What's Happening - January 2023
The ghostest with the mostest
Hey! This newsletter is on Ghost now.
Welcome to my monthly newsletter, giving you updates on the things I’ve been lettering, reading and writing this month.
What am I lettering?
Welcome to 2024! Looking at my lettering schedule for the first couple months of this year, I'm really excited about some of the projects I have on the docket. I got some very cool emails about some projects right at the beginning of this new year, and I'm stoked to have what seems to be even more consistent lettering work going into this new year. I also updated my lettering portfolio, which I've been meaning to do for... a very long time. Anyway, since it's the new year, time for some big, 2024 thoughts about lettering.
One of my big goals for this year is to embrace inconsistency.
I think there are two big impulses when it comes to digital lettering. The first is to create clean, legible, and easily replicable styles. The second is to actively chase the stylistic irregularities that are present in hand-lettered comics. I don't know if I'd say these impulses are competing. Doing one doesn't necessarily exclude doing the other. Most folks I see lettering end up somewhere in the middle between these two poles. And to be clear, I don't think I'm saying anything original here. Anyone who has spent time doing or thinking about digital lettering has likely come to a similar conclusion. If you want to hear people smarted than I am and better at lettering than I will probably ever be talk about this topic, the short lived Letters and Lines podcast by Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou and Aditya Bidikar dives into some of these topics better than I can articulate here.
When I first started lettering comics, my biggest focus was consistency. Consistent balloon sizing, consistent balloon tails, consistent stylistic choices. On my first few comics, I set an exact measurement for how much air their should be in any given balloon style and actively measure it out the space between the words and the edge for each individual balloon. It was exacting, time consuming, and mostly a waste of that consumed time. But that consistency helped me to build my skills as a letterer, moving me from someone just throwing ellipses and text on a page to someone who actually had a tiny bit of skill I was bringing to the table.
But as I roll into what, if I'm doing my math right, is my 5th year of lettering, I'm spending a lot of (well, maybe not a lot. But at the very least some) time thinking about where and when consistency is important and where it's just a sign of creative rigidity. And so for 2024, I'm hoping to find the places where inconsistency makes sense. Where I can break a lettering style to have more impact. Embracing the choices that feel correct, even if they aren't technically following whatever rules I've set for myself on a given project.
Anyway, enough rambling about general lettering thoughts. There are a couple of really cool projects I've worked on are currently live on Kickstarter! Here's the run down:
Overpowered #1
Overpowered is some of the most I had lettering a book in 2023. I previously worked with Dan Tappan and Matias de Vincenzo on a story in the nautical horror anthology A Lungful of Brine, and really appreciate how much fun Dan lets me have with the lettering on his books. There are a lot of books where it makes sense to keep the lettering as simple and unobtrusive as possible. Overpowered (and all the projects I've worked on so far with Dan) are places where I get to stretch my obtrusiveness. There is a stylization to Matias's art that invites my lettering to get stylized as well. And, like I said, making the book was a blast.
As for what the book is actually about? Dan says it better than I can:
A gym rat heroine. A dragon with daddy issues. A dog. All teaming up to save The Realm from an evil, power-siphoning sorceress.
The project is live as of today. Don't miss your chance to back it!
I Summoned Cthulhu to Fund My Kickstarter 1-3
Pat Shand does not need my help getting this Kickstarter funded. But I wanted to shout this book out because the last two issues were by far the most eyes that have ever been on a book with my lettering.
I love Kickstarter, I love the comic projects that have been allowed to flourish because this platform has made independent publishing possible at a scale that it simply wasn't before. And, speaking of scale, Pat Shand and the rest of the team at Space Between Entertainment know how to make Kickstarter work in a way very few other creators do. It's been awesome to get to work with them on this project and get a small look at the inner workings of their big, Kickstarter machine.
Also, this book is a blast. It's a fun, funny script, poking fun at the whole comic book Kickstarter ecosystem. The art by Patrick Mulholland and colors by James Offredi make this book absolutely gorgeous. And my lettering is pretty neat too! So hey, if you haven't back either of the previous issues, you can get all three of them here.
Some other prelaunch comics:
Some Fun Lettering
What am I reading?
Tales of the Frog Knight - Issue 1
It's been a long time since I read a comic I enjoyed as much as this one. Armand Bodnar's art in this first issue is beautiful. The closest comparison (and one that I'm sure Bodnar gets enough that it has to be annoying) is to Mike Mignola. The stories and the art are infused with a quiet melancholy while still delivering on the moments of excitement when it comes time for the characters to take action.
I imaging it must be hard to make a book with art that is inspired by Mignola's style, because you have to make your story and art good enough that your reader doesn't spend the entire time thinking about how they could be reading something that was actually drawn by Mignola. Tales of the Frog Knight easily clears that bar, creating a comic that feels powerful and entertaining without being trapped in Mignola's shadow.
This first issue is made up of a number of loosely connected stories. It follows the titular Frog Knight, a silent, wandering swordsman from an order that has been destroyed. The stories are best read one at a time, taking a break between each, otherwise it's easy to power through them. But taking the time to admire the artwork, to engage with the storytelling and craft that each of these stories bring to the table is definitely worth while. I got the book first issue on kickstarter, which I linked above, but I hear the siren song of adding Bodnar's patreon to my growing list of monthly subscriptions.
Damn Them All - Vol 1
Charlie Adlard has emerged from his 15 years toiling away in The Walking Dead mines to draw a great riff on John Constantine, written by Si Spurrior, colored by Sofie Dodgeson, and lettered by Jim Campbell.
