While I try to split my time between web design work, teaching and subbing stuff, and Hope 7 I have been thinking more about starting to get the new issues of Hope 7 all lettered. I have not lettered a comic book since last summer in 2006 so as a way for me to refresh on my basics and get me more psyched to get to the Hope 7 lettering I will try to piece together a bunch of posts about the basics of lettering, a humble lettering 101.
Choosing and effectively implementing a font and the best placement for balloons and narration captions is an important and, unfortunately, often overlooked part of comic book creation. I’ll try to go over quite a few topics about lettering, in-between posts of Hope 7 pages and any other comic related freelance jobs I may pick-up. I hope this guide gives enough information to make an educated opinion as to what should and should not be used and why.
The whole point of proper lettering is to draw as little attention to the lettering itself as possible, while enhancing the flow and presentation of text to visually reflect the events in the comic. The various topics I’ll talk about should help you to better understand the theory and usage of lettering. I’ll give examples from some of my previous works as I discuss many of the topics.
