New Poll: What do you think of the standard computerised SFX used on most 2000AD strips (e.g. Origin

[2000AD Online]

What do you think of the standard computerised SFX used on most 2000AD strips (e.g. Origins)?

Link: Click to vote

[Leigh S]

Hmm - computerised effects are almost universally poor nowadays arent they?  

That said, I'm not a fan (usually) of artists adding in the SFX themselves, with the odd exception (Jock is great at it). Loved Tom Frames old style effects - never bettered.  For me, they look better when done by the letterer as a distinct "layer" above the art - when artists do them, they tend to 'sink in' and look too much a  part of the action.  

You'd think computers would have made things easier, but instead they seem to have just made things lazier.

[Dudley]

The debate so far - from the latest prog review thread (spoilers removed)

garageman
+++I have to say the labeling on the XXXXXXXX (spoilers) was shocking. It looked like it had been typed on top of the art and stood out like a sore thumb.+++

I agree, it would have looked better done by hand. This is an example of some of the things which cheapen the look of 'tooth stories. I would wish for these mistakes to be corrected along with all the other typos for the collected volumes but will anyone listen?

I mean this is Origins after all. Read worldwide.

The Amstor Computer
Yup. I don't believe it's the letterer or the artist who added those XXXXX - and they're done so ineptly that I'd hope neither Ezquerra or Parkhouse did them. Same goes for most of the SFX - with Nikolai Dante's awful yellow text effects being a particularly garish example.

IMO, SFX are a rather overlooked element of the comic page & it's a shame more care isn't given to them. Check out pages by Jock or Mark Harrison to see how they can be done right - even Dom Reardon's slightly wonky, unconventional SFX work, meshing with the art in a way that the slapped-on ones we see most weeks don't.

Rant over ;-)

garageman
+++IMO, SFX are a rather overlooked element of the comic page & it's a shame more care isn't given to them.++++

This is too true. That yellowed font they use looks like a superimposed afterthought on many strips especially on top of Carlos' art. It looks dreadful, the strips would be better of without them altogether I think.

Is there no quality control on this matter?

TordelBack
Too right. Sound FX are the most abused part of the comics bundle these days - seems you can slap any old 'BLAM' on with a computer and it'll do. Bit shitty when the artist has slaved for a day or more on that same page. Aside from Golden Age Tooth, I might direct you to Cerebus circa Mothers and Daughters and Guys to see what can be done when Sound FX and speech bubbles are taken seriously as part of the medium.

On a similar note, the proofing on Origins has been horrid throughout, with at least one ghastly typo or misplacement nearly every week. Oi 'Farg, if you're working too hard, get help. I'm here for you, man.

The Amstor Computer
Dunno. I'm assuming - since the way the SFX are done seems to be fairly consistent from strip to strip - that they are done by the editorial team, so I suspect it's simply a case of time & work pressure. With a whole comic to get ready every week & a relatively small staff, I can see how something like that could just be getting the quick & dirty treatment.
garageman
If the end product is shoddy they are better off leaving the sfx off. Do we really need them when we can see what's happening in the panel in most cases? I was never a fan of most sfx anyway so I am biased. Plenty of comics don't use them.

I can understand the pressure of a weekly comic but they should just drop them or let the artists get 'round the problem themselves, it's doing them no favours. Better than cheap & nasty, sorry 'tooth.

[I, Cosh]

I always assumed the artist did the sound effects.

Another example of my ignorance.

[Bolt-01]

I add my SFX when lettering, as a seperate layer. I think that doing SFX has taught me more about letter placement that normal 'dialogue' lettering. The example that started this is a good one, as there are many tools that could be used to have warped the labels around the curve. Still, since Tom passed on- Tharg has made more use of his other lettering droids, and the newly unpacked Bowland droid is still finding his feet. Maybe Annie has a bit too much on to give strips the time she used to.

Bolt-01

[Art]

Loved Tom Frames old style effects - never bettered.

I don't really recall Tom Frames SFX really being that great. Didn't he used to plop stuff on in exactly the kind of balloony lettering you're complaining about?

[Matt Timson]

Don't blame the tools- blame the monkey wielding them.

[Buddy]

What really pisses me off is colour sound effects in a black and white strip!

