What do you old-time art collectors think of this?

[Phill the Governor]

Getting a lot of varying answers here. Cool to see different perspectives..

[vaillant]

Getting a lot of varying answers here. Cool to see different perspectives..

Typographic lettering being "cold", however, is a fact. Lettering used to be part of the art, now it’s not.

Not that it entirely depends on "natural" media being used: when one is skilled he can do good lettering even with automated processes, but most of this typographic lettering is ugly either for the typeface used (often custom, so why not do it better?) or for the lazy, unnatural layout (no time spent on it) or both.

 

Aside from this, now with Opentype you can have contextual substitutions of letter sequences, so it would be relatively easy to obtain a naturally looking lettering, even if done with a typeface. But they almost never take advantage of this…

[James J]

 

 

For me I only collect the Walking Dead and always thought the word balloons and stats made the art look ugly on older art . This is coming from someone who is new to the market. I never thought about putting in balloons because my art is very personal to me and each page is part of a storyline that I am very familiar with. But It does add to the display value and gives insight to people that are not reading the title. I may try it with a few key pages just for fun but it does look like it could take some time to do.............Phil how long did the process take? I'm sure the second page you did went faster.

 

 

Edit : Never mind...... It was asked what do old-time collectors think

 

[delekkerste]

I'd love to hear some opinions about this. Obviously there will be purists who will want the art left alone and framed "as is". But my argument is that we collect this art to look at anyways. I've seen many title stats created for covers from the copper & modern eras that never existed in the first place. So why no create something for an interior page like this that can benefit the overall look of the page? [/size]

 

Comics are unique in that they are a collaborative effort between the writer and artist(s), marrying words and pictures. So, yeah, I view the words to be an essential component, without which the pencils and inks alone are diminished. I mean, I admire the work of a good penciller and inker as much as the next guy, but it's the words that bring everything together.

 

Not that a lot of art isn't strong enough to stand on its own, and, in the rare case, the art stands alone so well that the words are superfluous (like my Walking Dead #19 cover - there is an image which requires no overlay or explanation). I do like what you've done with adding text to that WD page, but, that's a very laborious and cost-ineffective process, especially for most Modern pages. Thankfully, the WD series is one of the very few where people instantly recognize the storylines and most of what's going on even without the word balloons, but it's definitely the exception that proves the rule (and that's not to say that the OA wouldn't have been better had it been originally produced with the lettering on the board).

[James J]

19

[pemart1966]

Why does the artist not draw the word balloons, sound effects etc directly on to the art in the first place?

 

Because it was done digitally for most comic books created post-2002.

 

That and the artist only draws the art. Any text is usually done by the Letterer.

 

And between the two of them neither one can do that digitally??

 

[Phill the Governor]

Aside from this, now with Opentype you can have contextual substitutions of letter sequences, so it would be relatively easy to obtain a naturally looking lettering, even if done with a typeface. But they almost never take advantage of this…

 

This is too bad.

 

Edit : Never mind...... It was asked what do old-time collectors think

 

Oops! Not trying to be selective!

 

I do like what you've done with adding text to that WD page, but, that's a very laborious and cost-ineffective process, especially for most Modern pages.

 

For the most part it certainly is. I'll admit though, I was geeking a little as I was adding pieces to this overlay. Having the finished piece on my wall now next to a page without an overlay (that I think could benefit from one) makes me excited to get one done for that page.

[vaillant]

Why does the artist not draw the word balloons, sound effects etc directly on to the art in the first place?

 

Because it was done digitally for most comic books created post-2002.

 

That and the artist only draws the art. Any text is usually done by the Letterer.

 

And between the two of them neither one can do that digitally??

What do you mean by "digitally"? As I said, you can obtain very natural looking lettering (or art) with digital means as well – it all depends on how much time you spend on the piece. Lettering is usually paid not much, so we ended up with typographic standardization, while lettering, when for example it was done in the 1930s, it was part of the art (and often very artistic).

 

For example, this is an excellent typeface programmed to achieve the natural look of handwriting (or get close to it) by british type designer Nick Cook:

With such a typeface, the sound effect I criticized above could have been done in a very nicely varied way even if not done in pencil and ink.

 

Here’s a post about it:

http://www.g-type.com/blog/new-rollerscript-fonts-released/

[micmack]

Slightly off topic but similar theme. Obtained a Bronze Age cover art that was done on Vellum in the mid 4 figure range. Had no masthead or text that was on the final production cover. Also the surrounding on the production cover was solid black in parts. The vellum was browned (due to rubber cement) and looked like hell. Was squeamish to the thought of getting it cleaned as I didn't know how it would come out and if I could expense the cost. In the end I decided to cut my losses and put it up for auction, basically getting back what I paid. Cut to a year later, whoever purchased it had it cleaned and had a new masthead, type and graphics add on an overlay to make it resemble the production cover, and put it up for auction. It sold for way more that twice what I paid.

Clearly the overlay (and cleaning) made a huge difference.