The 90's - the last era of hand-lettered art boards? Let's see your favorite Copper pages with lettering! 0

[Dr. Balls]

I collect (mostly) 90's era art - but for me, one of the make-or-break deals is if the page is missing it's lettering. Not that it's fallen off, but that it's added digitally. It just really does it for me to have the lettering actually worked into the composition of the art. I'm mulling over a late 90's piece of art that is a really good looking page action-wise, but to me - it's missing something because the lettering was added in post-production. I'm trying to see if I can get over it. In the meantime, let's see some 90's COPPER AGE PAGES!

This is a favorite of mine by Hannibal King, from Nightvision #4 written by David Quinn. One, the inkwork is just superb - the photo doesn't do it justice, and two, the variety of lettering and the fact that even though it's one page, the consciousness of it can be interpreted as it flows through the art.

[Ecclectica]

On 10/10/2022 at 12:40 AM, Dr. Balls said:

I collect (mostly) 90's era art - but for me, one of the make-or-break deals is if the page is missing it's lettering.

I'm in the same situation. Without letters on modern pages, to me, something is missing. It's really difficult for me to choose and immerse into modern pages the same way than in the pages from before. 

I'm glad to have a least one sample of work by the old masters (Workman, Klein and Orzechowski) in my collection.

[Brian Peck]

I pretty much don’t collect much interior art published after the mid 90s. Unless the page is a great design or can tell the story without the word balloons I won’t buy it. I prefer pages with word balloons, I like to collect pages which are part of stories I like. Pages seem generic without word balloons.

 

[Ecclectica]

On 10/10/2022 at 8:51 AM, Brian Peck said:

I pretty much don’t collect much interior art published after the mid 90s. Unless the page is a great design or can tell the story without the word balloons I won’t buy it. I prefer pages with word balloons, I like to collect pages which are part of stories I like. Pages seem generic without word balloons.

 

Guess the young OA collectors, or the ones from the coming generation, will probably see things differently (especially with the prices for old OA going where there are going), but we cannot change ourselves and what we like...

I have several "silent" pages (that's what I call them) from the last two decades and each of them have "a great design or can tell the story without the word balloons", so I completely agree.

Edited October 10, 2022 by Ecclectica

[Brian Peck]

Here are a few pages without word balloons from my collection.

All New X-Men #22 page 3 by Stuart Immonen and Wade Von Grawbadger

 

 

 

Goon #17  by Eric Powell

I am a HUGE Hitchcock fan

 

 

 

Rocketeer Adventures v3 #1 by Chris Sprouse and Karl Story

 

 

[Rick2you2]

While I also prefer word balloons with lettering, I have a cheapie set up in Excel which gives me something close to what I want. I store most art in Itoya's, as do lots of people, and set up my Excel spreadsheet (and files) with two separate folders for each entry. Then, I link each piece of art to the spreadsheet, with the 9th column linked to the actual art, and the 10th column linked to the printed page, which would contain word balloons. If the art is a dps, that gets dropped into the 11th and 12th columns, as needed, along with any commentary. So, in the following example, we have column 1 (the book), column 2 (blank, but marked if it is an sketch or commission), column 3 (volume), column 4 (issue), column 5 (page), column 6 (penciller, in this case there are no original pencils; if there were brackets, it means pencils exist but I don't have it), column 7, inker, column 8, colorist (marked as needed), column 9 (link to scanned in original art), column 10 (linked to published page), column 11-13 dps's if any and commentary. You can expand, if you want, by including purchase price and seller.

 

Books of Magic

2

1

4

Tom Fowler (blue line)

Tom Fowler

_101220Spreadsheet\Book2\FowlerBMagicV1p4.jpg

_101220Spreadsheet\Book4b\Fowler.jpg

[pkveronese]

I love Todd Klein's work. He was still hand-lettering into the early 2000s on some of the America's Best Comics series (they transitioned to digital about midway), giving them an extra bit of charm.

