Brant was a fan of comics as a kid and it stuck with him into adulthood. These days he's also an aspiring comic creator. This column discusses his personal journey from fandom to the annals of the creative society that is the world of comics. Brant's current comic series is Wannabez and this is his journey. (If it's you're first time joining him, you can visit the link at the bottom of the article to start the journey from the beginning.)
LETTERING
I never had any aspirations of being a letterer. In fact, I hadn't even considered it as an option! It just never was something that interested me. I was much more into writing and drawing and never even thought about the graphic design elements of creating comics.
Then I started doing numbers.
Once you get into the costs of creating a comic you start to understand why there are so many creators out there with multiple disciplines - it's really expensive! So I started looking at what I could do to cut corners. Obviously I had come to terms with my art not being up to snuff to be able to carry a book, so that was one cost I was going to have to front. But the other disciplines, well, I hadn't tried them.
The one that really stood out to me at first was coloring. I thought that would be fun, so I gave it a shot on several occasions over the years. Never really took. Then there was inking... let's just say I'll never be an inker. I am finally learning some things after all these years, and I may be able to get by on some of my own stuff, but it's a discipline I have no desire whatsoever in mastering.
And that brings us to lettering, the only other piece of the puzzle I could hope to save a few bucks on by doing it myself. And as I came to this realization, coincidentally, there was a writing/lettering contest on the Scryptic Studios forums (which, at the time was a writer resource site) by Erik Larson. It was for a back-up story in Savage Dragon, and the rules were writers had to put new script to the already drawn pages and letter them ourselves. So that was my first foray into lettering.
I wrote what I thought was a funny script, and lettered it the best I could with the tools I had (which was Microsoft Picture-It 7.0 - not an ideal program for lettering!). I didn't win, but I realized that lettering was kind of fun. Looking back, I hate my early work on that script, but still, it wasn't too bad.
So then I started looking into lettering more, learning the tools and tricks of the trade and whatnot. Fortunately, Digital Webbing has dedicated forums to all the disciplines of the comic creating craft where pros and indy guys hang out giving tips and insights. The lettering forum had some practice pages and scripts for exercises, so I did a couple of them and they were well received. Actually, to this day the Blacklight one I did, which was only my second attempt at lettering, is one of the favorites potential clients point out from my samples. Go figure.
So I discovered I kind of had a knack for the skill. Granted, I am still learning even today, and I cringe at some of my early work, but I picked up the basics pretty quickly. That said, while lettering is an art, and there are tons of little things most letterers starting out just don't grasp, myself included, learning the basics is pretty simple.
Regardless, the fact remains that somehow I picked up this art and over time kind of made a career out of it. I started doing some pro bono work just for experience and credits. I did some work for Approbation Comics and some other indies. Then I found out I could actually charge something for my work!
Over the years I did some more pro bono work for Approbation and Arcana, and steadily raised my rates as my skills improved and I started considering this a career. It went from trying to learn a discipline to save me some money to becoming a money-earner for me.
Somewhere along the way I started doing logo designs as well. I can't remember how I first got into that, but my skills have grown in that discipline as well, though I feel I still have a long way to go in mastering that art.
But whatever the case, I now consider myself a letterer and logo designer, and it's one of the ways I make my living these days. It's funny how things happen.
But lettering, while fun and profitable, was not my love. My heart was still in writing and creating. Wannabez was on the shelf, my other projects no longer had a home or creative teams, and the companies I had worked for had gone belly up. Then a few interesting things happened.-B
Past Columns - Start the Journey at the beginning! Click here to check out all the past Journey of a Wannabe columns.
Brant W. Fowler / Writer, Letter, Creator, Reviewer, Columnist and Comic Related PR Coordinator
Brant W. Fowler has been a professional comic book letterer and logo designer for three years, and has been a freelance editor for the past five years. He has also worked with graphic design, writing and many other area of skills for several years honing his talents. You can learn all about what he's up to by visiting Gonzogoose
Design. Brant is also a member of the core
operations team at Comic Related.
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