002: How to Shatter a Word Balloon
Intro:
To say that January 2025 was unusual would be insulting, and honestly, there’s not a lot I want to say about the world at large (mainly because I don’t think it’d be useful). I’d rather the newsletter be an oasis, anyway. I’ll just say that I hope justice is served one day, and that my heart goes out to everyone caught in the Neil Gaiman scandal and the Diamond bankruptcy. You deserve better. Hell, we deserve better.
It was an unusual month behind the scenes in comics world, too. In years past, the industry-at-large would tamp down its workload and collectively nurse its holiday hangover. But this January, I logged more work hours than December, which hasn’t happened before. In the first week alone, I sent eleven books to press out of a total of 30 throughout the month. I also drafted this year’s schedule/budget, gathered 2024 numbers for my new accountant, and did interviews for two different podcasts!
The first was for the X-Men Horoscopes podcast! Me and the host—the delightful Lodro Rinzler—discussed lettering, my history with the X-Men, and what the issue of Uncanny X-Men that came out during my birth month says about my future. I won’t spoil anything. Just listen and enjoy our affectionate roasting of Marvel’s merry mutants.
The second was an episode of Kieron Gillen’s DECOMPRESSED. I don’t think we’ve spoken to each other with voices since Die first launched, and it was nice to hear him talk again. This one won’t be out until sometime in February, but I’ll post links on socials, and highlight it in next month’s newsletter. For now, you can listen to him talk to The Power Fantasy artist Caspar Wijngaard. I don’t want to say too much about my episode, except that I forgot to sing “Decompressed” to the tune of “Be Our Guest,” which was probably for the best. Shoutout to the rhyme I just made.
Other than that? My garbage disposal broke on New Year’s Day, and it’s lucky for you that I won’t stoop to so hackneyed a metaphor. I had that replaced, plus an ancient door to the garage that wasn’t up to code. Entertainment-wise, I picked up 3 Feet High and Rising by De La Soul on vinyl (I don’t know why it took me so long), and I watched (and enjoyed) four different sports movies—A League of Their Own, Bull Durham, The Sandlot, and The Mighty Ducks. I forgot that Little Pete Wrigley was one of the Ducks, and it’s always great to see the little viking in action. I also watched D2: The Mighty Ducks, which was…noticeably less good. That sequel-to-a-children’s-movie was contrivance city. But I liked it more than A Complete Unknown.
I also introduced my sweetie to the magic of the Michel Gondry music video. The reception was warm! As far as I’m concerned, he’s the greatest music video director there ever was. My favorite is “Everlong,” but if you argue that “Bachelorette” is the crown jewel, I won’t argue back.
That’s it for the intro. On to the meat.
Sound Effect of the Month:
Q&A:
Q: Is there any difference between how Marvel and DC ask you to approach lettering? Or is all lettering just lettering, no matter where you're doing it.
A: Officially, no. At the beginning of a project, I’ll ask my editors if they have any lettering style requests, and the answers from both publishers are about the same. They’ll either say “nothing in particular” or tell me evoke a specific genre or time period. “This takes place in the ‘60s, so make it look like a ‘60s comic,” etc.
But as to what each publisher will let me do, DC is more open-minded. A good chunk of the letterers in DC’s roster got their start in the post-Saga creator-owned space, where they weren’t bound to Big 2 rules and could fully explore the craft. DC saw the benefit of what a unique voice could bring to lettering, and now you have wild, varied landscape you see today.
Marvel, I think, is more concerned with consistency. Most of the time, they want all of the titles in a “family” of books to have a simple, unified look (i.e. all of the Spider-Man titles will have the same fonts, balloons, and captions), which is a good move if all of the titles will be published in a collected edition together. This is much easier to do when most of the publishing line is handled by one lettering studio with the same fonts and assets (in this case, Virtual Calligraphy).
But this isn’t to say that you can’t get funky at Marvel. Sometimes we’ll be asked to try new things—high-concept titles will often have some custom voices or unusual sound effects (think anything likely to be printed in a Treasury format). Once in a while I’ll take the initiative and give a new character a custom voice, half-expecting the rest of the team to ask for one anyway (most of my creative decisions are pragmatic). IIRC, I did that for Deathdream in Uncanny X-Men. And why not? He’s a dead-ass little weirdo. Gail, Tom, etc., feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.
What a great first question! Feel free to ask me one of your own in the comments section!
Tip: Shattered Word Balloon Effect:
Today, I’m going to show you how to make a word balloon look like a shattered dinner plate. Or a broken window. Take your pick. These instructions are specific to Adobe Illustrator.
First, select your word balloon and go to Object→Group (cmd-G). Be sure to get every bit of it—text, balloon, and tail and bottom balloon if you’re using the layer method. Next, copy/paste the grouped balloon in place for the number of ‘fragments’ you want. I think 5 is a good number.
Next, use the pen tool to draw a path in the shape of a fragment.
Next, draw more fragments. But this time, make sure your smart guides are turned on by hitting “command+U” on your keyboard. Now, when you draw the rest of the fragments, you can line up their angles with the other fragment’s anchor points exactly, so the breaks will be clean and convincing.
