Pulled From My Files 24: SUPREME LETTER COLUMN HEADER

Images © Rob Liefeld.

I did lots of extra design work for the issues of SUPREME I worked on with Alan Moore writing for various artists. One assignment was to create a letter-column header similar to ones seen in most comics until the internet and email cut way back on actual fan letters. I’m not sure how many letters were coming to the editor of SUPREME, possibly the letter column was partly or completely written by Alan, but in any case, the idea was to give it a retro look, as with much of the SUPREME design work. I started by hand-lettering the column title and “Faithful Reader” as a return address, using Speedball dip-pens and a Faber-Castell TG-1 technical pen for the open lettering.

I scanned that and assembled this “letter” on my computer using Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. “Via Suprememail” is one of my fonts with distressing to make it look rubber-stamped.

Finally I put the letter into a rectangular design containing a stream of letters flying toward Supreme’s flying headquarters, his “Citadel.” I indicated where to pick up the art for that from a previous issue, and that it would need art extension on the clouds. I don’t have a copy of the printed letter column, but it would have been colored and dropped onto the top of the letters page layout. In the old days on staff at DC, assembling letter columns was one of my production duties, this time I was able to pass that part on to someone else!