Activity 7

[micahmyers]

I would love to hear some feedback on this.

[t_orzechowski]

You chose a complicated group page for a trial, so you get points for that!

Now’s the time to start looking more critically at everyone else’s published work. The hardest thing to get a grasp of is where to put the balloons so that they read sensibly across the page, and you did a reasonably good job of that. Next hardest is the nuance of stacking the dialogue so that the balloons are attractive, while being careful that nothing the reader cares about is covered. Here’s where you fell short. Also, you used the crossbar-style “I” in place everywhere, and it’s intended to be used only in references to I-myself. And, your balloon pointers are far too skinny. Once printed, they won’t be prominent enough.

Panel 1/ You left all that smoke in the upper left corner, and covered the characters with the dialogue. We don’t care about the smoke! Gas mask guy has a lot to say, and it could all have been up at the top. The dialogue should have been stacked to fit into rounder balloon shapes, rather than long ones. The creature noise is so small and wispy that it will vanish within the coloring. I’d have made it small and within a balloon.

Panel 2/ Again, you left the smoke and covered the characters. These days, since almost no one wears cowls, hair is a major character identifier. You want to leave it uncovered as much as possible. Having said that, by pulling balloons 1 & 2 close to her face, we do read logically to stubble guy’s balloon 3, then logically to trenchcoat gal’s balloon 4, and beard guy’s balloon 5. I’d had put lightning face guy's balloon down closer to his belt.

Panel 3/ Gas mask guy’s balloon is well placed, but I’d have stacked it taller rather than wider, so that we’d see the tubing, which is his interesting visual feature. Creature noise will vanish in the coloring. If you’re going to float a thing like that, rather than balloon it, you need to make it more prominent.

Panel 4/ She’s yelling. It needs to be larger, particularly the three-word insult. Since you don’t know what the colorist is going to do, it works to your disadvantage to use a color field for balloon emphasis. A thicker black outline would work better. Personally, I think the style of having dialogue run outside the balloon as an extension of the balloon is overused, and not as forceful as running it large and bold within the balloon. But, to each their taste. You know how to extend the balloon behind the dialogue, so that’s good. I’d have put her balloon a lot higher and run it a lot larger, to emphasize how incredible she is at this moment. We don’t care about the car as much as her anger. Meanwhile, flame guy’s sound effect is too small, and doesn’t need to be running against his hand and arm. I’d have covered most of that lower left corner with it, while avoiding her leg. You were right to put it there, though, as it’s far less important than what she’s doing.

Panels 5-7/ That’s how it’s done. People are speaking rapidly, and so the balloons are close together.

Panel 8/ I’d have put her balloon at top, next to beard guy, and put stubble guy’s balloons down on her hair (and off beard guy’s hand).

[lordmagnusen]

I can't say anything that Tom hasn't said. He's one of the sensies around here!

[lpenha]

I'm not a professional letterer, but on pn 7, I'd make the balloon tail go all the way to the left border of the panel, cutting the tip off to indicate that the character who's saying it is off-panel. At least that's the way I'm accustomed to see off-panel characters speech in comics.

[micahmyers]

Thank you for your feedback especially you, Mr. Orzechowski. I think it is great that someone as accomplished as you will take the time to look over someone's work. I will make the changes you talked about, and remember it for the future.

[micahmyers]

I did some revision to the practice page. Thank everyone again for the help!

[Thomas Mauer]

A few additional thoughts from me:

One thing that sticks out to me is that in some instances you change font size to accommodate the amount of copy in your balloons. I've always hated that because it suggests people get louder or start to whisper.

While the "Snuffelupagus?" in panel 2 is doing that correctly, the burst balloons, the monster, and the last balloon in panel 1 look off because of the small font size.

For one, a burst balloon suggests someone is shouting. So this should be bigger by default.

Next, the monster's physical size doesn't gel with his tiny, tiny voice. It's like he has a sore throat and the doctor told him not to talk for a week.

The last balloon in panel 1 looks like it could be an aside, but asides often work just as well at normal font size. I'd also change the stacking of the balloon copy there and butt the balloon at the bottom panel border to show more artwork:

Boy, Trance
is really scraping
the bottom of the
ugly barrel for his
freaks, isn't he?

