I use Anime Ace 2, and in facts yesterday someone commented on my Tapas mirror that my choice of fonts is quite banal XD.

But, from my point of vew Anime Ace is great: it is free, it is clearly readable, it supports accents on letters (I publish my comic in Italian too and therefor I need the à, è, é, ì, ò ù characters), and looks a lot like how professional lettering looked when it still was handmade.
It also is an all-caps font, that I prefer 8more readable).

The idea that someone has to be original in font choice is weird to me: ideally it is something that readers shouldn't even notice, so the more “banal” the better.

marcorossi wrote:

The idea that someone has to be original in font choice is weird to me: ideally it is something that readers shouldn't even notice, so the more “banal” the better.

This. Except for sound effects ,where I would think a creator would want to draw the reader's attention, text should be unobtrusive. Banal. You want the content to do the talking in comic dialogue, not the font. This isn't advertising.

Unless you're doing a parody where someone suddenly breaks into ad copy.

(Sarcasm)Oh yeah that really exciting and original font choice really makes that otherwise dull and unoriginal comic so fascinating.

Commenter should really think about what they say. Maybe another reason I keep getting mistaken for such a supportive reader. 🤦 (face slap)

bravo1102 wrote:
Still wedded to Zud Juice.

I used Zud Juice when I very first started many ages and moons ago, but admittedly, it was something that I just settled on at the time because I couldn't find anything else, and I really wanted to avoid using Comic Sans MS . . . yeah, remember when Comic Sans MS used to be a cool font? Even by the 2010s, that font was considered hokey and lame. Zud Juice, while obviously different from Comic Sans, was one I legit didn't care for, and would keep my eyes open for something different to use any chance I could.

Shitty dialogue remains Shitty regardless of what font it's in. You could hand letter it with your blood in perfect calligraphy and it will still be shitty dialogue.
Write a great story and no one worth listening to will care about it being in Comic sans.

I think that there is a difference here because Comic Sans is somehow unnatural (it was the first attempt at an handwritten-like font), whereas Anime Ace and similar fonts are actually very natural and very well done, they are only disliked because of overuse.

Comic Sans was also hated because people used it in places where it made no sense, but nobody today is writing their PHD thesis in Anime Ace, whereas stuff like this happened with Comic Sans.

Comic Sans was really popular on the internet in the late 90s and early 2000s; I can remember many a number of fansites for cartoons like COW AND CHICKEN, COURAGE THE COWARDLY DOG, and ED, EDD N EDDY that utilized Comic Sans for their overall HTML font. I think as time went on though, it lost its charm and popularity, and was seen as unprofessional, or that nobody could take you seriously if you used Comic Sans, like marcorossi suggested.

The big issue with Comic Sans is that it doesn't have proper kerning so letters aren't the correct distance from each other and it makes it look odd and awkward.

I really prefer hand lettering. I'm getting better at it.

Comic sans used to be cool?! Sorry, but I can't remember any point in time when that really was the case. It's the kind of font I'd always had down as one that technologically inept and not very original people (or those who simply didn't give a shit) would use in the hope it would make them look less so - and by doing so cement that very image. On websites, it was mandatory for the letters to be in all colours of the rainbow on an obnoxious background, using some copy-pasted javascript to show this font's full glory.
Comic sans possibly got overused so quickly, as it was readily available and had few handwritten-looking fonts to compete with, among the pre-installed ones, anyway.

Comic sans was never cool, what used to be cool in the early to mid Nineties was being able to print text in different fonts all by yourself, at home even. Much of it wasn't technically new, but normal people could suddenly afford a computer and experimented with it. Before Comic Sans stole the show, people would show their lack of experience by trying to get as many font types sizes and styles on one piece of paper as possible. At least that's how I remember it.

Ozoneocean wrote:
I really prefer hand lettering. I'm getting better at it.

