Coolest new web site of the week

[Augie De Blieck Jr.]

Lettering God Todd Klein's:

http://kleinletters.com/

-Augie

[pmpknface]

Neato! ;)

[mgs]

augie! thanks for that last article about the boxes. I need to check out a better way to organize my comics and I'll def look into them. :) I just gotta remember to look out for the imitation ones they advise against.

[Augie De Blieck Jr.]

mgs - you're welcome. Take a look into them, because they are great. I have some more long boxes as well as the new short boxes coming in the next couple of weeks, so it looks like we'll be talking about them more someday soon. . .

-Augie

[torippu]

Thanks for the link! I didn't get through all of the site yet, but I really found the story/diary of the progression to computer lettering quite interesting. He mentions Gaspar Saladino. I'm a bit of an ignoramous when it comes to letterers, but I think that Gaspar was lettering The Flash when I first became addicted to the character during Geoff Johns & Scott Kolins run. I really became a big fan of the lettering in the book during this run and it was a big shock when DC switched letterers, was Gaspar still lettering stuff by hand at that time? Jarring changes like that don't go over too well with me - it distracts me from the book that I am enjoying.

[torippu]

Hey Augie - while we are on the subject of letterers, did you see that Erik Larsen is bringing back John Workman to letter Savage Dragon? You can read all about it over on Erik's message board (http://www.imagecomics.com/messageboard/viewtopic.php?p=470200#470200) over at Image Comics. I for one am very happy about this decision.

[Augie De Blieck Jr.]

Trip - Yes, I believe Gaspar was hand lettering THE FLASH until it was stripped out of his hands.

And I didn't see that news about Workman, but it makes me very happy. Thanks for the pointer! I love Workman's stuff, but not enough to buy Archie comics for it.

-Augie

[torippu]

Trip - Yes, I believe Gaspar was hand lettering THE FLASH until it was stripped out of his hands.
Well, that's a damn shame. His stuff was real good on The Flash. I take it he was an old school guy who got pushed out by computer lettering? Or does he still work for DC?

And I didn't see that news about Workman, but it makes me very happy. Thanks for the pointer! I love Workman's stuff, but not enough to buy Archie comics for it.
-Augie
In hindsight, anything's better than Erik's lettering. I've got to hand it to him though, he tried and it just didn't work out. Have you ever talked to him about why he has such an aversion to computer lettering? At this rate, it looks like it's going to be a while before the next issue of Dragon ships. I hope that this stockpiling of books will allow SD to get back onto a somewhat regular schedule. For about 8~10 months there, it was fun to have a new issue in my grubby hands on a monthly basis.

One other thing that I noticed recently, Tom O (can't spell his last name to save my life) is still lettering! I think that I saw his name in the credits for a recent issue of Excalibur. Does he only work with Chris Claremont these days?

[Augie De Blieck Jr.]

Trip - Erik is old school to the end. He refuses to have computer lettering on his book. It's a stylistic choice, I think. He has a wonderful bit of fanboy inside of him that he won't let go of -- comic pages should have lettering ON them. I say good for him. If Chris E. is around here today, I'm sure he'll chime in with the REAL reason. ;-)

Sadly, it looks like Gaspar has been pushed out of the industry. Or, he may have chosen to retire. He did the lettering thing for decades, after all. His name only shows up in recent years on collections:

http://www.comicbookdb.com/creator_chron.php?ID=216

Tom Orzechowski still letters. I think he's still on SPAWN. I don't know if he's doing any of the manga books anymore, but his font is definitely still there. And, yeah, they still drag him in for Claremont. That's a LOT of lettering per issue, after all. ;-)

-Augie, taking cheap shots now