l0u1s jagg3r's lettering thread

So as not to derail Abbott's thread any more.

Kanegson:

http://www.plaidstallions.com/images/spirit01.gif

http://www.plaidstallions.com/images/spirit04.gif

http://www.willeisner.com/will_eisner_week_website/2009/02/20/8.%20WSpiritHouse.jpg

http://www.willeisner.com/will_eisner_week_website/2009/02/20/11.%20WSpiritTitle3.jpg

http://lothlaurien.ca/rds/Archive/2008christmas/images/30.jpg

http://www.tcj.com/hoodedutilitarian/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Will-Eisner-Spirit-01.jpg

http://www.tcj.com/hoodedutilitarian/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Will-Eisner-Spirit-05.jpg

http://www.tcj.com/hoodedutilitarian/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Will-Eisner-Spirit-06.jpg

so that's all one guy, right

so is there one guy who just inks all of these? is this modern day calligraphy?

Those are mostly from the 1940s, if that's modern day

Sim, one from the late 70s and a bunch from the 90s (amazingly hard to find good full-page examples:

http://www.tcj.com/hoodedutilitarian/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Dave-Sim-02.jpg

http://www.tcj.com/hoodedutilitarian/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Dave-Sim-03.jpg

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_2czOw1fRC5U/SWO9zXpgBoI/AAAAAAAAAB0/malBluBRc_U/s400/2.jpg

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_PeV5Fgv9e7A/RtyFhbzS2iI/AAAAAAAACR4/qvPb3hfStP4/s400/tone11.jpg

http://www.cerebusfangirl.com/pictures/heyugly.jpg

http://www.cerebusfangirl.com/pictures/youngcerebus.jpg

http://www.cerebusfangirl.com/pictures/whattodo.jpg

fucking LOVE the stuff sim does the text & page layout.

Klein:

http://www.tcj.com/hoodedutilitarian/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Sandman-15a.jpg

http://www.rickveitch.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/jail-bait.jpg

http://www.rickveitch.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/sciencehero.jpg

http://www.rickveitch.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/supreme50-pg13.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/2/2f/SandmanEndless.jpg/250px-SandmanEndless.jpg

http://forbiddenplanet.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/07/Sandman%2050%20Ramdadan%20P%20Craig%20Russell%20Todd%20Klein%20Gaiman.jpg

http://forbiddenplanet.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/Dream%20Delirium%20Joshua%20Norton.jpg

http://www.rickveitch.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/supreme50pg14.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2534/3681591689_34833f8204.jpg

http://s3.hubimg.com/u/1877030_f520.jpg

oh FUCK the image limit, lost about a dozen fucking images there

OK so some more just from Klein's site bcz I can't re-google all those others:

http://kleinletters.com/LetteringImages/blackorchid.jpg
http://kleinletters.com/CurrentProjectsImages/CurrentProj12-09/UNWRIT%209_10_ltrs.jpg
http://kleinletters.com/CurrentProjectsImages/CurrentProj12-09/iZOMBIE%201_04_ltrs.jpg
http://kleinletters.com/LetteringImages/Promethea1FC.jpg
http://kleinletters.com/LetteringImages/Gibbons/apprenticepage1.jpg
http://kleinletters.com/LetteringImages/Gibbons/TStrong6page.jpg
http://kleinletters.com/LetteringImages/ScroogeLetter.jpg
http://kleinletters.com/LetteringImages/FablespageB.jpg

and

http://kleinletters.com/LetteringImages/Sandman1.jpg

http://kleinletters.com/LetteringImages/Sandman4.jpg

http://kleinletters.com/LetteringImages/SandmanCats.jpg

http://kleinletters.com/LetteringImages/SandmanCallig.jpg

http://kleinletters.com/LetteringImages/Sandman75.jpg

http://kleinletters.com/LetteringImages/Promethea12.jpg

http://kleinletters.com/LetteringImages/Promethea15.jpg

http://kleinletters.com/LetteringImages/Promethea32.jpg

Gaspar:

http://www.dialbforblog.com/archives/468/ad_showcase77sept1968.gif

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_kvv3fcoXqVE/SLsM3rDkR8I/AAAAAAAAC2o/GSq0jKI-xYE/s1600-h/jla4may1961.jpg

http://www.dialbforblog.com/archives/493/headline_maker.jpg

http://www.littlestuffedbull.com/images/comics/24hrswkirby/ffa5.jpg

http://www.dialbforblog.com/archives/500/arkham1.jpg

http://www.dialbforblog.com/archives/500/arkham7.jpg

http://www.dialbforblog.com/archives/500/arkham2.gif
http://www.dialbforblog.com/archives/500/arkham3.jpg

http://www.dialbforblog.com/archives/500/arkham6.jpg

http://www.dialbforblog.com/archives/500/arkham8.jpg

Clowes is a beast to GIS, if anyone else can pull up full pages of Lloyd Llewellyn or Eightball 22, please do!