Seconded. Hand lettering is best and looks best, despite its many disadvantages, as long as you plan in enough time not to make it rushed. That is, scratch that “plan in enough time” part. I actually completely hand-lettered the DD-Awards-presentation I did this year, because it actually saved me some time in this particular instance. Can you believe it?
I've had my “new” laptop for two and a half years now, but I'm still struggling with things like taking ages to aim text properly when positioning it, noticing in time when this bloody uselessly small keyboard ate up words in the middle of a sentence again because I accidentally touched something, putting up with its resetting fonts and styles at random… And don't get me started on making it fit into speech bubbles or editing speech bubbles in digitally.
For hand-drawn speech bubbles, hand-lettering is best! Write down the dialogue (Ok, I pencil it in first and ink it when it's really where I want it to be, but that's beside the point), draw the bubble around it, done. I won't always do that, though, because my handwriting is pretty lousy and writing legibly for any prolonged time gives me cramps very quickly. Funnily drawing never does that to my hand, not even tiny details and hatching. Guess the elementary school adage of “if you can draw you can write” gets it all wrong. At least with me.

I do all of my sound effects by hand, because I like to give them some personality, and, well, because they're effects, not text. This can be a bit bothersome, because I frequently have to adapt them to another language, so I usually draw them on a separate sheet and add them in. Or I do the panel in one language and draw just those parts of the sound effect that need to be different on the side to add only those in.
Part of why most of my comics haven't got speech bubbles is because I've never quite figured out how to make digital speech bubbles that don't clash visually with my art style. Polished perfectly shaped speech bubbles with razor-sharp lines will just look off.

marcorossi wrote:
I use Anime Ace 2, and in facts yesterday someone commented on my Tapas mirror that my choice of fonts is quite banal XD.

But, from my point of vew Anime Ace is great: it is free, it is clearly readable, it supports accents on letters (I publish my comic in Italian too and therefor I need the à, è, é, ì, ò ù characters), and looks a lot like how professional lettering looked when it still was handmade.
It also is an all-caps font, that I prefer 8more readable).

The idea that someone has to be original in font choice is weird to me: ideally it is something that readers shouldn't even notice, so the more “banal” the better.

I used to think the same way, but I found that some font creators want royalities for your using their fonts if you intend to publish anything using them. I haven't had any problems with this so far, but it got me slightly nervous, so one of my next projects for when I've got time (dream on, Paul) is creating my own comic fonts. I tried with open-source fonts editors before, but creating fonts from scratch isn't as easy as it looks.

What I've done multiple times before, though, was taking “free” comic fonts I liked and using test versions of font editors to add in ä's, ö's, ü's and accents and such by using copy+paste a lot. Not sure if that kind of thing gets you in trouble with font creators. It shouldn't. All I did was finish their job for free, didn't I?

Ozoneocean wrote:

I really prefer hand lettering. I'm getting better at it.

I always admire people who can do good hand lettering.I never enjoyed it and didn't like the how my lettering looked, so digital fonts are one of my favourite inventions. But the best part is being able to letter pages and create balloons before doing the art. That way you never run out of space and the balloons can be moved around and dialogue edited, added or taken away as the page develops.
That said, you can do all of the above and then use it as a guide to freehand your own balloons and lettering at the end. Some artists will print that out and lightbox it for lettering physical pages.

PaulEberhardt wrote:
I used to think the same way, but I found that some font creators want royalities for your using their fonts if you intend to publish anything using them.

Anime Ace is a font from Blambot, a website that specifically sells fonts for comics, but they say on their website that specfically Anime Ace (and a few other) are free for indy creators, so unless/until I print my comics in sizable numbers (say 1000 copies) I suppose I'm ok.

marcorossi wrote:

PaulEberhardt wrote:
I used to think the same way, but I found that some font creators want royalities for your using their fonts if you intend to publish anything using them.

Anime Ace is a font from Blambot, a website that specifically sells fonts for comics, but they say on their website that specfically Anime Ace (and a few other) are free for indy creators, so unless/until I print my comics in sizable numbers (say 1000 copies) I suppose I'm ok.

The Blambot guy used to host a comic or two with us. He's a really nice guy!

Ironscarf wrote:
I always admire people who can do good hand lettering.

I started doing it freehand for Bottomless Waitress… It had an interesting look but I really didn't like it that much because I couldn't be consistent. But it was so much faster than the process with fonts and just more streamlined so I stuck with it.

Then I worked on he Key of Dreams project with Banes and Tantz and I felt my hand lettering let down the look and didn't do our work justice to I tidied it up haha! So Now I actually rule lines top and bottom and just write between them. It is SOOOOOO much better! It's SO easy to make it look good and much faster and smoother.