Two more things:

The leading between lines needs to be adjusted when you change font size so that you don't get huge spaces between lines. The distance between lines of text needs to be similar visually, not in total numbers. This works for "Oh, crap." and Ditto, Chica." It doesn't in the second burst balloon in panel 2, the monster's dialog, and the shout in the bottom left panel. Those need to be tightened up quite a bit.

You're using serif I almost everywhere except in the first two panels. The serif I is reserved for the personal pronoun and its contractions (I, I've, I'd, etc.). All other instances should be sans-serif, so just a vertical line.

[micahmyers]

Thanks for more feedback. i have busy with completing the college semester, but here is some more revisions. I believe I got all the I's fixed, and corrected the font size problems. Let me know if I missed anything.

[t_orzechowski]

Better.

The pointers remain too skinny. You'd be better off going for a conventional look.

Panel four continues to be weak. I suggest dropping the sound effect altogether. And, look at some published books to see how other people handle the yelling. Move that balloon a lot farther up onto the hood, for one thing. (As it is, you've got a huge blank space at the the top of the panel. The eye wants to read panel five instead.) Bring the lines closer together, in the same ratio as in the normally sized dialogue. Also, bring the letters a lot closer together. As type is used larger, tracking increases as well, and the letters start to look as though they're no longer forming words.

I'd suggest restacking the first balloon in panel five as:
Roxy, you
wouldn't dream of
hurting us

...and bringing it as far into panel five as possible. The way it's busting the margin now, it's reading as an extension of panel three. Cover Roxy's hair as much as you need to; what we care about is the evil eye.

[ukstocky]

A few things still stood out to me even after the revisions.

What size page is this going to be on? If it is a standard size page some of the small text will be unreadable.

The burst bubbles don't fit in there is a lot of negative space behind the text in them because you have made them a uniform shape each time.

Some of the balloons shapes are a bit inefficient because of the shape you have made the text inside (the obvious ones are in panels 2, the 4th balloon, and 5). You tend to go for very round balloons and you don't adjust the anchor points presumably which will always leave you with big gaps of empty space in the ballons.

So in panel 2 the 4th balloons could be restructured thus:

What
she said
snuffle-
upagus.

Which would fit the rounder balloon better (personally I don't like to use hyphenations but you get much choice with a page like this and name like snuffleupagus) and panel 5 could be like this:

Roxy, you
wouldn't dream of
hurting us--

Making it only 3 lines which could therefore have a skinnier balloon (horizontally speaking) and you cover less of the art with it. Jim Campbell's blog post on setting the type is a really good example of this.

Lastly I agree whole-heartedly that your balloon tails are too thin and in some points the tails look thicker in the middle than where they meet the body of the balloon, when you are creating these with the pen tool try drawing the tail all the way to the centre of the balloon you should also make an effort for the widest of the tail to be at the point it meets the ballon and as a rule of thumb (this has taken me a while to try and write down in a way that makes sense) the wide point of the tail should be a similar thickness to the height of your standard letters in the balloon. I would suggest looking at another Jim's blog posts for this too.

Sorry if any of that is already covered or sounds in anyway patronising.

All the best,
Mike

[micahmyers]

I don't feel patronized at all. I am posting it on here to hear from professionals and get better. Thank you for all the tips, and I will put them to use when I give this another go. I look forward to hearing back when that is done.

[Comics Commando]

As a letterer for almost 30 years, my advice has always been: look at what's out there. Really look at the work you're trying to emulate....don't just flip through a comic or glance at a page. Stop and observe how the lettering "works with" the art...study it.

And I mean mainstream comics...small press comics are riddled with too many amateur mistakes [no offense], and are, in many cases, not to be emulated....not ALL, but too many.

Stacking, font size, leading, balloon placement, pointer arrangement, etc....they all play a part in creating eye-pleasing lettering.

You're missing some key punctuation...not sure if that's your fault or the script's...but if you're past the 8th grade, you should know better. Missing punctuation can actually change the meaning of the dialogue, so don't be sloppy.

If you're hungry enough, you'll figure it out. Contrary to popular belief, lettering isn't easy. It took me two years of hard work to go pro--and that was back in the days before computers. Hard, hard work. You probably won't have bleeding fingers, like I did, but nothing takes the place of studying the work you're trying to emulate.



Best,

Kurt Hathaway
Cartoon Balloons Studio
khathawayart@gmail.com

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