http://www.paulgravett.com/articles/011_clowes/clowes_ihateyou.jpg

http://www.lambiek.net/artists/c/clowes/clowes_eightbal.jpg

http://www.metroactive.com/papers/sfmetro/12.07.98/gifs/clowes-9847.jpg

http://www.wired.com/news/images/full/artschool2_f.jpg

http://www.tight-science.com/old/strip.JPG

http://www.du9.org/IMG/jpg/IceHaven2.jpg

http://myyearonline.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/ghostworld.jpg

http://blog.news-record.com/staff/culture/Mr.%20Wonderful.jpg

http://www.austinchronicle.com/binary/0af69c0b/books_feature-6186.jpeg

yeah, my eyes still pop at everything Will Eisner ever did

MacGarry:

http://www.shadowgallery.co.uk/dannygrey.gif

http://forbiddenplanet.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/alec_omni_07.gif

http://i191.photobucket.com/albums/z43/sevenarts/comics/fateoftheartist.jpg

http://www.alanmooresenhordocaos.hpg.ig.com.br/BNAlec.JPG

McCay:

http://www.lambiek.net/artists/m/mccay/mccay_henrietta1905.jpg

http://library.osu.edu/sites/exhibits/cartoonists/images/mcCay/rarebit.jpg

http://www.allstarauc.com/asonline/images/auction17SD/nemo.jpg

http://mulibraries.missouri.edu/specialcollections/exhibits/alleyoop/images/nemo2-large.jpg

Kominsky:

http://www.lambiek.net/artists/k/kominsky_crumb/kominsky_powerpakcomics1979.jpg

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~phoebeg/comics/artists/art/komiskycrumb.jpg

http://www.adambaumgoldgallery.com/telling_tales/KominskyCrumb_Aline/Nose_Job2WB.jpg

http://www.adambaumgoldgallery.com/telling_tales/KominskyCrumb_Aline/I_Remember_Peggy_1WB.jpg

http://www.adambaumgoldgallery.com/text_messages/blabette_vacationWB.jpg

http://www.adambaumgoldgallery.com/KominskyCrumb_Aline/moogoogaipan3WB.jpg

http://www.adambaumgoldgallery.com/telling_tales/KominskyCrumb_Aline/Dear_Dr_Dean_Edell1WB.jpg

Panter:

http://www.mattmadden.com/comics/writing/beloved/belovedimages/jimbo.gif

http://www.paulgravett.com/articles/050_masters/panter_rat-boy.jpg

http://www.garypanter.com/work_comics_images/14_jimbo2a_comic.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3059/2923281870_17c9881f86.jpg?v=0

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_zMsg9U8UoyM/SJGbcV-xDxI/AAAAAAAAB2E/ocuib_oif3o/s400/Panter%2B001.jpg

http://i381.photobucket.com/albums/oo253/A280/File2141.jpg

Ellsworth:

http://www.redefinemag.com/interviews-art/thumbs/Theo-Ellsworth_thumb.jpg

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y115/kitbrash/SleeperCarPages2.jpg?

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/music/Images/cap253.jpg

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y115/kitbrash/theo5.jpg?

http://lh6.ggpht.com/_EWbmqBY88xg/Sk6uV9kcfLI/AAAAAAAAAiU/FmOM3iWV5qE/s400/theo.jpg

http://www.secretacres.com/store/images/uploads/CAPACITY7.jpg

Furie:

http://www.buenaventurapress.com/images/bookMF-1-lg.jpg

http://13.media.tumblr.com/j5R53XFJkhkqv7g1GOm9Tumro1_400.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2496/3783861268_537da55fd6_o.jpg

http://www.juxtapoz.com/auction/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/MattFurie-600.jpg

http://www.viceland.com/int/v15n12/htdocs/comics-matt-furie-410/1.gif

Alex Toth:

http://cartoonsnap.com/blogspot/images/AlexTothonTVCartoonsPart1of2_119FD/TothTVCartoons_01.jpg

http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/Alex%20Toth%203.JPG

http://www.toughguygoods.com/toth_sorcery_large.jpg

i have to be honest, a lot of the examples above, i don't really see what's special about the lettering, especially the ones that just seem like that artist's default or natural handwriting

Klein, Sim, Clowes, Kanegson and Saladino: LJ thinks Abbott is better than all of them at designing individual styles for different speakers, tones, settings and modes of communications, and deploying them consistently across a page, story, book or 1900-pp series

Furie, Panter and Ellsworth: LJ thinks Abbott is better than any of them at portraying an apparently unstudied line, such that the lettering has a common tone with 'primitif' aspects of the artwork

Campbell, k-Crumb and McCay: I enjoy all of their cartooning, despite other peoples' frequent complaints about their cramped balloons or sloppy letterforms, and thus wouldn't have any automatic beef (pastry) with Abbott's lettering

Toth: absolutely all-time for self-lettering dudes working in a strict mersh enviro, even if his post-"retirement" postcards were even better - we await LJ's judgement on how he stands up against Abbott



would be interesting to know which ones you think are the default/natural handwriting though?