Now that's REALLY distracting. (and pointless)

[Bart Oliver]

Howard Chaykin was the first illustrator that really made an impression on me in terms
of how he integrated type, (lettering & SFX) and image.

http://www.art4comics.com/hc_bh236.jpg>

http://www.art4comics.com/hc_afnn.jpg>

And IMHumbleO it looks as fresh now as it did ten, fifteen years ago.

[Jim_Campbell]

"Don't blame the tools- blame the monkey wielding them."

This is true. There is, I'm sorry to say, an element of laziness in SFX used in computer lettering today.

However, in defence of the letterers, I have to point out this:

Once upon a time, you used to letter by hand. If you were good at it (Tom Frame, Annie Parkhouse, Steve Potter, Tom Orzechowski, Todd Klein, John Workman), then your hand-crafted efforts enhanced every page they graced.

And then, suddenly, you had to get a font company to to convert your elegant penmanship into a font if you wanted to even get any work in the industry, otherwise you couldn't compete with every monkey with a copy of Illustrator/Freehand and either 'Anime Ace' or 'Whizbang' installed on their system.

(Which threw up the additional issue of publishers wanting you to release your hand-crafted font to foreign publishers for translated editions. As any graphic designer will attest, when a nice font comes across your desk as part of the attachments for a particular job, you nick it. If, as a letterer, your individual style is your only selling point, is your livelihood, you aren't going to want to release that font into the wider world.)

There are some passable SFX fonts, if only you look with imagination.

'Mouthbreather', for example, is nothing much to look at in its regular form, but the bold version is a perfectly serviceable FX font, and will serve a wide variety of purposes.

Added to this, is the fact that I don't know where lettering fits into the production process these days. If a letterer gets low-rez previews, or even scans of the pencils because of deadline issues, then their options are going to be limited.

If, on the other hand, they're supplied with the final print-rez artwork files, then they should be able to use all the fancy transparency, drop shadow and clipping effects available in a package like InDesign and produce something utterly lovely.

The fact that they aren't suggests that they aren't getting final-rez artwork files to work on.

I know that I could produce some of the loveliest lettering comics have ever seen, but that would require adding the lettering at the very final stage of artwork production, after line art and colouring. I don't believe that most letterers are affroded that luxury.

My £0.02.

Cheers!

Jim

[Emperor]

As some wise soul said (actually about the colouring on Sin/Dex I believe): "Photosshop can be used for good or evil"

So it depends. I suspect 99% of the techncial trickery passes us right by (the point of using it after all should be so you don't even realised its been used) and we only see it when it goes wrong. I know people whoa re good with Photoshop who could have made that text appear seamless. So topmarks to the unappreciated pixel pushers.

I can only assume other external factors are the result of the occasional ball being dropped and everyone does a fine job getting thing sout on time week in and week out and sometimes pressures will result in mistakes but they are few and far between - or I rarely notice them. I did go through the mag looking for the actual special effects and while I'm not 100% convinced by "Thwak!" and "Spak!" I have never beaten a man up in a prison cell so I have no idea how realistic it is (I know writers cometimes have ride-alongs with the police, or it was in Powers so it must be real, so I assume 2000 AD writers get day trips to prisons where they can beat inmates with a range of objects. "Next up a bar of soap in a sock. Then I'm going to jab a sharpened toothbrush handle up your jacksie") bu I notice "Thwak" also turns up in Nikolai Dante just without he exclamation mark (that must show the difference between being duffed in in a silken boudoir and a stark prison cell.

So nothing that stans ou as bad there - worthy of note are Simon Bowland's exclamations/SFX on the first page of Chairyscary which work really nicely. I had noticed his lettering work before as there are a range of types deployed, all of which work very well and really helps iron out any potential confusion: the wiggly tailed off screen bubble (with a starburst where it is coming through and object like a door), the phone bubble and the inverted bubble of evil. A worth addition to the team.

[Matt Timson]

You heard it here first, folks.  I'm a wise soul.  WISE.

;)

[Emperor]

Ooops sorry - that was a typo ;)

[IndigoPrime]

:: What really pisses me off is colour
:: sound effects in a black and white strip!

Mm. I totally agree with that - it can really wreck the artwork. Mind you, I really hate most of the SFX in 2000 AD these days - they make the artwork look cheap, they distract from the content in general, and they're generally unnecessary.