Then, after all of your fragments are drawn, select one of your fragments and the word balloon on top of your ‘stack’ of word balloons. Then create a clipping mask by going to Object→Clipping Mask→Make (or hit “command+7” on your keyboard). This will turn the selected fragment into a mask that hides any part of the balloon outside its border. Repeat for all of the other fragments and word balloons in your stack.
Finally, rotate each fragment to your liking. I recommend pulling them apart from each other a little bit to avoid overlap.
Bonus: If you really want to get funky, you can add a drop shadow to each fragment by going to Effects→Stylize→Drop Shadow. Then, click-and-drag whichever fragments you like over the others, and you’ll get a cool 3D effect! I like to keep the shadow here small—with a .01 pt. offset for both the X and Y axes, no blur on the shadow, and 25% opacity.
And there you go! One shattered word balloon. Don’t eat it.
Community:
In light of the Los Angeles wildfires in January, I’ve decided to change the “shoutouts” section to “community,” because it feels weird to give a shoutout to someone in crisis. This will be the dedicated talk-about-other-people section. So, if you haven’t donated already and are able, consider helping comic creators Andrew Robinson and Steven T. Seagle. If you know of any other creators who need help after the L.A. fires, please leave a comment.
There’s something interesting brewing over at Bindings—a new marketing tool specifically for comic creators. Kieron and Kelly Sue have posted these damn impressive primers for The Power Fantasy and FML, and I’m looking forward to seeing who else joins the fray (and which comics I discover in the process). The same company, Sweet, has also launched findyourcomic.store. If you don’t see your local comic shop in the map, let them know and they’ll be happy to include it.
Speaking of Kieron and Kelly Sue—since they’ve plugged this newsletter (and because I’m already an avid reader of theirs), I’ll shout back at the Kieron Gillen and Kelly Sue DeConnick/Matt Fraction/Milkfed newsletters. True fact: Kieron’s is what inspired me to make one of my own. I enjoy Declan Shalvey’s DECLARATIONS and Aditya Bidikar’s newsletter too. Aditya’s often includes something profound that’ll stay with me a while after, so subscribe to that if you enjoy thinking about heavy stuff, I guess. P.S. if you’re wondering why there are so many recommendations outside of the Recommendations section—this is my machine and I’ll do what I want with it!
Recommendations:
Comic: Underpants and Overbites by Jackie E. Davis. U&O is a delightfully honest diary comic, and it’s about to take a dramatic turn as Baby #2 joins ClanDavis. Jackie is one of my better friends in both comics and in civilian life, and I can safely say I’d still enjoy U&O if we’d never met.
Non-comic: All Fantasy Everything - Dating Mistakes, my favorite episode of my favorite podcast. In each episode, three stand-up comedians and a guest fantasy draft teams of anything and everything from the world of pop culture—from action heroes to mall stores to words that make you sound smart. In this episode, the boys and Marcella Arguello open old wounds and draft dating mistakes from their past (P.S. Happy Valentine’s Day). While still being very funny, it may be the real-est episode they’ve ever done, and it’s the one I’ve re-listened to the most. The media that’s affected me the most in my mid-30s is about grown-ass men owning up to their mistakes and trying to doing better (see also, this scene from Reservation Dogs), and I wish I could send this wisdom back in time to the young adult Clayton. He would have had a better adolescence with this one in his back pocket. The draft starts at the 30:12 mark, if you want to skip the ads and intro.
Stuff With My Name In It (February 2025):
2/3/25:
Astonishing X-Men Infinity #10
2/5/25:
Batman #157
Batman ‘89 TPB
Birds of Prey #18
Daredevil vol. 6: Mayor Fisk TPB
Dark Web Omnibus HC
Living Hell #3
Secret Wars by Jonathan Hickman Omnibus HC
2/10/25:
Astonishing X-Men Infinity #11
2/12/25:
Absolute Batman #5
All-New Venom #3
Batman vol. 4: The War of Jokes and Riddles TPB
Daredevil by Saladin Ahmed vol. 3: Living Hell TPB
Star Trek: Lower Decks #4
X-Men #11
2/17/25:
Astonishing X-Men Infinity #12
2/19/25:
Alien: Paradiso #3
Batman and Robin: Year One #5
Daredevil #18
Doom Academy #1
FML #4
Jenny Sparks #7
Mystique #5
The Power Fantasy #6
Star Trek #29
Uncanny X-Men #10
Weapon X-Men #1
Wonder Woman #18
X-Men: Heir of Apocalypse TPB
2/24/25:
Astonishing X-Men Infinity #13
2/26/25:
Black Canary: Best of the Best #4
Helen of Wyndhorn HC
Penguin vol. 2: All Bad Things TPB
Star Trek: Defiant #24
Venom by Al Ewing vol. 8: Venom War TPB
X-Men #12
And finally, the cat photo:
That’s it for February. See you in March!
-Clayton
Hi Clayton!
Really enjoyed listening to your conversation with Kieron on DECOMPRESSED. It was an offhand comment about Virtual Calligraphy from that episode which prompts my question:
Q: What is a 'lettering studio' and in what capacities does it serve as 'the closest thing' the comics industry has to a union?