Crumb, Campbell. Kominsky and Panter are barely legible, though the shrinked images don't help. McCay's titles are great, but it seemed like his dialogue balloons were singled out in one of the images, don't really see much in that, or Furie's.

Personally, I really dislike the sort of text that looks like my sixth grade notebook edges smashed together, smudgy pencils and all. I'll give into a large variance for personal style and lack of budget, but damn, especially that Panter stuff. Comics are seen and read, you know...

(no slight to Abbott)

LJ thinks Abbott is better than all of them

haw, didn't actually say this, or make comparisons, but you have a rhetorical point - these are all pretty fkn brilliant. thing is, abbott's not honed her craft or made a career out of this quite yet - the talent's there imo

SHUT IT, LOVE ACTUALLY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDkfCDx09Aw

gah, about 1/3 of the images are 404ing already

lol at a lettering thread

Where is the love for Tom Orzechowski and Denise Wohl.

will offer love for tom o, his work is fantastic - did he do west coast avengers?

From the mid 70s through the 80s, I think he did about half of what Marvel published.

Bob Lappan on JLI, yo.

tom orz wasn't quite as prolific as WmC suggests - the real marvel lettering mainstays in the 70s and 80s were john costanza and joe rosen, both excellent - but orz had the x-men gig and other 'prestige' marvel and independent titles.

the thing i like abt toth and campbell and kominsky and panter as letterers is the way that their balloons/caption feel like a fully integrated part of their artwork - all of a piece. see also: jim aparo and dave gibbons.

sadly, i've come to the conclusion that comics - unlike music, in particular - is not a medium v. well suited to the instant and the improvised - it is a 'slow' form, and so generally requires a great deal of time and attention to be REALLY good (or even readable.) i admire abbot's nerve in not hiding her 'errors' - and of course she is not the first comics artist to incorporate 'failures' into her work - but, imho, i'm not really sure what's been gained in this instance.

sadly, i've come to the conclusion that comics - unlike music, in particular - is not a medium v. well suited to the instant and the improvised

agreed -- thinking on the concept of the 24-Hour Comic, I haven't seen one yet that was interesting as a story or anything more than a feat of endurance.

If the alternative is lazy machine-assisted captions, then you've already gained plenty.
Hand-lettering with mistakes is precursor/training for hand-lettering with less mistakes.

Couldn't find the famous 'papapapaoomaumau' page, but Ken Bruzenak's work and the lettering in general is a huge part of the look of Howard Chaykin's American Flagg.

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/27/59092141_9cfea2c446.jpg

If you want to get old school, Jim Aparo did bunches of issues in the early mid-70s for DC where he did everything but the coloring, as he would ink and letter himself too. It has a look that is a bit him and not quite the stock style for DC at the time. I'm pretty sure Sean Phillips has lettered himself on all of those works with Ed Brubaker too.

He definitely didn't letter Sleeper.

Where is the love for Tom Orzechowski and Denise Wohl.

Which of the two categories would you put them in?

Here's some more Bruzenak btw:

http://www.tcj.com/hoodedutilitarian/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Howard-Chaykin-01.jpg

http://www.tcj.com/hoodedutilitarian/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Howard-Chaykin-03.jpg

^ someone post some panels of that McKean jazz strip from A1 here

couldn't find it online, but the intro to jimbo in purgatory pretty firmly establishes panter as a master of the lettering craft.

Bruzenak is all-time great oh man. love me those American Flagg reprint books

http://joshreads.com/images/10/07/i100714fw.jpg

Tom Batiuk's upper-case Ls are driving me bonkers!

Stylized writing is welcome only when it's not totally distracting (here, it's actually only distracting for me in the double-l words, esp the above-below neighbors 'killer' and 'will' in the last panel).

ok i always thought american flagg sounded like something to read, you know, another time, from every description i ever heard; obviously what people should have been saying is 'check how cool the layouts are!'

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

BuMp

^ someone post some panels of that McKean jazz strip from A1 here

turns out this wasn't as playful as I remembered?

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Rf9S3GkkeyI/TGaQ3REa5kI/AAAAAAAAfBA/Tm6e-cRxQHI/s1600/dave+mckean.+the+uptown+ruler.+page.+008.jpg