Lettering: Crossbar 'I's, and preparing your script!

[Jim_Campbell]

Further to my snide remark over on the Brendan McCarthy's Spider-Man: Fever thread, I thought it might be as well to post something useful on the subject.

First of all ...crossbar 'I's, a reminder:



There is a school of thought that says it's also appropriate to use crossbar 'I's on the first letter of proper nouns (like Ian or Ingrid), which I have no problem with. Many lettering fonts also have a crossbar and a plain J, the crossbar J technically only being used on proper nouns as well:



In most lettering fonts, this the crossbar version is the uppercase character, and the plain version is the lower, and this is where the problem usually arises.

Some writers, since they are used to seeing their stories lettered in all caps, type their scripts accordingly:

DREDD: DROKK IT! THIS CREEP'S GOING DOWN!

(Note: if you're reading this, and you're a writer, and you do this, stop. Please.)

Back in the old days of hand lettering, this made the script easier to read. Nowadays, the script is usually e-mailed to the letterer, pretty much always as a Word document, so that the letterer can copy and paste the text onto the Illustrator document.

Even if the writer has used standard sentence case, there will still be uppercase 'I's in the script where you -- as letterer -- don't want to use crossbars.

For example, in the Spider-Man: Fever preview pages there's a crossbar I wherever it's been typed as a capital in the script, so if a sentence begins "In another ..." as it does on the first story page on that link, they've put a crossbar I when it should be a plain one. There's one in "New York CITY" and another in "SPIDER-MAN" on the second story page, as well.

There are several things a letterer needs to do to a script in Word before starting to transfer the text over to the actual lettering document.

If the script is ALL CAPS then the first thing is to go Edit -> Select All, then Format -> Change Case -> Sentence Case.

Next, you need to get rid of all sorts of typing quirks that may have crept in. Use Find/Replace under the edit menu.

Find: __Double Space (literally type two spaces where I've used underscores)
Replace: _ Single Space (literally one space instead of the underscore)

Find: ... (three full stops)
Replace: ... (ellipsis)

Now, for those 'I's. You need to have "Match Case" selected to make this work.

Find: I (capital I, no spaces before or after)
Replace: i (lower case i, no spaces before or after)

Find: i_ (lower case i with space after)
Replace: I_ (uppercase with space after)

Find: i' (lower case i with apostrophe after, no spaces)
Replace" I' (uppercase I with apostrophe and no space)

Your script should now be broadly lettering friendly (although keep an eye open for words that END in 'i', because you will have stuck a capital I at the end of 'taxi', for example).

EDIT TO ADD: You could probably stick all that on a macro to save time, thinking about it.

Also be aware that Word will substitute a double-dash for an em-hyphen. In British comics, the em-hyphen is  preferred, but in the US, the double-dash is used exclusively. You can turn off the substitution in Word's Autocorrect options.

Finally, don't think that you can't EVER use a crossbar 'I' anywhere else -- it's fine as long as you're using it deliberately, and are trying to achieve a specific effect ... if you're going for an old-school Marvel Artie Simek/Joe Simon look, for example:



Cheers!

Jim

[Dandontdare]

I see your point, and I've been dying to ask why you hate them so much, but would anyone except a letterer actually notice though? On all the occasions you've pointed out crossbar I's, it has always passed me by completely and not affected my enjoyment of the story, nor has it 'stuck out' or interrupted the smooth reading of the text.

Until now, you bastard, now I find I'm looking out for them as well! 

On an aside, there seems to be a distinction between 'proper' capitals and the rest of the text which just appear to be capital/uppercase. Why don't letterers use normal lowercase letters?

[Jim_Campbell]

Why don't letterers use normal lowercase letters?

Comics have traditionally always been lettered in upper case. I genuinely have no idea why.* When the 'whisper balloon' fell out of fashion, it was replaced with lower case lettering to denote whispered, weak, distant, or otherwise indistinct speech (in fact, it might be that the introduction of lower case for this purpose killed off the dashed-line whisper balloon ... I don't know which way round that was).

Marvel, for some reason, decided to introduce standard sentence case into some of its books, and I find them unreadable.



Now, I'm sure that people will be along directly to tell me that it doesn't bother them, but I've never been able to find anyone who actually prefers this kind of lettering to normal upper case. The best I've been able to find is mere indifference whilst, for many people (myself included), my eyes just kind of slide over the text and I find reading it a real chore.

Cheers!

Jim

* Edit to add: actually, there are all sorts of studies that suggest that this is easier/faster to read, which may be the explanation. I suspect that it might also be much quicker to write with reliable legibility than lower case.

[Professor Bear]

Actually, Jim, I think you'll find that page you use as an example is unreadable because it's written by Brian Michael Bendis.

