My Comic Book: Issue 3 - Lettering

No Inktober drawings from me this year. As much as I really enjoyed letting my DC comic fan out last year with those ink drawings, I opted out of it this year. Instead, I finished up the lettering pass of the third issue of my comic book!

It's always nice to see my page with lettering.
It's good to see if the page is working, like I intended
it to, once the balloons are placed.

This was the first time I used Manga Studio to handle the lettering (along with Blambot's fonts), and it was definitely a good change from how I used to do it on Photoshop. Arranging balloon placement was a breeze and I made some custom balloons as well to make my life easier. I used to have to custom make my balloons in Photoshop for every page, and they were rasterized layers not vector... so I couldn't readily futz around with placement and size without having to scrap the entire balloon every time.

Seeing how pages work next to each other is do-able in the computer,
but there's nothing like testing the 'page-flip' on physical pages.

Once the lettering is in, I print out the pages and place them into one of those plastic folders with the clear sleeve pages in them. This way I can visualize the placement of my pages sequentially in a physical format. I usually find myself constantly flipping through the mock-up. This is sort of my editing phase. I'll read the physical copy multiple times. I 'll find typos, or phrases I keep repeating in the dialogue, spelling mistakes or inconsistencies in page flow.

I don't think my brain actually slips into this mode until after I see all the pages together like this, and I've found it's a very important and encouraging step for me. Anyway, next up: colors!