On the importance of lettering

[amirakdelat]

Hi there, newbie here! I just wanted to discuss about the importance of one particular job in comics that we artists or storytellers often ignore or disregard (as I did, yes I admit it): the letterer. AKA the art of lettering. I never realized how much bubble logistics, proper comic fonts and sizes and rules of lettering were VITAL for every comic. I mean, it's all good if you've got nice art, a good story, charismatic characters... but if your reader can't even understand who's talking or when he-she says it... then the totality of the comic could be ruined.

In my case, I realized how my lettering and bubble skills sucked when I asked a letterer to do it for me. I saw a BIG difference... now I look at my lettering job and I'm embarrassed to look at it myself. In any case, letterers: we love you! Because of you, our comic are readable!

And also, an advice (as much as an advice for myself for the future) if you can't afford to have a letterer... you could learn the basics online.

What do you think of the art of lettering?

[joannekwan]

Yes! As a former graphic design major, communicating effectively for me is very important. Legibility is probably the first thing I look for in a comic. I have to be able to read !
Also the style someone uses for their text is important too. I don't mind hand-written text, but I hate it when the line weight is too thick and the words are all fat and take up more space than they need.
I'm also not a fan of bubble-less dialogue. Short quips or background conversations are fine without bubbles, but if you're going to write all the dialogue over the image with just a stroke on the outside of the letters, I am very unlikely to subscribe or read any further than the first page.

[Michelle]

Hear hear! I think lettering often is unfairly treated as an afterthought-- maybe because a lot of us are illustrators first and it's more in the realm of graphic design? In any case, lettering can really make or break the reading experience. Great comics show pictures and words working together, not just taking up space on the same page.

I certainly have a lot to learn about lettering and have to re-do all of it for the early pages of my comic. But while my lettering still isn't perfect, I've learned a ton about it while working on my comic and hope to keep getting better.

[J.Z.Castillo]

YES! Lettering is such an important aspect to a comic! I will admit, my first chapter and most of my second were a very experimental exercise but now that I have, you could say, found my grind, I feel so embarrassed to look at those older pages! I need to go back and revisit them so future readers don't have to suffer through them haha.

Fonts are also very important as they express a certain feel of how the comic sounds or even how individual characters' voices sound!

Also, do you have links to these lettering tutorials?

[Shanny8]

For me lettering is a very important part of the book- just as important as the art itself. In fact, I consider lettering to be part of the art as well. Bad lettering can ruin good art...that's why I always advise creators to find a font that "fits" their art- the perfect font will become a part of the art itself.

This was posted on my Twitter timeline today- I retweeted it; VERY helpful insight on lettering..!

I also have links to lettering tutorials and tips...

Jim Campbell's lettering/blog

Comicraft's Balloon Tales- tips & tricks

[AnnaLandin]

Bubble-placement and readable font is so, so important!.

I plan space for my speech bubbles right in the first thumbnails, and I pay attention not only to leaving enough space for them to fit, but also where they are placed so that I lead the reader's eye across the eye properly, and I've started consider placement of them in a more storytelling manner as well. A speech bubble placed between two characters can be used to indicate a barrier between them in a storytelling sense, and not just a visual sense.

Paying attention to linebreaks and spacing is important as well; how and where you use linebreaks changes not only the final shape of the bubble, but also the way the text is read. I do my best to avoid breaking after an "I", for example: breaking after an I can cause readers to skip over reading that "I" entirely, since it's so small.

[jacintawibowo]

Lettering is SO important! It can really make or break how professional a comic looks.

How visually-appealing the speechbubbles and letters look together is crucial, but people also tend to forget the grammar that goes behind it. A lot of people forget their crossbar I's and it makes it really distracting to read in a comic XD

For Tales from the Well I've got a style that makes it so that the lettering has to be more indie. I take reference from playful placement of text in children's books so that the lettering is more "artsy". Planning speechbubble placement from the thumbnails usually troubleshoots any problems I have later with compositions.

[amirakdelat]

I found this article pretty interesting to read for a start. Thanks for sharing your perspective! cheers

[amirakdelat]

Thank you so much for the links! And I think I'll keep that image on my desktop whenever I need to re-check my lettering.

[haleymewsome]

I've been having lots of lettering problems lately, it really is vital. Almost all the problems start because I usually draw all the art and bubbles first based on a very loose idea of what would be said and then I discover my bubbles are all the wrong sizes. DX I'm finally learning my lesson, typing out the text over the sketch before inking the bubbles is way better. ;w;''

[Shanny8]

Yeah...the word balloon font I use for my comic wasnt randomly picked; I tested out other fonts as well, and the one I use seemed to be the one that "fit" the style of the art.

Though I have to say the 3rd choice then 2nd choice had a chance to possibly be the WB font for the comic as well...but I tended to lean toward the 1st choice.

Sound FX- I follow the same rule of thumb; I find a font that fits the sound effect.

[Kura]

I let some lettering sins slide... but... I absolutely can't stand it when I click on a comic to read and cannot ****ing read it because it's been handwritten, is messy, slanted and illegible.

It's even more frustrating when I really wanted to read it too because the summery sounded interesting.

[AliceHoffmannArt]

Same for me.
It can be quite a pity if the font turns out unreadable.

Also, fonts made on the PC have the advantage that mistakes can be corrected way more easily.
So personally, I wouldn't hand write comic text at all. Let alone because of all that extra work. X'3

[Beckycarsonart]

I'm not sure if this forum still has a pulse but is it okay to have bubbles behind some of the artwork? Or does it always have to be ontop?

[joannekwan]

I definitely put bubbles behind characters if the panel calls for it. So long as the letters still have enough space.
Like here I'd rather the bubble go behind her head than clip off parts of her hair awkwardly.

[Beckycarsonart]

Awesome! Thanks! Been trying to practice handlettering and bubble placement and this scenario dawned on me. Wanted to double check in case it was a bad habbit!

[Cavechan]

Yup, this is something I do fairly often as well.

Here's one where I even changed the placement of the words in the bubble a bit to fit. I made it this way intentionally and I don't think it's 100% perfect, but it works okay imo. I'm sure others would disagree though. haha I think I could have brought the character down a bit and the words could have gone a bit more towards the right.

[daeofthepast]

I've found this video very helpful in how to use text bubbles to lead the reader's eye through the page. :3

[TheFriendlyMan]

Never even heard of 'leading'. Or most of this stuff, thinking about it! Cheers

BTW why is so much written in entirely upper case - is there some advantage to that?

[Shanny8]

In the old days of hand lettering, they lettered in upper case so it could be easily read when printed. Now, with not only advances in printing- but also advances on the lettering process itself you can use lower case when lettering your book.

Most lettering fonts though are still made in mostly upper case I guess because it's now an ingrained practice in the industry- but there's no rule that says you have to.