A lot of people make webcomics because they have a background and a love of drawing, but very few have any actual design background or experience. Normally this really wouldn’t matter, but it tends to make the most pronounced and noticeable impact when it comes to computer lettering.

Some cartoonist do letter by hand, and it’s a wonderful look that I wish I had the patience and capability to pull off.

But I don’t.

And by the looks of things, neither do most online cartoonists. When I look around I see that a vast vast majority of cartoonists choose to letter their comics digitally. And why not? It’s faster, cleaner and infinitely easier to edit.

But in the world of online comics, typography seems to be the single most neglected topic. There are quite a few beautiful and artistically lettered comics online, but they seem to be a minority. Typography should be a larger and more frequent part of the discussion of making comics. It should be right up there with coloring and storytelling.

So I made up a basic typography and word balloon tutorial to help people out and maybe get the conversation going.

Take this. Use this. Share this. Hopefully it will help some people.

josh

So there you have it. Not a complete redesign, just a bit of a freshening up. I am notoriously unhappy with most things that I make, so the fact that this site had gone two to three years without me changing anything is actually quite  surprising.

But it needed it.

I needed it.

josh

Over the past two weeks I have been overwhelmed with other artistic projects and have been forced to take a brief hiatus from the comic.

The only problem being that I forgot to tell anyone.

I honestly thought I had.

Sorry about that.

josh

I should note that I know absolutely nothing about Green Lantern.  Which makes it odd that I often find myself doodling him randomly. I guess I just like the design. Although when it came time to look up his costume for this piece, I discovered that I hadn’t gotten it anywhere close.

Oh well.

I’ve never been too interested in Superman over the years. Some cable station was running a Superman movie marathon last weekend, and it got me really thinking about the character. What would need changed in order for me to like and get involved and invested in the character.

And the one thing that I found didn’t need to be changed?

The costume.

josh