Digest 811

TKlein28@aol.com TKlein28 at aol.com
Fri Oct 13 11:19:58 CET 1995


AUGIE:
 
Thanks for the kind words about my lettering. I talked to John Clark about
doing more Rosa stories for Gladstone about six weeks ago, and said I'd be
interested, but haven't heard any more. And, seeing some of the cost-cutting
measures they've been taking lately (cheaper paper, self-covers, computer
lettering), I have to wonder whether they are really willing or able to pay
my page rate. I may only be given any further chapters of LO$ that Don does
-- my only suggestion is for Don and anyone else with contacts at Gladstone
to keep asking.
     Here is more than you probably want to know about computer lettering
(BOREDOM ALERT):
     The font you have been seeing at Gladstone is the one advertised in the
classifieds of Comics Buyers Guide, "Whizbang".  I rather like the overall
look of the letterforms myself (and would love to know where they got it
originally), but it is a limited font in that there is just one sample of
each character, so, for instance, each letter "L" is the same. This can
become very tiresome, especially when it's used for EVERYTHING including
signs and sound effects.
     The computer lettering that Richard Starkings is doing is different in
two ways: first, his balloon fonts have at least two variations of each
letter to add variety, and second, he has about six regular fonts (and
families) to choose from, as well as  about two dozen sound effects fonts,
and lots of commercial fonts as well for signs and such. I'm just getting
into this myself, and am trying to follow his example, as I think it's a good
one. There are other letterers with computer fonts, some of them pretty hard
to detect even for me, and this is an area that I think letterers today
should be exploring if they can afford the equipment. (John Byrne's stuff is
different in that he doesn't have a style of his own, but has "borrowed" or
commissioned samples from letterers like John Morelli.)
     If Gladstone really wanted to do decent computer lettering, they could
purchase Richard's commercially available font, "Comic Crazy". It would cost
them a few hundred dollars, but would greatly improve on what they have now.
Of course, you still need someone who knows what looks good to use it, but
John Clark is a good letterer himself, so that shouldn't be a problem.
     Hope that answers your questions if not your concerns.

DON: thanks for confirming that the script I had said "ducks". I hate to
think I messed up on something like that. Are you kept up to date on what
stories of yours may be in the pipeline for Gladstone?

Todd Klein



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