|
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
The Third "R" of Lettering
Interview with Robin Spehar
Robin Spehar brings to a close the final installment of the 3 R’s of Lettering. Having a chance to ask Robin some questions, I quickly realized how knowledgeable he is, not just about lettering, but about typography, the ins and outs of the business, and life in general. A gentleman, a scholar, ladies and gentlemen, I give you…Robin Spehar.
Hanley: Why letter comic books? What’s in it for you?
Spehar: The only reason why anyone should get involved in any kind of letter art, whether it be comic book lettering, type design, logs, graffiti, or whatever, is for the love of it (or for the really, really like of it). All too often, I see people who want to get into lettering not because they like it, but because writing, penciling, inking and coloring strikes them as too difficult and really, all they want is to be an “industry professional” – even if it means stooping to the level of the lowly letterer. Ech. Please, please, don’t do this. You just might get a job, and, if your heart’s not in it, poor alphabet geeks like myself may have the frightening experience of enduring yet another abomination set in “Comic Sans” riddled with those hideous “R”s and drunken “D”s. God save us all. Suffice it to say, while the letterer is the least acknowledged of the talent who work on comics, the job is not necessarily the easiest.
I first met Tom Orzechowski at a San Diego Comic Con. Tom and I went out for a beer with my business partners, JD and Jen. At some point in the evening, talking of his reverence for the living art of letters, with a tear in his eye Tom said, “They’re like…like little guys.” His tone carried a sense of fascination, almost as if to say to everyone – c’mon people, can’t you SEE? They’re ALIVE! I’ve been waiting a long time for an opportunity to quote this, and it may be that my memory has added the tear in his eye, but regardless, the sentiment was there. He loves the alphabet. Cheers, Tom.
Oh right – what’s in it for me? Satisfaction, I suppose. That was quick.
Hanley: Where did you get your start in the business?
Spehar: While I had a fondness for lettering at the start (my heart WAS in it), I had no experience lettering comics. Man, could I do a sound effect, or craft a lovely logo. But when it came to ruling lines on top of actual penciled pages and dipping that nib into the eternally staining India ink to pen in copy, my hands would shake with fright. Much like actors have “actors nightmares” (they find themselves naked on stage, they don’t know their lines but the show must go on), I still have “hand lettering my first comic nightmares”. That said, here’s the story:
I got my start with Harris Comics. My close friend, Joe Weems, and I were both working at a pizza place. Weems and I went to high school together and always seemed to be working on some comic project, or sculpting Predators in art class, or drawing on our desks in English class. One year on his way out the door of the pizza restaurant bound for San Diego Comic Con, Weems told me “Spehar, I’m going to San Diego Con, and this time I’m coming back with a job.” He did. Cool. Harris sent Joe some sample Xeroxes to see how his inks looked over various artists. Joe encouraged me to put some lettering on his samples since Meloney Crawford Chadwick, the editor back then, would see my work and hire me. She did. Unbelievable. Inconceivable even. I had no idea what I was doing. Sweet.
Hanley: What are some of your other duties when creating a comic?
Spehar: Nowadays I do a whole lot more than just lettering. My involvement includes lettering, production, cover layout, cover design, logos, book design, etc. I’m the Creative Director of Dreamer Design, and we have worked on just about every aspect of comics. While I may not personally do each step, I’m always involved.
Hanley: Explain the process a bit. How do YOU letter a page?
Spehar: Crikey, this could take forever. I’m going to try to move quickly.
Ok. Cut and paste script into Freehand (yes – Freehand – can’t remember where I read this but I’ve seen Freehand referred to as “Illustrator on steroids”). Change to appropriate font (not comic sans!). Find and replace certain things (double spaces become singles, period-period-period becomes ellipsis, etc). Add bold face where indicated. Break up text. Balloon/box text. Place text with balloons on page as indicated by balloon placements. Add pointers. Do sound effects. Proof. Send proofs. Get corrections. Do corrections. Deliver lettering, or, depending on the client, paste up in Photoshop or Quark.
Now that, of course, is the super-condensed version. Designing a decent font is the most important “how to letter” step. There is the uploading and downloading of assets, design problems to overcome, missing files and other problems. Sometimes it could be that we get script and art with a note, “page 18 is now page 18A. We’re sending a new page 18 but the script hasn’t been renumbered, so use the dialogue from script page 18 to letter 18A and then use 19 for 18, 20 for 19, and so on. Oh and page 21 is actually 22 and…” That’s not necessarily part of what people think of as lettering, but it’s part of the process.
Hanley: Is there a “best method” of placing words on the page?
