Top 5 Lettering Rules in Comic Books

bad lettering can make really good

comics look like trash and I think most

of the time people don't even realize

that they're making these mistakes and

they're super simple to fix so with

these rules you'll be able to take your

comic and make it look Pro spec hey

Walter here and today i'm joined by my

crazy hair you can I have no idea what I

want to do with this I'm just growing

out until I have an idea regardless

we're both here today to talk to you

about comic book lettering so I think a

lot of people think they just take some

letters some balloons throw it on top of

comic book art and they're good to go

but no there is a method to the madness

it's kind of a subtle art form luckily

if you follow some basic rules you'll be

well along the way to making your comic

look Pro spec now before we start I want

to say these are kind of more guidelines

and rules so if you're doing something

different or even the complete opposite

of this that's fine just make sure you

have a reason for doing it but if you

don't have a reason just follow these

guidelines it's gonna make your comic

look a lot better and more importantly

be a lot easier to read side note I

learned a lot of this stuff from bland

but calm it's a website run by a

professional comic book letter he has a

bunch of tips tutorials up there he has

a ton a ton a ton of free fonts sound

effects dialogue he also has some paid

fonts up there but there's a ton of free

ones it's all the fonts I use for all

the comics ever did so make sure you

check out blam bot calm all right rule

number one is don't cover up the art

this should be obvious but it still

happens do whatever you can to avoid it

and the reason is is because we want to

see the artwork alright

rule number two is fit we want the words

to fit well inside the balloon it should

fit like a glove you don't want the top

to be wider than the bottom you don't

want the bottom to be wider than the top

and the reason is if you do that you're

gonna be wasting space in the balloon

and if you're wasting space in the

balloon that means the balloon has to be

bigger to hold the same amount of text

and if you're doing that you're covering

up more artwork than you need to see

rule number one and this is probably

like one of my biggest pet peeves when

it comes to lettering alright rule

number three

so with comic book lettering there are

two types of eyes you

have your regular eye in your crossbar

eyes now crossbar I should only be used

by characters when referring to

themselves like I like ice cream you

shouldn't use it at either the start of

the sentence or in the middle of a word

like it has a tail nothing in there has

a crossbar eyes so the reason for this

is the the crossbar I versus a regular

eye the regular eye takes up less room

so if you're taking up less room that

means the word balloon smaller which

means you're covering up less artwork

see rule number one tied to this is

upper case versus mixed case now

personally I prefer upper case but there

are comics that use mixed case and it

looks great but if you're doing mixed

case which you know mix of upper case

lower case then this rule probably

doesn't apply to you you're gonna have

to capitalize correctly well another

exception to this is for clarity sake

like for me I have a character named I

so I s oh and I thought non crossbar

I've I so looked weird couldn't really

tell what it said so I changed it to

crossbar eye and it looked a lot better

so this is that's one of those

situations where you can change the

rules

alright rule number four four four is

placement so you want to make sure that

the balloons are going in order that the

reader needs to read them so if we're

talking like English comics we're going

from left to right if it's manga we're

going in the opposite direction so make

sure that there's a flow to the letter

balloons and make sure it's going in the

correct order that you want the readers

to read them if they start reading stuff

out of order they're gonna get confused

they're not gonna enjoy themselves

they're not gonna like your comic the

other stuff that goes along with

placement is making sure that you don't

have the outside of the balloon rubbing

up against any other line like you

wouldn't want it up against somebody's

face up against the panel border even

like next to another balloon this

creates a tangent which is basically

where two lines meet and then the viewer

can't really tell where one line ends or

the other one begins and it just makes

for a confusing image so try to stay

away from that stuff then there's a

couple other things too like you

wouldn't want to put out like a stack of

word balloons between two characters

because it kind of separates the two

care

and kind of creates a wall between the

two of them unless you were trying to do

it on purpose for some reason then feel

free to do that the other thing you do

what I want to do is have like word

balloon tails like crossing don't cross

the streams and yeah so that is rule

number four

all right so rule number five is

consistency whatever you decide to do

make sure you stay consistent with it so

that the reader can get into the flow of

what you're putting down so that goes

with the the outline of the word balloon

or as it's called the stroke is the same

thickness throughout the entire thing

yes if they're yelling or something you

can change the color or how thick it is

but in general you want to keep it the

same size you want the space around the

lettering and the word balloon to be

about the same the tails should look

fairly similar maybe a little longer

shorter but the overall thickness of the

tail should be the same if you're using

like straight tails versus like swoopy

tails like you kind of want to keep all

that stuff consistent use the same font

stay with the same font size sure if

they're yelling you might want to make

the font bigger but you don't want to

overdo it it can become a little tiring

and redundant with the reader plus I

don't need huge text to realize that

someone is yelling it doesn't have to be

huge sure there's things you can do

change it to a grungy font and maybe a

red balloon if it's an evil demonic

character there's stuff like that you

can do but whatever it is that you're

doing keep it consistent and don't make

it too weird otherwise the reader is

gonna realize that they're reading a

comic and they're not gonna be able to

engage fully with the story the

characters and the artwork alright so

there you go some simple rules to make

your comics in your lettering look

better and if you want some more

guidelines and some comic book fonts

make sure you go check out blam bot calm

so how about it are you breaking some of

these rules but have your reasons or

just think these rules are stupid or

maybe have some of your own lettering

pet peeves be sure to leave a comment

below so I can check them out otherwise

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peace