I mean, this is old stuff that they used to do in the earliest days of comics, nothing new at all… but it pays off when you come to it yourself.
Plus it's all digital so it's a little new I suppose.

i mostly hand letter. when I use fonts I use my own or windows basic fonts.

If I hand letter I'd have to do a whole grid. Lines aren't enough for me. Which is why I use fonts. I'm a far better typist than letterer.
Can't remember if I used Komika or Blinkie for my Drunkduck awards presentations. I think They inject an air of silliness so I use them to change the tone for the awards.

Back in the 90s I would paint my pages on stretched paper. No way to lightbox a template so I'd be ruling out every line and space for hand lettering. Should have bought an Ames guide but that wouldn't have made me dislike the process any less. I usually buy one font a year in the Comicraft New Year's Day sale and thank my lucky stars.

Ironscarf wrote:
Back in the 90s I would paint my pages on stretched paper.

Wowsers!
I did some comic stuff in the 90s, but I was just drawn line art for Pinky TA an A3 and A2 pages.
I was a painter back then doing fine art and some illustration type stuff so the only stuff I painted was paintings as part of series (in acrylic), or watercolour fantasy illustration pics. That was on stretched out paper :)


Funny, I was chatting to an old friend about my digital art and she asked if I can do “real art” XD (she wasn't being demeaning, that was just the language used)
So I just pointed to paintings hanging on my walls.

People still don't realise it's all the exact same skill. It took me a while to learn and master acrylics, it took a while to do that with watercolours and digital was no exception. Took about a year to fully master digital art and make the transition. But the skills needed to make pics and colour are all the same.

When it came to coloring by hand, depending on the size of the page/panel, I would use crayons if I had more room to work, but very sharpened pencils in tiny little details . . . and in this case, I was a snob; I would only use Crayola brand, and nothing else. Generic/dollar store brand crayons, colored pencils, magic markers, whatever were absolute crap with their dull, muted colors that made reds look pink, blacks look gray, greens look bluish, and yellows nearly invisible. Crayola made bold, bright, eye-catching colors that were unmatched.

J_Scarbrough wrote:
When it came to coloring by hand, depending on the size of the page/panel, I would use crayons if I had more room to work, but very sharpened pencils in tiny little details . . . and in this case, I was a snob; I would only use Crayola brand, and nothing else. Generic/dollar store brand crayons, colored pencils, magic markers, whatever were absolute crap with their dull, muted colors that made reds look pink, blacks look gray, greens look bluish, and yellows nearly invisible. Crayola made bold, bright, eye-catching colors that were unmatched.

Wax or oil based?
I loved working with oil based crayons back in the day as well as chalk pastels.

I drew a giant Pinky TA pic coloured with wax crayons, oil based ones, chalks, and coloured pencils. It's about 5 foot by 6 foot. Just a single panel of one of the first comic pages I drew in the 90s.
I also made a painting of the same image (more cropped) that was 2 foot by 2 foot in acrylic on ply. Sold that for $900. XD

I could have made a go of it doing fine art but I didn't like the scene.

Funnily enough, all of this talk of hand-lettering, hand-coloring, what have you has made me realize that when I gradually began coloring digitally more and more, I seldom color anything by hand anymore, and I honestly don't miss it in the least: coloring by hand was not only time-consuming, but also very conducive to sore, cramped hands. I almost kind of see the benefit a little more when it comes to artists who prefer to use tablets instead of paper and pencil/pen for drawing for that very reason. I guess the biggest benefit of digital is you don't run the risk of running out of any of your tools; in my case, paper, eraser, ink, specific colors of crayons or pencils, etc.

J_Scarbrough wrote:
I was a snob; I would only use Crayola brand, and nothing else. Generic/dollar store brand crayons, colored pencils, magic markers, whatever were absolute crap with their dull, muted colors that made reds look pink, blacks look gray, greens look bluish, and yellows nearly invisible. Crayola made bold, bright, eye-catching colors that were unmatched.

