It's just words, right?

One of the challenges of saying, "Hey, let's make a comic with some friends," is that you have to learn how to do every step of the process. While this is much easier in 2026 than it would have been 20 years ago, it can still be a daunting climb.

And if I had known all the things I didn't know when I started, it might have scared me off.

The first step was having a story Devinder Thiara and I thought would work well as a comic (Western horror = check!) and working it up as a comic script.

Second was finding an artist (I was fortunate to have met Mishka De Caro, at MICA in Buenos Aires, who knew a lot of comic artists and was happy to introduce us to several, including our amazing Tomás Aira = check!).

Once Tomás had drawn and inked the pages ... how do we get the words in there?

For issue one, Mishka worked with Julieta Ladstatter to do the lettering. They worked hard on implenting our script, which can be, at turns, taciturn or verbose. (The laconic scenes are obviously easier to handle...).

Our early draft got some tough love from Jim Zub, among others, and we revised and revised. And we brought in my old friend and colleague Adam Jury as graphic designer to give some final polish.

However, due to time zones (sometimes Mishka is based in Latin America, sometimes in Europe; Dev and I are in Toronto and Montreal; Adam is in the midwest), and juggling complicated schedules, the lettering pipeline was a bottleneck.

If Dev and I wanted to change something, we'd have to go through the latest PDF, try to send clear notes to Mishka and Juli, who would get to it when they could, along with all their other commitments, then send it back for review. Turnaround time could be a day, or a week. That's just the nature of the process. And then Dev and I would have to sync up to go over it again, and while we often talk every day or so, we also have full days. We'd make notes and repeat.

And as Dev and I are still learning how much dialogue can fit in a panel, or on a page, and are best suited to break up dialogue into multiple balloons, or trim or edit things on the fly, I decided I wanted to try to learn how to do the lettering on issue 2.

Zub has suggested The Essential Guide to Comic Book Lettering, by Nate Piekos, which I grabbed and it has been invaluable.

Adam has generously given me MANY tutorials on using digital illustration editing software (we opted for the lighter Clip Studio Paint), and I'm very slowly making my way through the steep learning curve.

("If I'd known all the things I didn't know...")

As well, Blambot.com is a fantastic resource on learning about lettering, from the basic "grammar and traditions" of comic book lettering, to advice, how to videos, and of course, a wealth of fonts.

I just sent off a test copy to the local print shop to see what it actually looks like on paper, and will be happy to share that soon.

https://blambot.com/en-ca/pages/the-essential-guide-to-comic-book-lettering

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