KK all! Here's my quick, grim and gritty guide to comic lettering, for you aspiring writers-I'm typing fast, and yes I can spell, but grammar's a pain :-)
Here's the link to the test pages I've been creating-the lettering one is "test lettering 1B"
Lord Bronco's Guide to Comic Writing (technical lettering Issue Number One)
Short and sweet-It's the lettering, stupid!
Though there are sooo many factors that have to coalesce into making a good graphic novel experience, not the least of which is the art, but the use or words and captions is actually one of the most subtle and undervalued parts of the production!
Some back story, though...
I've been attempting to to create comics singlehandedly for years, and one of the harder things I've run up against is doing my own hand lettering! If ya do it wrong, it'll snap the reader put of their reading experience so fast it's just odd!
The great news is that these days it's finally getting to the point where the computers are catchin up, for various reasons, to a point where they'll do it for you!
Now, I have been researching this for years, and there's two programs that I've just discovered that help a ton!
First and foremost is Planetwide Games new application "Comic Book Creator"-which can be purchased used off of Amazon.com for like...17 bucks! This app is 5 star-genius in a box, because it's so easy to use! More on that below.
Second, is that Adobe Illustrator has been ported over to the PC! This is the professional industry standard for many obvious reasons, but for years and years was only available on Macintosh computers. Yes, I'd prefer to use a Mac, but they've always been too expensive for a man of humble means :-)
Third, certain font geniuses have been aware of where the letterings been going for years, and you can now download perfectly usuable fonts for free (*some exceptions)!
On the test pages, you'll see examples of all free fonts, but lets give some homage to their creators first and foremost!
Nate Piekos and his site BlamBot! Nate offers free of charge tons of free fonts that are arguably better than what the pros use, as well as very reasonably priced professional fonts that are even better! Though in my upcoming novel im gonna mix and match, if I could afford it I'd just buy his two awesome scripting fonts, which are only 20 bucks apiece and are named "Alter Ego" and "hero something" (Lols what? this tutorial's free).
Richard Starkings and John Roshell-the crazy Comiccraft Crew! These guys pioneered digital inking in the 1990's and were complete visionaries of the computer revolution! Though their work is seen all over the big name publishers (marvel, DC, etc), their crowning achievement is their 64 page guide called "Comic Book Lettering" which ya can get for 10 bucks! :-)
Umm, why is this the coolest thing ever for writers? Cause they tell ya everything! It's that good-5 Stars!
What's so neat about all these guys-because they offer their formats in both the high-end Mac publishing fonts, as well as the ghetto non-creative True type font LOL, which works on PCs!
K, writer pauses for a second, and delivers the prestige!
Comic book creator grabs image files, be they screenshots or .tifs or whatever, and throws them into pre-fabricated comic pages, complete with panels and dialogs! Also, it quick publishes into the .PDF format which is now an industry standard for posting online, as well as printing for real :-) Is that cool or what?!?
Oh, did I mention that it also has already been modded by a particularly genius user so that you can make custom templates?!?
Did I mention yet that Marvel comics has now allied with them, and are supporting further releases and upgrades?!?
KK-The conclusion.
Comic books are Words and Pictures, and computers and brilliant individuals have now allowed us to tell stories more efficiently than ever before known! If you wish to tell a story, and I know I sure do, start laying out pages and messing with mixing your pictures with words!
The ability to tell actually get the story told quickly and professionally is the difference between actually makin something and just dreaming about it!
The best response I've ever gotten from people in my game world (City of Heroes) is when they actually get to see themselves doin fun stuff! Plus, you can post everything for free (I've been using FileFront.com cause it's nice and PG rated, and has unlimited uploads).
Theres so much more that I'd like or could say about technical stuff, but I wanted to post to MMOART cause I really think that this place is gonna be the future in so many ways :-)
To be concluded in Part Two-from Computer to Print :-)
But only after I publish my First Graphic Novel, "The Twilight Crusade" Wish me luck!Shout outs to all the cool gamers and dreamers! The Real World just isn't as good :-)
Bronco!
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