letterers?

[Tu-plang]

Anyone else curious about these mysterious beings?  Ellie De Ville?  Annie Parkhouse?  They seem to just be hadwriting-ish fonts with peoples names attached.

[Mudcrab]

Yeah, in the old days they used to actually write them. used to impress me no end. Guess there's still a lot of arranging/positioning to do and stuff like that. Then putting them in bubbles n stuff. Oh, and adding bold and stuff.

Of course I'm sure Tom Frame still does his by hand :o)

[Tu-plang]

No he switched to font even before the others.

This looks to me like the easiest job in the world.

[Matt Timson]

You've never tried it then!  Yeah- loads easier than it used to be- but there's still a certain artistic quality required.  I'm a terrible letterer.

Matt

[JamieB]

You know how some jobs *look* easy and turn out to be really, really f**king difficult?

...Yeah. Lettering's one of those, which is why there are so very few professional letterers - it's a dying art :(

J-Bo-1

[petemaskreplica]

Tom Frame is a god-like genius, and I'll fight anybody who says different :)

[Tu-plang]

Whatever happened to that other guy who dissapeared around prog 1200 who'd been there since the beginnning?  Steve Potter?  I liked his style.

[Devons Daddy]

i could been the worlds greastest letterer me.

if only it wasnt for the fact that my spelling around the standard of a seven year olds.

[Krustabi]

I have huge respect for all letterers, I know I definitely couldn't do it. And anyway, isn't writing the words only part of it? Don't they also have to work out where the bubbles go? And isn't there a load of asinine rules they have to adhere to like "Don't cross the tails"? Letterers are great.

[Capt.Zeep]

But why does Ellie DeVille always do her Qs backwards?

[frazer]

it is indeed more than just writing the letters. There are one or 2 books on lettering which expose how much of it is an unseen craft. I've done a fair amount of lettering on my own stuff (not lately tho) and it's not as easy as it seems.

Also, the current letterers tooth uses all designed their own fonts, which in itself is a painful and time consuming task, especially if you want it to resemble your handcrafted letters. and there's all the additional FX fonts which they need to design.

plus bear in mind that some art can come in with spaces all int he wrong place (hey, we ain't perfect) and the letterers have to make sure it reads as well as it can without screwing the art up.

Ellie is my favorite:)

F

[Dudley]

isn't there a load of asinine rules they have to adhere to like "Don't cross the tails"?

Can you break this rule if facing a 30-foot tall Mr Stay-Puft the Marshmallow Man?

[Tu-plang]

I don't think I've ever really thought about letterers.  It'd be interesting to see someone like Ellie DeVille in the Megazine's Interrogation Cube interview pages.

[Krustabi]

That's just what I was thinking yesterday!

[Bolt-01]

Speaking as someone who is just learning how to use PC lettering techniques, It can take me longer to letter a page than to actually draw the damn thing. Using a PC is 'easier', but the end result is lacking some of the balloon shapes I like to use.

It (Lettering) is one of the hardest 'comic-book' skills to master, as it is technically invisible.

I too would love to see an article on how current tooth letterers go about their craft, as they could so easily make the mag unreadable.

Heck, a lettering masterclass would definately be on my to-do list.

Bolt-01