Spehar: If the balloon placements are dead-nuts-on, just bung ‘em on there, add the pointers and go have a cold one. If not, then “placing” the words on the page becomes “fitting” the words and you’ll have to get into the art of BPMT. Balloon Placement Manipulation Tactics-- serious stuff. No, seriously. It’s serious. Well BPMT isn’t really a serious term but let’s use it for kicks. BPMT includes overlapping balloons from one panel to another, working backwards to see how little space you’re going to have in panel 3, if you need to overlap elements from panel 2, butting balloons, moving a balloon to a different place, and even recomposing placements entirely because, c’mon, those balloons are WAAY outside of live art, I can’t put them there!
Hanley: What’s the toughest part about lettering?
Spehar: BPMT.
It’s not unusual to have placements arrive and there are, say, 23 lettering elements on the page and simply not enough space to fit them all. That’s the most difficult part, but the deadlines that require same-day turnaround are the most painful.
Hanley: Have you ever had to “bend the rules” to get the job done?
Spehar: Absolutely. And by get the job done I’m going to again address the point of fitting it all in. BPMT, for those of you who are paying attention. My last resort: Bum point size down (a virtual no-no in all regards but sometimes it just has to be done). Last last resort: Call editor and say, “Dude, you just have to do something about all this lettering.”
Hanley: What are your thoughts on the use of "Thought Balloons?"
Spehar: It seems that thought balloons have died out over the years and been replaced with captions with the character’s thoughts inside. This is fantastic for the letterer. Thought balloons are a bit of a pain in the butt, and, being that they are so rare nowadays, they can look a little odd. Sticking some type in a box and fitting it on the page is much easier. My only problem with captions is that it can get a bit confusing. Every character needs their own caption color scheme for identification, and in an ongoing series, your template with an ever growing combination of border colors, fill colors, and text colors for the ever growing cast eventually becomes overfilled with every combination of ROYGBIV. You can get to the point where every single easily identifiable color combination has been exhausted. Sometimes you just have to grit your teeth, create a new caption color combo for the new character, Dan, and hope to God that Fred and Dan are never in the same place thinking at the same time since the new combo you just created for Dan, while technically different from the already existing Fred’s, looks very similar. Then there’s the fact that quite a few writers don’t distinguish in the script whose caption it is. It’ll just say “CAPTION:”, and you know it’s not a NARRATION CAP as it starts with “I’m going to go…” Also, a lot of writers don’t distinguish the difference between a character’s thought captions and a character’s spoken captions. For any who are interested, this is my basic caption formula:
NARRATION CAP – Narration color box with italicized lettering.
CHARACTER THOUGHT CAP – Character color box with italicized lettering.
CHARACTER SPOKEN CAP – Character color box with plain lettering in quotes.
In a perfect world, this would be the case. Unfortunately, books frequently print spoken captions without quotes, and it’s up to the reader to know that everyone else in the room heard what Dan just said. Funny thing is I seem to be the only one who really cares about this. I’ve never had a reader, writer, or editor take issue with this. Oh no, I’m a geek. You just asked me to comment about thought balloons, and I’ve written an essay on captions. Hey wanna know about the ampersand? Interesting little fact, look at any ampersand, it’s actually a decorative combination of the letters “e” and “t” from the Latin “et”, which, of course, means “and”.
Ok, next question.
Hanley: Are there any exemplary pieces of work out there that an up-and-coming
Letterer should look at for inspiration?
Spehar: Absolutely. Any and all (especially old) Speed Ball Textbooks – buy them on eBay. Anything that Tom Orzechowski has done, particularly Spawn. The Watchmen, not only did Dave Gibbons draw the book but he expertly lettered it too, what a stallion (for the aspiring letter artist, that ought to trip your head out a bit, it did mine)! Go find some issues of The Maxx, Mike Heisler’s work on these books was awesome. Perrenial Eisner Award winning letterer Todd Klein’s work is worth a long study. And if you’re really, really serious about letters, go get Robert Bringhurst’s The Elements of Typographic Style – if you ever hear me trying to sound like I know what I’m talking about, odds are I learned it from Bringhurst’s book.
Hanley: Any final words of wisdom for someone trying to break into Lettering?
Spehar: See question 1 – love it or leave it. Learn how to letter with pen and ink first, don’t just jump on a computer and start typing. When you do start typing take off the caps lock-- the words “I’m” and “DIME” should appear different. The “I” in “I’m” has horizontal strokes on the top and bottom while the “I” in “DIME” is a single vertical stroke (by far the #1 amateur mistake). Finally (I sooo wish I did this before shakily scrawling ink onto my first pages) go meet letterers, talk to them, and ask them questions. If you can track down Tom Orzechowski or Todd Klein at a convention, it would behoove you to geek out with them and chat – two fine gentlemen with nothing but good things to say. Of course, you could find me too. Look for the guy wielding his balls on the San Diego convention floor (I’m also a juggler).
Check out more of Robin’s work at http://www.dreamerdesign.com
-- Jason Hanley
|
April 22, 2008:
February 4, 2008:
November 20, 2006:
A Comic-Con without the Captain
