Thanks for the really awesome post, Cory, Teresa.

I wonder if adding a third font format would work. or maybe one just has to train themselves to interpret the style..

I ended up eventually rooting myself with Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics.

Before the end of this year, there will be a Mill Avenue Vexations comic book. Lettered by me. Amateur to be sure, but it’ll be truly a work of love, sweat, and blood.

Oh, and I love random bolding.

@folks who don’t like emphasis: do you also not like italics in writing? It’s the same thing. Like “!” overused and abused, but not necessarily bad.

I disagree with Nate’s use of serif I in abbreviations, unless he meant contractions of the possessive pronoun “I.”

&& Lea: Oooh, fun.

…IT ALWAYS SEEMED SO RANDOM WHICH WORDS WERE BEING BOLDED!

*koff koff* …if only… I could escape… this poison gas cloud… *koff koff*

But seriously. Every artform from ancient Greek pottery to impressionism to cinema has a certain lexicon and syntax to it. If you don’t understand the “language” the artist is using you can still appreciate the work, but if you do understand it really enriches the experience.

Comics are no different.

*choke*

Taking a page from Watchmen at random (i bought it the other day to revise for the coming movie)…

“Time is *simultaneous*, an intricately structured *jewel* that humans insist on viewing one edge at a *time*, when the whole *design* is visible in every *facet*. What is your earliest *memory*?”

Is there any particular reason for doing it? It gets on my nerves, because it seems somehow patronising, as if the author’s scared you’ll miss the important words if he doesn’t highlight them for you… Either that, or it’s to make it easier for speed readers.

I can think of at least two reasons for this:

1. Traditionally, comics have been lettered in all caps. This makes it possible to lower the size of the text, but introduces other legibility problems. Bolded words may help counteract that, serving the same function that capitalizing words within a sentence served in the 18th century. (Benjamin Franklin once wrote a letter–it’s collected in the Library of America volume of his work–decrying the the increasing disuse of the long, f-like “s” and in-sentence capitals in print; he thought it made text harder to read.)

2. Comics are a visual medium. It makes sense that the text should also have a visual element to it, delivering information through the look of the text as well as the words. It helps tie the art and the text together. The bolded words may look odd, but a comic that never uses bold, italicized words looks even odder.

(The emphasis on “never,” which I added automatically, raises an interesting related issue: I’m much more likely to italicize emphasized words when writing for the web than when writing something on, or for, paper. I have no idea why.)

I can see the reasons for it, but i still don’t like it… Just a question of personal preference I suppose.

Even as a kid in the ’60s I used to giggle over that.

I think I’ll make a sandwich!”

Yes, that sounds like a good idea!

Please get the mayonnaise for me!

Sure! Here you are!

Longtime Avenger Hawkeye’s civilian name is Clint Barton.

It’s not that common of a name anyway.

For the win.