[Dr. Balls]

On 10/10/2022 at 2:08 AM, Ecclectica said:

Guess the young OA collectors, or the ones from the coming generation, will probably see things differently (especially with the prices for old OA going where there are going), but we cannot change ourselves and what we like...

I have several "silent" pages (that's what I call them) from the last two decades and each of them have "a great design or can tell the story without the word balloons", so I completely agree.

Very true. And I like the term "silent pages". I definitely think the challenge is finding those silent pages that tell the story visually - and in a way, those may be the ones that stand the test of time.

[Dr. Balls]

On 10/10/2022 at 1:47 PM, Rick2you2 said:

While I also prefer word balloons with lettering, I have a cheapie set up in Excel which gives me something close to what I want. I store most art in Itoya's, as do lots of people, and set up my Excel spreadsheet (and files) with two separate folders for each entry. Then, I link each piece of art to the spreadsheet, with the 9th column linked to the actual art, and the 10th column linked to the printed page, which would contain word balloons. If the art is a dps, that gets dropped into the 11th and 12th columns, as needed, along with any commentary. So, in the following example, we have column 1 (the book), column 2 (blank, but marked if it is an sketch or commission), column 3 (volume), column 4 (issue), column 5 (page), column 6 (penciller, in this case there are no original pencils; if there were brackets, it means pencils exist but I don't have it), column 7, inker, column 8, colorist (marked as needed), column 9 (link to scanned in original art), column 10 (linked to published page), column 11-13 dps's if any and commentary. You can expand, if you want, by including purchase price and seller.

 

Books of Magic

2

1

4

Tom Fowler (blue line)

Tom Fowler

_101220Spreadsheet\Book2\FowlerBMagicV1p4.jpg

_101220Spreadsheet\Book4b\Fowler.jpg

I'm getting a dead link on those - I'd be interested in seeing your spreadsheet. I like the idea of putting in all the artist information into the spreadsheet. I may have to add a few columns to mine...

[Rick2you2]

On 10/10/2022 at 8:34 PM, Dr. Balls said:

I'm getting a dead link on those - I'd be interested in seeing your spreadsheet. I like the idea of putting in all the artist information into the spreadsheet. I may have to add a few columns to mine...

I expect the links would break since I didn’t upload the pictures. I prefer to keep my collection confidential, but after I get out of the hospital, I will try to send you a snippet.

Edited October 11, 2022 by Rick2you2

[Mycroft]

You can also buy original lettering on velum like those :

https://www.comicartfans.com/galleryroom.asp?gsub=201012

 

[Rick2you2]

On 10/11/2022 at 7:52 AM, Mycroft said:

You can also buy original lettering on velum like those :

https://www.comicartfans.com/galleryroom.asp?gsub=201012

 

This should be added to Alex's resource guide.

[Taylor G]

For those that want to give something back to the hobby, perhaps feeling there should be more to a hobby than pulling out your credit card, one suggestion is to DIY dialogue overlays.  One suggestion is to use Adobe Illustrator to cut the word balloons out of a scan of the original page, then paste them onto a mylar overlay (make sure to only use archival tape to attach the overlay).  You do not want to just blow up the actual lettering, it will look terrible.  If you want to do your own lettering, don't just use Times Modern on your computer.  You may be able to find a font for the original letterer out there, or create your own version of their font from samples of their work if you are feeling ambitious.  

Todd Klein has a series of posts about the history of digital lettering here (search for "digital lettering" on the page).

