A comic isn’t complete until the lettering is done! Today we're going to be talking about lettering - putting the words on the art of your comic panels, and tips and tricks to keep everything readable.

At what stage of the process do you start planning for lettering?

Part of the planning depends on what medium you use to create your comic.

Traditional work tends to require the placement of bubbles and lettering to take place before the art is drawn. If this isn't done, you'll find yourself having to erase art to fit things in.

With digital art you have more freedom to place the lettering and bubbles after the fact and you can adjust art as needed to make room for the bubble if there isn't initially room. It can still be a very good idea to plan the art and lettering together, such as adding in text during the sketch phase, so that you can ensure your pages and panels flow together. The flow of speech bubbles and use of sound effects can be such helpful tools for conveying story and tone and guiding the eye and proper planning can help you utilize lettering to your advantage.

What tools do you use for your speech bubbles and lettering?

Vectors!! Vector bubbles allow you to adjust the size and shape of the bubble with ease and many tools can let you adjust the text position in relation to the bubble with ease.

More simply, you can use a simple ellipse or circle tool or custom brushes to give you more control over the appearance.

How did you choose your font?

Blambot is a great resource to find comic friendly fonts. You can see text examples and the various licenses available for each font on there.

Having test pages of art to sample different fonts with can help you get a good font that meshes well with your art. Some fonts look great on their own or as a display font but are not ideal when used in the dialogue. So testing within the context of the page will really help you choose something that works the best.

How do you keep stuff readable?

Readability is KEY! The default white background with black font and black outline works because it has great contrast. If you're straying from this, you need to make sure that you're keeping a strong contrast and that it still stands out from the background.

Using colored font, especially things like having a specific color/font for every character can get overwhelming. Consider instead using colored font to add flavor or emphasis rather than making it constant.

Simplicity is not bad when it comes to lettering. Simplicity tends to equal accessibility and accessibility is wonderful!

Pay attention to where your bubbles are, especially the tails. Your tails tell the reader who is speaking. Make sure they are clearly pointing to the speakers mouth and avoid crossing tails.

Get feedback from others if you're not sure something is working.

Let your text breathe. Don't cramp your text in a too small bubble, but also don't let your words drown in a sea of blank bubble space. A good rule of thumb is a sentence per bubble or think of each bubble as a breath. You should be able to say what's in a bubble with one breath. If you have to breathe in the middle, try splitting the bubble up.

In addition to fonts, you can find some great lettering tips on blambot.com

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Episode Release Date: September 20, 2023

Episode Credits:

Kristen Lee (@feathernotes) - she/they, ghostjunksickness.com lunarblight.com

Christina Major (@delphina2k) - she/her, sombulus.com

Claire Niebergall (Clam) - she/her, phantomarine.com

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The Intro "DO IT (feat. Shia LaBeouf)", and the Outro "It's Good To See You Again!!", both by Adrianwave, have been used and modified in good faith under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Licensed. Edits include: Fade IN/OUT, and a repeat added to the beginning of "It's Good To See You Again!!". For more information on this creative commons use, please reference https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.