Ye Olde Lettering Skill Appreciation Thread

[ming]

A few more...

TONY JACOB - Tharg's Future Shocks - Prog 286






PETER KNIGHT - Rogue Trooper - Prog 288






TOM FRAME - Dredd, Shanty Town - Prog 302

[Toni Scandella]

I really noticed the lettering as a kid - I was,, after all, used to the cheap looking typeset that was commonly used: This example from Action (which I loved) illustrates the difference lettering can make compared to the stuff in the rest of this thread

[Spikes]

Ah! Kids rule OK! Flippin' grand stuff, that 
But yeah, that typeset they used around that time, is awful isnt it.
Why oh why?

[Patrick]

IPC only used typeset lettering for a brief period in the 70s. DC Thomson used it for a bit longer. I think I've read it was Pat Mills, Gerry Finley-Day and John Wagner who brought it to IPC, because it was what they were used to at Thomsons, and it was probably quicker and cheaper, but Pat was eventually persuaded to revert to hand lettering for 2000AD, thankfully, because damn, typset lettering's ugly. But if you look at blogs like British Comic Art and The Yellowed Pages, which post pages from old comics, nearly all of it's hand-lettered, even in IPC stuff that's contemporary with Battle and Action.

I don't mind digital lettering (I do it myself, occasionally for money), but I miss hand-drawn balloons. I prefer to draw my balloons digitally with bezier curves rather than use the ellipse tool. Looks far less artificial.

[Jim_Campbell]

and it was probably quicker and cheaper, but Pat was eventually persuaded to revert to hand lettering for 2000AD, thankfully, because damn, typset lettering's ugly.

I asked Pat about this a while ago. He said that he wanted hand-lettering from the outset for 2000AD because it looked "more dynamic" and when he requested it, it turned out that the cost implications were negligible.

Cheers

Jim