Letter On My Wayward Son…
So, I think I’m getting a little better at lettering, which is a sure sign I’m about to get smacked down. I already was once, when I did them all in an 11X17 page in 10 point. You open it the next day, you look at it, you go WHOA! WHOA! and then you compare it to other comics at a similar size…
The biggest struggle I see, thusfar, is the way that I’m competing in the mediums. Make no mistake, I plan on putting this book out in a trade at some point (maybe even a deluxe, colored trade, should it succeed beyond my wildest dreams). The problem then becomes, what do I pay MORE attention to, the medium, or the secondary medium? And which is which? And is there a difference? These are things that have eaten up multiple hours of research, because GOD KNOWS, we don’t want to be unprofessional here.
Boobies.
Girl Genius is a large format trade, and that serves the broad, sweeping art well. Dr. McNinja (it’s rad) has a normal sized trade. Neither suffer for it, in fact, both are just as good as their online incarnations. Looking at them, I realize I may be tweaking the font to find my sweet spot for multiple days, but the good thing is, once I lay in my pattern, I should be okay, because I’ve studied the conventions and know where I want to stand on certain things.
One thing that I am waffling on is bubbles that break the border. I dig ’em. In fact, I dig anything that breaks the panel frame. Problem is, if it will turn off readers, should I accede? I mean, they’re letters. LETTERS. The words are what they should be thinking about.
Designing the website is complex, as was coming up with the logo. I beat myself about the face until Steve Younis, my good friend and editor at the Superman Homepage, offered to save my life by designing the logo. We goofed around a bit, and he came up with a number of different ideas. They serve as an example of a good graphic artist working with my awful indecision, and they also serve as the clue/story hint for this entry (click to embiggen any of them):
These were the first basic rough-ins. Steve gave me a bunch of colors and ideas to chose from… I dug the blue one, so he took it back to the lab and brought back this:
I said “ME PLAY WITH THIS WITH CRAYON!” and handed him back this:
He wept, shook with rage, and then returneth with this, fantastically interpreting my retarded imitation of depth:
We were close… but I said…. NEEDS MORE EARTH! To which he kindly obliged:
At which point it was VERY, VERY late in Australia. The following morning, I woke up to this, which he’d put together from what we’d talked about:
From there, I thought, “Hey, why not a black background.” This is when Steve shot me. When I woke up from the coma, he had this:
It’s ALIVE! I cry, and then hold up my hands for a goal. He cannot see this in Australia, but nonetheless, THERE IT IS, the logo. We have a bright one, and a dark one, and that’s what it’ll be up at the top of the page, depending on the CSS I use for the visual look of the comic. It might change color, but that’s pretty much it, for now.
I’m gonna play with ComicPress for WordPress for the next few days, and with any luck, I’ll have more insight into lettering. Likely not.
But at any rate, that’s your taste for today…