Collecting San

Work has begun in earnest on both a new San Gwynn story, and on re-lettering the first batch of issues so that I can put together a collection for posterity. So let’s take a look at what re-lettering actually means, and then I’ll talk a bit about why I’m doing this and my thoughts about is.

First up, page six from San Gwynn #5, as originally published.

And here’s the re-lettered version of the same page…

Technical talk: even though the original page was hand-lettered, it was done separately from the original art page, and then merged digitally later. That was the first time I’d tried that technique, literally everything else I’d ever drawn I’d lettered on the board. Hard-core old-school style. I usually prefer to letter with a Rapidograph (I want to say .35 for dialogue, .50 for bold), and I factor in the lettering as I’m doing layouts, too. On this issue, I can’t remember if I used PITT markers or Pigmas, it’s one or the other. I went to PITT as a go-to after finding Rapidographs to be increasingly unreliable because PITT uses actual ink (and not pigment) and are archival. The other difference in this version from my usual methods is that I just used the word balloon tools in Clip Studio, instead of shuffling my oval templates around to find one that would fit.

Here, on the revised page, I’ve used Blambot’s Anime Ace 3 font, and kept the balloons. Quick aside, if you’re looking for fonts to letter with, Nate Piekos (the dude behind Blambot) has a number of fonts that are free to use on your indie and self-published books. Now that’s giving back to the medium!

I haven’t been tinkering with the actual dialogue much, I wrote the damned thing, and I wrote it how I wanted to. I’m not tinkering with the artwork at all. But about the lettering…

I grew up reading books that were hand-lettered, I view it to be as much of the calligraphy of storytelling as the linework or the colors. Ideally, I’d prefer to see the lettering done by the artists themselves, if at all possible. Stellar examples of this are by Stan Sakai on Usagi Yojimbo, Frank Miller on Sin City, and my gold standard of hand-lettering, Dave Sim on Cerebus. But at the same time, close work between a professional letterer and the artist can yield just as singular of work. Look at Howard Chaykin and Ken Bruzenak, or Walter Simonson and John Workman.

My goal is to be one of those one-man machines. Problem is, I’m not Stan Sakai, or Frank Miller, or Dave Sim. I don’t dislike my own lettering, but it’s idiosyncratic at best. And I’m not sure how reading 120+ pages of my hand-lettering is going to work as a reading experience. So then the question is, what the hell do I do?

A bunch of years ago, I read an interview with Jack White, as he was about to release his Lazaretto album. He’s famously diligently analog, and that album found him exploring some new technology. I can’t remember the specifics, but he apparently had a conversation with Chris Rock, who told him that no one cares but Jack White what tools Jack White uses to make an album. White took that to heart, and expanded his toolbox a bit. If someone as stubborn as Jack White can explore, who am I to doubt El Dandy?

But the flipside of that is, Lazaretto wasn’t Jack White’s best album, and didn’t perform particularly well. So!

In any case, my solution has been to re-letter the entire thing digitally. I may run the results by a couple of friends who are letterers, just to make sure I didn’t botch the whole fucking thing, but you can see what the upgrade is from the two examples above. And moving forward, that’s what San Gwynn will look like. It makes sense to make this change when I’m putting together the first volume instead of having to overhaul things once I’m a couple or three volumes deep. It also makes sense to make things read as smoothly as possible over the course of a longer collection.

*****

On a personal level, today is a big, bad anniversary. Two years ago, my mom passed away after a year-long fight with metastatic cancer, which led directly to the issues that she couldn’t recover from. In her honor, I knocked off from the day job (I run my own business, my boss was on the same page). I think that’s about all I’ll say about that. This date has been a black cloud looming for the last couple of weeks, but thank goodness for the support of some very good people. Life can be ugly and brutal and unforgiving, but I’m slowly learning that you must count your blessings and good luck, too. People you’d never expect will have your back, and that’s healthier to focus on than your own misery.

c.