Love Crayola colored pencils. Berol ones were the worst for the washed out colors. And they were high end art ones. But great for details as they came to a nice point. I actually had a couple of good art stores by me because there was the Rutgers Mason-Gross art school was nearby so I a huge selection of pencils to choose from. They also had the complete range of Pantone markers and my favorite brand of model paints. (I still have all of it. Stuff used to be made to last back in the day)
Of course they've since gone out of business.

I've always used generic cheap-ass coloured pencils I got in special offers and whatnot, anything I can get my hands on, really. The trick here is to use many different brands so you can pick exactly the colour you need. It does create some excess bulk of pencils that seem to be good for nothing, even if I sometimes find a use for one or two of them. They all last very long, as I mostly use them for detail work, doing anything larger in watercolour. The downside here is that I treasure some very, very old coloured pencils that I use sparingly, because I haven't seen that exact same colour ever again anywhere. It makes me wonder if they're so old that some of the chemicals have been banned in the meantime or something. As I've had some of them since my school days, it's a possibility.

I may be a bit of a snob when it comes to watercolours, though, because I've always been happy with those made by Schmincke. They're a bit on the expensive side, but I feel they're worth it most of the time. This said, I do supplement them with cheaper brands, depending on whose version of a colour I like better and how easily they mix with others. It's of course all out of habit. At the end of the day, there's surely a million ways of getting the same tiger orange out of whatever. I like and stand by my bad habits, though. Took long enough to develop them. 😉

PaulEberhardt wrote:
I may be a bit of a snob when it comes to watercolours, though, because I've always been happy with those made by Schmincke.

For any kind of paint what you're paying for is permanence. Cheaper paints will fade and break down in weird ways. Some are a lot better than others and some cheap colours will last super well but as a general rule it's better to pay for the more expensive stuff if you still want to have it looking as good 5, 10, 30, or 50 years later…
Some cheapies will start breaking down after a year :(

There are of course much better and special colours available in the expensive brands too but permanence is the main thing!
Also those paints can be used and abused more- you can mix and thin them out and do all sorts of stuff and they handle it fine while the cheapies more often than not don't.

You prolly already know all that so forgive me haha!
I just have memories from my painting days.

Biggest lesson I learned was that watercolours and acrylics are easier for beginners but take serious expertise and skill to master.
Oils are good for intermediate skill, and very easy for learners to master.
You can do super special and interesting stuff with acrylics and watercolours that aren't available po oils… Though oils are excellent for expert use of layered glazes.

Ozoneocean wrote:
You prolly already know all that so forgive me haha!
I just have memories from my painting days.

Instantly forgiven, of course! Especially because I didn't know a lot of this in the first place - lol. I'm just an amateur fiddling around on a trial and error (mostly error) basis. Always glad to learn by talking shop with someone who actually has a clue.

There are indeed huge differences in permanence. I noticed that time and again. Then there are differences in how well the colours look in a scan, too - whether they look the same under the bright light of the scanning thingy, whatever it's called, the one that moves and does the actual scanning. I had greens turn into yellow and lilac turn into bright blue and it took me a while to figure out which paints do that and which ones don't. Still happens to me every once in a while, as a matter of fact.

One day, I really should try digital like everyone else, but then, I'm always glad for any chance of doing something analogue in these times, even if it means that a simple sneeze or an upturned cup of coffee can ruin hours of work. ;)

bravo1102 wrote:

J_Scarbrough wrote:
I was a snob; I would only use Crayola brand, and nothing else. Generic/dollar store brand crayons, colored pencils, magic markers, whatever were absolute crap with their dull, muted colors that made reds look pink, blacks look gray, greens look bluish, and yellows nearly invisible. Crayola made bold, bright, eye-catching colors that were unmatched.

Love Crayola colored pencils.

You chaps have sold it to me! I've ordered 24 Crayola pencils to keep me busy while I'm far from home and all my art stuff.

Ozoneocean wrote:
There are of course much better and special colours available in the expensive brands too but permanence is the main thing!
Also those paints can be used and abused more- you can mix and thin them out and do all sorts of stuff and they handle it fine while the cheapies more often than not don't.

You prolly already know all that so forgive me haha!
I just have memories from my painting days.

