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

[Bridom]

I have primarily 90s-early 2000s pages so I have a good selection of lettered-pages. The DETECTIVE COMICS here, lettered by Todd Klein, is particularly cool because in the first panel, the "OR AM I JUST PARANOID?" caption was corrected with individually pasted letters in P A R A N O I D which gives a cool meta touch. The STORMWATCH page is immaculately lettered by Bill Oakley (a true unsung lettering hero).

[Nuttzo]

Is there a particular person or place that could remake or reprint and place lettering and titles on a clear overlay? I have a more modern title page that is just the art, but I can't stand looking at it without the title and lettering.

[Phill the Governor]

On 1/15/2023 at 8:18 AM, Nuttzo said:

Is there a particular person or place that could remake or reprint and place lettering and titles on a clear overlay? I have a more modern title page that is just the art, but I can't stand looking at it without the title and lettering.

There's very few of us that do it.

At the end of the day, pieces generally have to be valuable enough to warrant the cost of the recreations. That barrier to enter can be high enough that I love picking up pages other's don't want with the intent of creating word balloons or an entire masthead. Low and behold, after the overlay is done it's not surprising how much more desirable a piece can be - even though the overlay isn't original.

Two of my pieces (a cover and an interior page with stats on overlays):

Scooby Doo #4 Cover

Walking Dead Interior Page

My enjoyment of pieces like this is greatly enhanced by the recreations, and it sort of puts a nail in the coffin for the spirit of this thread (for me anyways). I simply view any piece without word balloons or a masthead as an opportunity instead of something to stay clear of.

[Nuttzo]

Wow!!! What a difference. Those look great.

[Dr. Balls]

On 1/15/2023 at 9:58 AM, Phill the Governor said:

There's very few of us that do it.

At the end of the day, pieces generally have to be valuable enough to warrant the cost of the recreations. That barrier to enter can be high enough that I love picking up pages other's don't want with the intent of creating word balloons or an entire masthead. Low and behold, after the overlay is done it's not surprising how much more desirable a piece can be - even though the overlay isn't original.

Two of my pieces (a cover and an interior page with stats on overlays):

Scooby Doo #4 Cover

Walking Dead Interior Page

My enjoyment of pieces like this is greatly enhanced by the recreations, and it sort of puts a nail in the coffin for the spirit of this thread (for me anyways). I simply view any piece without word balloons or a masthead as an opportunity instead of something to stay clear of.

Those turned out GREAT! The Scooby Doo one is really cool.

I created an art board for my Sabrina #3 cover from 1972, it looks so much cooler in it's completed environment than just a big square of art.

Do you create the overlays yourself?

On 1/15/2023 at 9:58 AM, Phill the Governor said:

I simply view any piece without word balloons or a masthead as an opportunity instead of something to stay clear of.

That's a great philosophy that I'm going to try and adhere to.

[Phill the Governor]

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:

 

This is a cool guide for those with a budget.

 As someone that does this professionally, though, in my experience reverse engineering balloons, full mastheads and other stats has a fairly straightforward procedure. And I can be totally transparent about what that is: use a high resolution scan of the published piece; then remove all the color (for black and white pieces) so it's just line art, size it to the original art, print it (on color matching paper which is WAY easier said than done), cut it out perfectly, adhere it perfectly in place onto the art (if it's an older piece) or onto a transparent overlay if it's a newer piece. To do it right, you need to use pigment inks on acid free photo paper. I'm leaving out a few steps and my own techniques but that's the basics.

Typing that out makes it seem or sound easy. Tedious is the word you'll be looking for, especially for the paper color matching and (in most cases) the line art recovery. Anyone I know that's tried to do that effectively tries once and gives up OR feels sufficient in what they create, but upon close inspection the quality of the recreation is nowhere near where it could be in my opinion. Often times people don't want to shell out $$ when that $ can go towards new art, so they take the cheap route or forego recreations all together. Which is understandable.

 

[Phill the Governor]

On 1/15/2023 at 12:14 PM, Nuttzo said:

Wow!!! What a difference. Those look great.

thank you!

On 1/15/2023 at 12:14 PM, Dr. Balls said:

Those turned out GREAT! The Scooby Doo one is really cool.

I created an art board for my Sabrina #3 cover from 1972, it looks so much cooler in it's completed environment than just a big square of art.

