Художник текста в комиксах: роль и эволюция профессии

Member of a team of comic book creators responsible for drawing the comic book's text

A letterer is a member of a team of comic book creators responsible for drawing the comic book's text. The letterer's use of typefaces, calligraphy, letter size, and layout all contribute to the impact of the comic. The letterer crafts the comic's "display lettering": the story title lettering and other special captions and credits that usually appear on a story's first page. The letterer also writes the letters in the word balloons and draws in sound effects. Many letterers also design logos for the comic book company's various titles.

The evolution of desktop publishing powered by computers, especially those made by Apple, began in the 1980s, and started having a gradual impact on comics lettering soon after. One of the first users of computer generated lettering was writer/artist John Byrne, who made fonts from existing lettering. (Incidentally, Byrne made use of existing lettering by other artists, such as Dave Gibbons, without their permission. Now Byrne uses a computer font based on the handwriting of letterer Jack Morelli – with Morelli's permission.) Other early users of computer lettering were David Cody Weiss Since then the trend has swung the other way, with most comics publishers once again using freelance letterers rather than in house staff. Nearly all use computer and digital comic book fonts.

The traditional comic book letterer needs little more than a lettering guide, a pen or brush, India ink, and white paint for corrections. Some situations required the letterer to use vellum overlays on top of the original art.

Most Marvel and DC books are now lettered using a graphics program such as Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop or Adobe InDesign, and a font that resembles hand lettering. Computer lettering provides a lot of technical shortcuts, especially by combining the lettering work directly with digital art files, eliminating the tedious physical paste up stage altogether. Some letterers handwrite part of the script. Hand lettering is often used for sound effects and onomatopoeia in comics. There are also still comics artists and inkers who prefer to have the lettering directly on their pages. First, it saves drawing time (not having to put art where a big caption will be); and second, comics tell a story, and a page of comics art without the lettering is only half the story. Long time letterer John Workman toes a middle ground between traditional and digital lettering. In addition to his "on the art boards work", Workman has been electronically hand lettering by way of a Wacom tablet.

Both the Eisner Awards and the Harvey Awards feature a "best letterer" category. (The Shazam Awards also had a "best letterer" category until the Awards' demise in 1975.) Since the creation of the Eisner and Harvey lettering awards (in 1993 and 1992, respectively), Todd Klein has dominated the Eisner, winning fifteen times, and has come away with the Harvey eight times. Other repeat Harvey Award winners include Ken Bruzenak, Chris Ware, John Workman, and Dan Clowes.