You've sparked a memory from my life painting class! Our lecturer produced an ancient looking tube of Hooker's Green oil paint and said “This is what paint was supposed to be like. Don't bother looking, they don't make it any more. when this tube is gone, it's over!”

He gave us all a little blob of Hooker's Green and strike me down if that blob didn't have enough pigment in it for our whole session. It mixed beautifully too, with a glorious buttery texture on brush and palette knife and the green wasn't what they call Hooker's Green now. It was a lush forest of verdant leafy hues, all suffused with a softly unyielding dewy corporeality. It was the greenest, hookeriest paint I have ever seen and we all left knowing we would never see it's like again.

The same lecturer was famous for waving his big maulstick about, which we all pronounced ‘mole’s dick', naturally.

PaulEberhardt wrote:

Ozoneocean wrote:
You prolly already know all that so forgive me haha!
I just have memories from my painting days.

Instantly forgiven, of course! Especially because I didn't know a lot of this in the first place - lol. I'm just an amateur fiddling around on a trial and error (mostly error) basis. Always glad to learn by talking shop with someone who actually has a clue.

I have this thing that when I feel I've mastered something I lose interest… Unless I have some other reason to keep on with it- like I do with comics and digital art.

-I don't think that's uncommon though. I think many people are afflicted with that XD
I've acquired so many skills in life that I just leave to moulder away in the back of my brain now…
-Painting in a many different media, sculpture, printmaking, pastel and chalk art, crayon art, coloured pencils, woodwork, etching, armour making, horse riding, tall ship sailing, gardening, film making, photography, costuming, clothes design, leather work, hat making, crossbow making, coding, web design, computer building, scratch built model making, model and miniature paining, animation, sound design, and so, so much more!

I'm always super astounded at those able to dedicate their their lives to just one or two skill-sets and mastering those.

Ironscarf wrote:
He gave us all a little blob of Hooker's Green

Whoa! There you go, I've never heard of Hooker's green so it's before my time :(
I hope it didn't have uranium or arsenic? O_O

These was always that danger with some colours… Lead, Cadmium, Cobalt, and worse stuff. We were warned not to get it near our mouths, but some artists have a habit of licking brushes to get them to a point.

Okay, now here's something that's really going to make me sound like a snob. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I have anything against black-and-white comics; as long as the writing is strong, the characters are engaging, and the art style is appealing, the minimal or no color is honestly inconsequential . . . but really irks me is when I see a comic that looks promising, and all of the covers, banners, adverts, whatever are in full, but then I go to check out the actual comic itself and it turns out to be in black-and-white, I find that incredibly misleading, and it does annoy me a bit.

J_Scarbrough wrote:
. . . but really irks me is when I see a comic that looks promising, and all of the covers, banners, adverts, whatever are in full, but then I go to check out the actual comic itself and it turns out to be in black-and-white

I think it's a matter of habit: most italian comics from my youth were B/W, and the same is true for the japanese ones, but obviously covers have colors.
When it is so common it becomes expected.

Also, good B/W is very difficult to do, it's an art in itself. I started drawing digitally because I wanted to use colors, because I couldn't do shadows in a way that I liked.

Speaking of snobbery, I also read somewhere the opinion that Marvel managed to have success in the 60s with subpar comics/drawings because it used colors, that earlier were rare in comics. That's snobbery.

marcorossi wrote:

Speaking of snobbery, I also read somewhere the opinion that Marvel managed to have success in the 60s with subpar comics/drawings because it used colors, that earlier were rare in comics. That's snobbery.

Not just snobbery, but very poorly researched snobbery. American comics had been using the same four colour process since the golden age and Marvel offered nothing new in that regard. What they did have was a fresh approach to superhero tales that reflected the times and a new art style, led by the creative powerhouse of Jack Kirby. He went for bold sequential action over pretty illustration and Marvel sales soared.

Actually four color comics were the run of the mill ones for mass consumption with the comic codes label.

The arty, more mature non-code comics were black and white. Marvel did this in the 1970s-80s to break into the market that Warren had. Remember Vampirella? How about Creepy and Eerie? And later the more adult 1984/1994 that came out in 1982. Used to get that comic and spend all night reading it. Mix of adult science fiction and fantasy with lots of adult themes often in dubious taste but a lot of great artists like Alex Nino and Richard Corben.