Do you create the overlays yourself?

I do, yup.

The one you made for your Sabrina Cover looks great!

[Dr. Balls]

I picked up this one because it was a great DPS AND had some cool lettering/bubbles. Plus, some good use of bolding and italicizing, and all the word bubbles were hand-cut with an x-acto knife and then pasted to the page - lots of precision cutting out!

[PhilipB2k17]

I have a modern page that had no lettering on the published version. So, the OA for the page is the same as the final printed version. 

[hmendryk]

On 1/15/2023 at 11:58 AM, Phill the Governor said:

There's very few of us that do it.

At the end of the day, pieces generally have to be valuable enough to warrant the cost of the recreations. That barrier to enter can be high enough that I love picking up pages other's don't want with the intent of creating word balloons or an entire masthead. Low and behold, after the overlay is done it's not surprising how much more desirable a piece can be - even though the overlay isn't original.

Two of my pieces (a cover and an interior page with stats on overlays):

Scooby Doo #4 Cover

Walking Dead Interior Page

My enjoyment of pieces like this is greatly enhanced by the recreations, and it sort of puts a nail in the coffin for the spirit of this thread (for me anyways). I simply view any piece without word balloons or a masthead as an opportunity instead of something to stay clear of.

While I certainly see how the overlay enhances the Walking Dead page, I find actually prefer the Scooby Doo cover without the additions. But of course it is an overlay so you have both with and without.

[Nuttzo]

I like how they differentiate the word bubbles when Ghost Rider is talking on the 2099 title.

[Phill the Governor]

On 1/20/2023 at 10:06 AM, hmendryk said:

While I certainly see how the overlay enhances the Walking Dead page, I find actually prefer the Scooby Doo cover without the additions. But of course it is an overlay so you have both with and without.

In a certain light I agree about the Scooby-Doo, since it does cover up art and is a little busy. I try not to do it for all pieces, but in this case I intended to display it next to the book and having the context (I think) gives it that little extra.

[Phill the Governor]

Not intending to get the thread derailed, here's one of the few hand-lettered pieces I have.

Hard to believe that in just a few short months it'll be 20 years old.

CAF link

Edited January 22, 2023 by Phill the Governor

[Catwoman_Fan]

I really enjoy the word balloons on these, wouldn’t be the same without them. 
But I need some DIY acetate for newer pages/covers. 

[Dr. Balls]

On 1/22/2023 at 8:30 AM, Phill the Governor said:

Not intending to get the thread derailed, here's one of the few hand-lettered pieces I have.

Hard to believe that in just a few short months it'll be 20 years old.

CAF link

Was that published with the bubbles on the board? That's very cool!

[Dr. Balls]

On 1/22/2023 at 2:19 PM, Catwoman_Fan said:

I really enjoy the word balloons on these, wouldn’t be the same without them. 
But I need some DIY acetate for newer pages/covers. 

 

That Spider-man 2099 has great lettering and sound effects!

[rikemice]

On 1/15/2023 at 7:18 AM, Nuttzo said:

Is there a particular person or place that could remake or reprint and place lettering and titles on a clear overlay? I have a more modern title page that is just the art, but I can't stand looking at it without the title and lettering.

I’ve done it for myself. My most ambitious was recreating this Daily Bugle front page (and covering up the Stan Lee sig in the middle of the artwork.)

 

 

https://www.comicartfans.com/gallerypiece.asp?piece=1840434

[skrilla1212]

The lettering choices in these two pages always stuck out to me from Peter David and Joe Quesada’s X-Factor.

On the first page, Havok saying “I can’t think of a word loathsome enough”, under his breath because the words are smaller in the balloon.

On the second, “Random?!” “Are you out of your mind?” Incredulous.

Something really lost without word balloons:(

 

[Phill the Governor]

On 1/29/2023 at 2:13 PM, Dr. Balls said:

Was that published with the bubbles on the board? That's very cool!

Yup! One of the last issues with the hand-lettered balloons affixed to the art before they were done digitally.

[Dr. Balls]

On 1/31/2023 at 4:02 PM, Phill the Governor said:

Yup! One of the last issues with the hand-lettered balloons affixed to the art before they were done digitally.

That's pretty neat - I had no idea there were letterers doing that in the early 2000s!