But I have actually wondered how a designer's complaint about the mechanics of comics impacts on the average punter - it'd be a bit like if you sent a rude picture of your boss shagging a kangaroo around the office and everyone goes "oh, that's not funny at all - he's lettered this with comic sans."
Fair play, you're clearly passionate about it, but... well, I'm not sure it actually bothers me as a consumer of comics, just like I'm not that fussed that certain letterers don't justify text, align balloons with the edges of panels, or don't use anything other than straight tails.

Although speaking as someone who's done lettering for others, scripted dialogue in all caps and prolific use of the TAB button doesn't half slow down the lettering process at times.

[SuperSurfer]

...but would anyone except a letterer actually notice though? On all the occasions you've pointed out crossbar I's, it has always passed me by completely and not affected my enjoyment of the story, nor has it 'stuck out' or interrupted the smooth reading of the text.

I'm sure that most of us do things in our jobs that few people outside of our profession would notice if they were not done properly. Otherwise it's the slippery slope to mediocrity.

Strange how after reading comics for most of my life I would never have figured out the crossbar 'I' convention. Even when I have to do the smallest bit of lettering for an art comp entry I find myself going through comics to check the most basic rule such as is text centred or ranged left in caption boxes.

[Dandontdare]

Hmm, I see what you mean Jim. It's hard to put your finger on exactly why, but that standard case page does feel different, and isn't as easy to read. I think it was a conscious decision for Ultimate Spider Man however, and went some way to making that book really feel different (and it did when it started), with a more 'childish' Spiderman, but on the whole you're right, it's not as good.

I'm familiar with speech balloons and thought balloons*, but what did a whisper balloon look like?

*I hadn't realised just how far thought balloons had fallen out of favour (they do encourage lazy storytelling) until I read some recent marvel or DC TPB that was full of 'em - they really stood out and bugged me.

I'm sure that most of us do things in our jobs that few people outside of our profession would notice if they were not done properly. Otherwise it's the slippery slope to mediocrity.

True that. I suppose it's like the ancient 'golden rule' of proportions in architecture - you don't notice it but it just makes things look 'right'.

Now when we get to the maddening overuse of weird gothicky texts to make characters like Thor stand out.... 

[uncle fester]

Find: ... (three full stops)
Replace: ... (ellipsis)

Excuse my ignorance, but what's that/them/those

[pauljholden]

but what did a whisper balloon look like?

Common iconic treatment of a whisper is to have the balloon have a dashed line around it - often, though, not always, the lettering would be shrunk down and the balloon would have quiet a bit more whitespace around the lettering - lots of whitespace within a normal balloon is often a way to show a quitened voice - for example, character stumbles across a massive alien and goes "oh christ" - depending on the treatment this can have all sorts of different effects.

Lettering, and the overall effect it has on a comic, is often what will elevate good comics to great - not that anyone will notice, but put really badly done lettering on great comics and see what happens...

(And don't get me started on comic s/fx...)

-pj

[Jim_Campbell]

Find: ... (three full stops)
Replace: ... (ellipsis)

Excuse my ignorance, but what's that/them/those

An ellipsis is a single typesetting character that serves the same purpose as three full stops. Depending on what font your browser uses, you may notice that the ellipsis in the quote above occupies a different amount of space to three full stops.

Now when we get to the maddening overuse of weird gothicky texts to make characters like Thor stand out....

Drives me insane. I blame Neil Gaiman for giving each of the Endless a different lettering style (I'm pretty sure that came from Neil and not from Todd Klein). I noticed somewhere that Marvel are giving the Thing a different font in some books as well.

(And don't get me started on comic s/fx...)

Heh. I know we're of a mind on that one, PJ. If you're not going to at least TRY to make the SFX work with the artwork, what's the point?

Cheers!

Jim

[Professor Bear]

*I hadn't realised just how far thought balloons had fallen out of favour (they do encourage lazy storytelling) until I read some recent marvel or DC TPB that was full of 'em - they really stood out and bugged me.

I recall reading an Ann Nocenti Daredevil story that took place after Frank Miller's run, and while Nocenti had clearly written the story to be narrated by various characters in the first person much as Miller had done, the editors or letterer had decided to change the caption boxes of the FM era to thought balloons and the effect was horrible.  Thought bubbles are not the best method of delivering first-person narration - at best they provide a character's immediate reactions and, y'know - thoughts.
Plus, the torturous first-person narrative is pretty much the first port of call in crafting a parody these days - I can recall some Simpsons comic taking the piss by having some superheroes get confused after they all meet up because no-one can tell whose internal narrative is currently talking to the reader, and this was back in the 1990s, so that gives you an idea how over-reliant the comics form has become on the one storytelling device when there are a variety of options at the writer's disposal, none of which are inherently bad, just badly implemented at times.

[TordelBack]

Marvel, for some reason, decided to introduce standard sentence case into some of its books, and I find them unreadable.

