A very kinky girl…
During the Pittsburgh Comicon, I had a chance to have an extended conversation with Brad Guigar about possibly writing an article for Webcomics.com about my experiences hand-lettering Capes & Babes.
The more I thought about it, the more I was excited about that possibility. It’s been well over a hundred strips now since I decided to switch from digital lettering to a more traditional hand-lettered strip and to be quite honest, once I got over the resistance of the graphic designer in me who absolutely loves digital fonts, I have quite enjoyed hand-lettering the strip.
And as I told Brad, there have been several surprising things I’ve discovered along the way. One of those things that surprised him was the fact that hand-lettering has really sped up my work. That’s mainly due to the fact that I sketch in my word balloons whereas before, i was spending LOTS of time in Illustrator trying to get JUST the right balloon and never quite being 100% satisfied. With hand-lettering, that’s no longer a concern. And, quite frankly, I’m enjoying discovering my own unique style for balloons as well. That never would have happened in Illustrator.
I didn’t tell Brad this but I’ve also cut down tremendously on typos. That’s mainly due to the fact that I keep a dictionary handy as I letter the strip because it’s SOOOO much harder to edit the text by hand then it is digitally. But it’s also because my misspelling were quite often TYPOS as opposed to actual misspellings of a particular word.
In any case, these are some of the subjects I’m planning on addressing and writing about in the Webcomics.com article. When I have finished it and submitted it, I’ll let you know!
-Chris
