Saturday, February 07, 2009

Lettering

In my last post, I got a comment about the lettering on a page I worked on. The question was, what makes lower case comic book lettering 'yucky'. I should point out that I am not a professional letterer, but I have bounced around the business a few years and I know what I like. As for why the lower case style sucks, lets take a look at a before and after. I took a page from an issue of SHIELD that I inked years ago and re-did the lettering.

My lettering is a bit clumsy, but the smaller lower case letters are harder to see. Plus the lower case style kills the drama from art.
I don't know why MARVEL changed lettering styles in the first place. You used to find the lower case in self-published or independent comics, but not the larger companies. It was for a short time and I am glad that fad is over.

2 comments:

chummy's mum said...

Ahhh, points taken; thanks for the insight! I am not intimately acquainted with the comics industry so it is very interesting to see the differences when they are pointed out.

Marie Javins said...

It was just some kooky exec wanting to make some kind of impact. Some things don't need "fixing."