Me too.  For some reason it immediately makes me think the comic is only aimed at kids, although you'd imagine the effect should be the opposite.  It also makes me more aware that the lettering is computerised, about one step up from old the typed captions in old Starblazers, when the best lettering makes me forget that there's even a difference.

I love speech and thought bubbles, the artform (IMHO) having being perfected by Dave Sim in the latter half of Cerebus, where the combo of letters and balloons actually became characters in themsleves, and in one case formed a whole episode (of the last really good Cerebus srotyline, Guys).  There's a terrific joke sex scene in Mothers and Daughters done entirely in combination speech/SFX bubbles.

[Jim_Campbell]

Marvel, for some reason, decided to introduce standard sentence case into some of its books, and I find them unreadable.

Me too.  For some reason it immediately makes me think the comic is only aimed at kids, although you'd imagine the effect should be the opposite.

To his substantial credit, Clive Bryant at Classical Comics has resisted considerable pressure from teachers and educational establishments to letter the Classical books in standard sentence case. There's something about the combination of speech balloon and lower case that just doesn't work, although I may try to canvas the opinions of non-comic readers to see if this is just a by-product of familiarity with the conventions of the form ...

Cheers!

Jim

[Mike Gloady]

Interesting stuff folks.

Jim, I found that pretty engaging and had noticed most of the things you mentioned without really being aware of them.  Sentence case lettering really grates with me I have to say (altough I'm quite a fan of the individual lettering styles of the Endless in Sandman, if only because it gave Todd Klein a way to showcase his talents in a way that would be noticed by the average punter - me for example).

[Jim_Campbell]

(altough I'm quite a fan of the individual lettering styles of the Endless in Sandman, if only because it gave Todd Klein a way to showcase his talents in a way that would be noticed by the average punter - me for example).

No argument there -- like any design device, it works brilliantly in moderation. So, of course, some bright spark decides to use it all over the feckin' place. On further investigation, however, I came across a claim (that I annoyingly didn't bookmark and now can't find) that Gaspar Saladino's lettering on Arkham Asylum was the first to deploy multiple lettering styles for individual characters in the same book.

However, once again, the lettering was a response to a very specific job, and a very specific mood for the book.

Cheers!

Jim

[The Enigmatic Dr X]

Sorry for the necropost, but I wanna know...

Some writers, since they are used to seeing their stories lettered in all caps, type their scripts accordingly:

DREDD: DROKK IT! THIS CREEP'S GOING DOWN!

(Note: if you're reading this, and you're a writer, and you do this, stop. Please.)

So, what would you have us do, Jim? That's not a snide question, more practical curiosity - I do exactly what you are complaining about but what is the alternative?

Here's a panel from something I did a few weeks ago:-

____________________________________________________________________________________

New POV. On the balcony. THOMAS in the rain. Still to one side and peering through the doors. Inside, ARGYLE considering the disc, which he holds in the palm of his hand.

ARGYLE:   A BLOODY GOOD QUESTION. I HAVE NO IDEA. BUT I KNOW WHO WILL.

       (LINKED)

       WE'RE GOING TO THE MARKET.
____________________________________________________________________________________



How would you prefer it laid out? With the description in capitals and the dialogue in lower case?


____________________________________________________________________________________

NEW POV. ON THE BALCONY. THOMAS IN THE RAIN. STILL TO ONE SIDE AND PEERING THROUGH THE DOORS. INSIDE, ARGYLE CONSIDERING THE DISC, WHICH HE HOLDS IN THE PALM OF HIS HAND.

ARGYLE:   A bloody good question. I have no idea. But I know who will.

         (linked)

       We're going to the market.
____________________________________________________________________________________


I ask because, while there seems to be very little agreed opinion on script styles, I thought that having the panel detail in the script all in capitals is wrong as it looks like speech, that it is better to distinguish description from speech and that character names should be in capitals. I also thought artist types liked having the characters in a panel in caps so they know at a glance who is there. That would be hard if it was all in caps. Have I got this wrong?

I don't want to find that my scripts are being rejected or creating a bad impression because they are not following a convention that I should know about.

I suppose the one saving grace is that Tharg himself has said in a rejection letter that he liked the clarity of my script layouts (pity about the story), but then he is not the only fruit.

However, while I wait for him to come to his senses, I need to make sure my scripts are as user-friendly as they can be. So, any thoughts would be welcome.

Also:

Now, for those 'I's. You need to have "Match Case" selected to make this work.

Find: I (capital I, no spaces before or after)
Replace: i (lower case i, no spaces before or after)

Find: i_ (lower case i with space after)
Replace: I_ (uppercase with space after)

Find: i' (lower case i with apostrophe after, no spaces)
Replace" I' (uppercase I with apostrophe and no space)

Your script should now be broadly lettering friendly (although keep an eye open for words that END in 'i', because you will have stuck a capital I at the end of 'taxi', for example).

Would doing a search replace for _i_ and _i'_ not solve the taxI problem? ie a space on either side?