Lettering
No one goes to see movies based on who did the sound effects. But if the sound is bad, you WILL notice it and the whole film suffers. Similarly great sound will elevate the film. With comics, the same could be said of lettering. Letterers are experts in their field, do a critical job and should be recognised as such. Below is an article by Jim Campbell (a letterer I respect a lot) which I think hits the nail on the head.
Credit Where Credit's Due…
Written by Jim Campbell on his blog
 |
| (That font is Blambot's ProtestPaint BB, if you're interested…) |
I'm not really a militant on the subject of crediting letterers; I've never been one to agitate for a front cover credit, for example. Some creative teams or publishers have taken to giving the letterer a cover credit, which is fantastic but I have no illusions — no one is buying a book based on who's done the lettering.
Ours is a contributory, supporting role in the creative process, but that doesn'tmean it's inconsequential or unworthy of recognition.So… what does get my back up is when a reviewer credits the writer, artist, colourist, sometimes even the editor, and doesn't include the letterer.
I'm certainly not asking for reviewers to undertake a detailed analysis of the lettering in every book, but the choices a letterer makes concerning dialogue fonts and balloon styles, the way they choose to handle sound effects, make every bit as much of a contribution to the overall look of any given book as the choices made by the colourist.
You're not supposed to notice the craft of the letterer; it's supposed to be more-or-less invisible. Nonetheless, ours is the hand that ties the writer's words to the artist's images in a fashion that's clear and readable, ours is the stage of the creative process that makes comics, well, comics.
I don't think asking reviewers to remember that is too much.
0 comments :