just point out that, while I give the points a variety of sizes to add interest, I try to keep the tail the longest, it’s on the bottom here. Also, the tail and points all aim directly away from the center of the burst.

Digital lettering offers more options for things like telepathic balloons, thoughts that are broadcast from one character to another, this is the way I usually did it when lettering with a pen. The style combines the thought balloon with radiating open lines to suggest transmission.

Wobbly balloons can indicate exhaustion, illness, dizzyness, drunkenness, and other impaired speech. For the last of those, I add a few bubbles in the balloon. Note the extra bounce in the lettering, with letters placed far up and down from the usual horizontal rows.

On the other hand, a rough balloon shape suggests anger, toughness, a raspy voice, clenched teeth, someone receiving a blow, a character doing something physically difficult, and so on. I generally give them a thicker border than regular speech balloons. You can find many other examples of special balloon styles in comics, but remember to use them sparingly, and only when it makes sense to help tell the story. Special styles used for no reason confuse the reader and detract from the storytelling.

Display lettering is the term for larger lettering, where you need something extra to create excitement or gather focus. It can be used in balloon lettering, and is often seen in story titles, next issue blurbs, and on covers. The name may have come from the days of show-card lettering when it was a display of the letterer’s talent. Sometimes it’s just a larger, thicker version of emphasized balloon lettering, as above, created with larger Speedball pen points.

To make it more forceful, you can “point the corners” with a small pen point, as has been done here on the last two lines.

From FABLES #9, March 2003, image © DC Comics and Bill Willingham

Shapes like these in outlined form also work for sound effects. In that case, you would pencil the shapes and outline them with a small pen, adding thickness to the outside of the lines if needed. Note that you always add to the outside, not the inside. The inside shape is what the reader sees first, taking away from it distorts the letters. Think of outlined letters as tracing around a white shape. In this case, I used a straight edge to make the straight lines and oval templates on the O, while the added rough edge was done freehand. Sometimes connecting the letters works, here it would have made the P hard to read.

Learning to draw standard block letters is a skill that will be useful for titles, sound effects, and logos. Above is a diagram showing how I construct the most common of mine. I do many other variations, but these are a good starting point. Draw out measured horizontal guidelines with a T-square and ruler, and vertical ones with a triangle and ruler to give you even, balanced shapes.

There are many effects that can be added to open letters, here are a selection. First, a shadow on two sides to add depth, then a drop shadow for more depth. An open drop shadow gives room for a second color, and telescoping (extending the letters like a telescope extends outward when it opens) adds even more depth, a technique often seen on logos.

A rough outer edge created with a small pen adds energy, a second outline again allows room for another color. Solid letters within an outline can be dramatic as long as the inner shapes aren’t distorted, and flaming letters add excitement in the right situation. I like flames that blow off to one side a bit.

There’s really no limit to what you can do with block letters as your starting point, here are other creative examples. You can find many more. Always try to match the style and effect with the intent and look of the words, characters and art. For an amazing catalog of display cover lettering by my favorite letterer, see these articles:

Gaspar Saladino Cover Lettering Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

Traditional comics balloon and caption lettering has always been all sans-serif capital letters (with the exception of a serif I for the personal pronoun and sometimes the J), because they’re easiest to read at small sizes, and easiest to letter, but other alphabets and styles are sometimes useful to help tell a story, or as a style choice. Mixed case alphabets were once common in early comic strips, and have become more common in the last few decades, especially in captions. The trick is to keep the parts that extend below the baseline, like the tails of the lower case G, J, P, Q, and Y, as short as possible so the lines of lettering can stay close together vertically. The parts that extend upward should also be kept short. The body of lower case letters like the N and X should take up most of the height, this is called the x-height. The space between lines of lettering, as prepared with an Ames Guide (see previous article) may have to be adjusted for mixed case.

Samples of a few other alphabets I use occasionally are above. Script handwriting has largely fallen out of use because younger readers, who no longer learn it in school, have a hard time reading it. Again, you can find many more examples of special lettering styles and alphabets in the work of professional letterers, there are some of mine in the poster at the top of this article. Always be careful to keep your lettering readable first, that’s more important than a clever style.

From TERRA OBSCURA #6, Feb 2004, image © DC Comics

Sometimes when I was lettering comics with pen and ink I needed to work on vellum overlays placed over pencils or inked art rather than lettering on the art boards. This was a way to save time, or a way for an artist to send in completed pages before the lettering was added. You can use this idea when learning how to letter. Vellum is a thick tracing paper available in pads. It’s translucent enough to see through, but you can still see what you’re lettering. If you have access to photocopies or scans of penciled or finished comics art (easy to find online at auction sites), you can print them and practice your lettering over that. You can do the same thing over lettered comics art, and copy the lettering on the page. That can give you instant feedback about how well you’re doing compared to the professional letterer who did that job. It will also give you insight into the decisions made about how and where to place the lettering. And of course, you can use vellum over your own comics art to try things out before committing to ink on the page.

I hope this information will encourage you at least try pen lettering yourself, I highly recommend it, even if it’s not something you plan to do regularly. And perhaps you’ll find pen lettering is something you enjoy doing enough to keep it going.

The post More About Pen Lettering appeared first on Todd's Blog.