Tom Orzechowski on digital lettering:

Quote

I had the capacity to do digital work, but I resisted because the look is not as fun, not as organic, but now it’s 2009 and that’s old thinking.  It doesn’t matter any more.  There are now countless body copy fonts; fifteen, twenty, thirty body copy fonts.  Nate Peikos has fifteen or twenty himself.  So, there are a lot of varieties possible.  Clem Robins is the absolute master of developing fonts.  There are things known as contextual ligatures where the letters like “ly” and “lw” are created like an individual letter concept, the two letters together, so every time you type a thing with “ly” at the end it defaults to the contextual ligature.  So, they’ll be nicely spaced next to each other just automatically.  And he’s created such a series of different letters for the contextual ligatures that on Hellboy you can read a page and sometimes not see the same letter “e” twice.  If it’s against the letter “o” he’ll make it somewhat recessive to the center, if it’s against the letter “w” he’ll make it somewhat longer at the bottom.  So, it all has that organic look as if it were made by someone who was considering each letter however rapidly as he was making it.  Just ingenious.  The volume size of these fonts must be into just megabytes.

 

[RBerman]

It doesn’t bother me at all when pages don’t have lettering. Good comic book art should offer something just from the pictures anyway, even if the words synergize with the art. I do find it distracting when the pages have empty word balloons, though.

Here are some of my 90s pages with lettering. JH Williams III:

Marc Silvestri:

Geoff Isherwood: 

 

[Brian Peck]

Here are a few of my favorites:

God Loves and Man Kills -  Brent Anderson

 

X-Men #28 Andy Kubert and Matt Ryan

 

New Teen Titans #39 Eduardo Barreto and Romeo Tanghal

 

Excalibur #13 by Alan Davis and Paul Neary

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Dr. Balls]

On 10/11/2022 at 12:40 PM, Brian Peck said:

X-Men #28 Andy Kubert and Matt Ryan

 

New Teen Titans #39 Eduardo Barreto and Romeo Tanghal

 

 

Excalibur #13 by Alan Davis and Paul Neary

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yowza, amazing pages especially the Kubert one. That's one of the best X-Men eras with awesome Jean Grey dialogue!

[Rick2you2]

On 10/11/2022 at 8:03 AM, Taylor G said:

For those that want to give something back to the hobby, perhaps feeling there should be more to a hobby than pulling out your credit card, one suggestion is to DIY dialogue overlays.  One suggestion is to use Adobe Illustrator to cut the word balloons out of a scan of the original page, then paste them onto a mylar overlay (make sure to only use archival tape to attach the overlay).  You do not want to just blow up the actual lettering, it will look terrible.  If you want to do your own lettering, don't just use Times Modern on your computer.  You may be able to find a font for the original letterer out there, or create your own version of their font from samples of their work if you are feeling ambitious.  

Todd Klein has a series of posts about the history of digital lettering here (search for "digital lettering" on the page).

Tom Orzechowski on digital lettering:

 

That’s hard to do. Better off using Illustrator to trace the shape of the word balloon, using auto-trace, and cross your fingers on the typography. I haven’t found any of them really match the hand lettering too well, and it is time consuming. You can also use some of the shapes, like a triangle and oval, bend the lines by manipulating the points, and merging using pathfinder. 

[Will_K]

From Batman / Green Arrow: The Poison Tomorrow (1992).  Written by Denny O'Neil... Drawn by Michael Netzer (Nasser) / Joe Rubenstein... Lettered on the boards by Todd Klein. 

Batman ( in the Batmobile ) chased down a truck loaded with toxins.  A lot of the comments in this topic are in regards to the storytelling even without the lettering being present.  So I'm just presenting these pages (39, 40, 41, 50) even though the lettering isn't really legible.  When posting art in these forums, usually the art has yet to be posted on CAF, so another peek into my collection.

Edited October 11, 2022 by Will_K

[Will_K]

On 10/11/2022 at 8:03 AM, Taylor G said:

Todd Klein has a series of posts about the history of digital lettering here (search for "digital lettering" on the page).

FYI - the 11 x 17 prints that he sells on his web site are nice.  I have a few of them myself.  Some prints feature original verses written by favorite writers (e.g. Neil Gaiman), lettered by Todd Klein and signed by the author and Klein.  If the print features new art, it's signed by the artist and Klein.

[Gal Schwartz]

Sometimes the word balloons REALLY matter...

 

 

The monologue is actually pretty amazing too.

Edited October 12, 2022 by Gal Schwartz