I picked this up after listening to Spurrior's interview with David Harper on Off Panel (side note, Off Panel probably the best comic related interview podcast, if you aren't already listening to it.) It's been about a month since I listened to this episode, so I'm not going to be able to quote it directly. But during the interview, Spurrior mentions that the original pitch for this book had quite a bit more demon action on the pages. And Adlard's response to this was, actually, I want to draw more assholes sitting in pubs.
It was the right call. This book has exactly the right balance of demon action to blokes being assholes in a pub. There are a lot of formal things I really like about this book. One, it's dense. Something I've been trying to do in my own writing is figuring out how to make a single issue (or as the case may be, a single 5 to 10 page episode) feel like a satisfying chunk of story. Each issue of Damn Them All has that, to such a degree that I almost wish I'd read the book in floppies.
But since I didn't, I can say the story still works well in trade. There's a lot of text in this. Lots of narration, lots of people talking. But the book never feels crowded, and never actively feels wordy. It's a tricky tightrope to walk, but one that the artistic team does well. Special shout out to Campbell's lettering. The balloon style he uses for demons is very cool. (Sorry, don't have a deep analysis than this. Just like to look at it!) Thoroughly enjoying this so far. Excited to read volume 2 when it arrives.
Berserk
Kentaro Miura's Berserk is the story of a man with a very, very big sword who is, generally speaking, having a very, very bad time.
This is, of course, an accurate but not terribly useful description of Berserk. Berserk is actually a story about continuing to live and fight, even when the world is terrible and your goal is impossible. It's a story about the hard work it takes for a person to, if not overcome, continue living past their trauma. It's a story about toxic masculinity, learning to love others and let others love you. It's also a story that opens with the main character having sex with sexy lady who turns into a demon that he then murders. It's a story that has some of the most consistently edgelord nonsense I've ever seen. And it is of course a story with almost constant sexual violence, especially against its female characters.
In conclusion, Berserk is a land of contrasts. I started reading Berserk early last year, and had been thinking about picking it up since the news came out about Miura's death. So many people spoke so highly of the book that I thought I'd give it a shot and try to push through the first few volumes of what seems like edgy garbage. I've been taking it pretty slow, taking break between each of the big arcs as I work through the volumes. I just wrapped up volume 27 as of writing this.
There are parts of Berserk that are as good or better than any other comic I've ever read. Then there are parts that are complete edge-lord bullshit barely worth engaging with. And the thing about Berserk is that you're never more than a single page turn away from moving out of one of these modes and into to the other.
All of this comes together to make Berserk difficult for me to talk about. It feels like you have to spend a few hundred words making sure you cover the mile long list of trigger warnings (about 300 to be exact, if I'm counting those previous paragraphs) before you can actually talk about the stuff that's worthwhile about the book. Because there are so many things I really, truly love about Berserk. It's ended up being an influence on my own writing, but it's hard to cite it as influential without worrying that people are going to assuming I'm influenced by the grimdark surface. And even making clear that the edgy stuff isn't what I like about the book, it sometimes ends up being hard to describe exactly what I do love about it.
I think it comes down to something I'm always chasing in fiction. Stories that have awesome moments, in the original sense of the word. Moments that inspire awe. Something that genuinely, truly feels bigger than the world around us. That feels more powerful, more sublime. Berserk is beautifully horrifying. Or maybe horrifyingly beautiful. And Miura, for all the myriad of faults I think Berserk has, was able to create that sense of awe more consistently and more powerfully than almost any other comic I've read.
The long arc of Guts as a main character is also wonderful. From selfish loner to close friend to jaded, broken man to someone who learns to care about those who love him once again. He's a character struggling against a world fundamentally built to destroy him, and despite all the trauma that entails, still chooses o continuing to fighting. He's also just... so cool. Real "attack and dethrone God" energy. There are at least three different things about Guts that a screaming for you to get a tattoo of them. I really, truly cannot emphasize enough how cool Guts is. At this point, he's genuinely one of my favorite characters in fiction.
Anyway. Berserk is an amazing comic. Just make sure you read the mile long list of content warnings before you decide to dig into it. I've been searching and honestly haven't found anything like it. So if anyone has suggestions for really good fantasy comics or manga that might scratch a similar itch, please, please let me know.
What am I writing?
The next email you're going to get from me is the first episode of Hero of Legend, coming on 2/6. I'm going to try and be a bit more consistent with the timing of this newsletter going forward. Hero of Legend is going to come out on the first Tuesday of every month. This newsletter will come out on the third Tuesday of each month. Anything else will come... whenever it comes.
I'm really, genuinely, so excited for people to be able to read Hero of Legend. I've put a lot of time and effort into the writing of this series, and I can't wait for people to read it. And speaking of things I can't wait for people to read, Into the Deep is so close to being done. I've lettered all of the pages that have been completed so far, and we're now we're just 16 more pages from the end.
And here's where I have a small ask for those that have made it all the way to the end of this newsletter. I've left Substack because of all the Nazis. But that means that, aside from me tweeting and posting and other wise shouting into the abyss, there's no longer an easy way for other people to find my work. So when you get Hero of Legend in your inbox next month, if you have the energy, I would really appreciate a little help spreading the word. Or, if you have the cash, signing up for the 2 dollar monthly tier of this newsletter that will help me continue creating.
Finally, here's a fun panel from an upcoming episode if that'll maybe help to convince you:
It's 2024, have you figured out a way to end this newsletter?
Nope. See ya!