Yesterday, I covered as to why people will never love you if you use Comic Sans.  For those of you who didn't read that, well, shame on you, go bad and read it, before you see monstrosities like this:

Okay, now that I've made your eyes bleed, I'd like to take this time to point out that everything you know is probably wrong when it comes to comic lettering.  Really.  Yes, I'm sure that you know the secret of serifs (the fins at the end of letters, in case you don't know): serif fonts are better for reading in print, while sans serif is better online.  Which is why you'll usually see everything on the web in Arial or Helvetica, while print comes in Times New Roman or Caslon.  But that doesn't always work that way.  

Case in point: Ice Blade - well, at least the official Tokyopop version; scanslators know not to make the mistakes that the idiots letterers at Tokyopop made.

You'll note that the font looks weird.  While it is a serif font, it's also clear that whomever did the lettering didn't know jack about how comics work.  For one, it's an extremely ugly choice of fonts.  No actual letterer would know to go with this.  Second, in the west, regardless of whether it's Marvel, DC, Tokyopop, Humanoids (a French comic company) or whatever, we're used to the handlettered style.  Legendary letterers such as Joe Rosen, Gaspar Saladino, and Artie Simek plied their trade for years to find the perfect fit – hell, artists such as Roy Lichtenstein took their cues from these folks.  Today's letterers from John Costanza to Diana Albers to (my favorite) Nate Piekos aka Blambot all have the masters to thank.  And I guarantee none of them would have done the above.

No, instead, today's letterers know that simply Arial vs. Times New Roman doesn't work.  And that regardless of how the fonts fall on the Typographic Element Chart…

…it all boils down to four different types of fonts.  And, lucky you, I'm going to give you links to at least one example of each.  You can thank me later.  Or at least thank me by not using Comic Sans.

1.  Dialog: These are the hand-lettered beauties that comfort the eye and produce meaningful words.  You'll notice that they kern well, that there's a difference between the I (capital letter) and the I (pronoun, which is seriffed), and that breath and foreign marks are there; occasionally, they'll have lower case, but usually it's just all capitals.  It should look warm and human, unless you're going for something that's anything but.

Example: Odaballoon – a font based on the work of legendary letterer Bill Oda

A subset of dialog fonts is the unconventional dialog font.  Whether designed for alien speech, robotic speech or whatever, these still have the marks of standard dialog fonts while adding a unique style to them.

Examples: Death Rattle – a monstrous speech font, Crystal Clear – a robotic speech font

2.  Effects: Whether it's gunshots or explosions, these are the fonts used for onomatopoeia.  They vary as widely in examples as sounds, and are limited only by your imagination.

Exmples: Blam Blam – a gunfire font, Hacknslash – a sword-slashing font

3. Design: meant to be used from chapter titles to background lettering, from sign logotypes to the letters on your character's T-shirt, these are also limited only by your imagination.  A bonus is that a lot of design and effects fonts are interchangable, so that's always a plus.

Example: Orthotopes – a retro, squarish font (designed by yours truly!)

4.  Symbols: These are the unusual ones, the dingbats, the cutesy ones, the incomprehensible alien speech.  Use as needed.

Example: Alien Gantz – a font meant to replicate alien speech.

Well, that's the basics for now.  If this is as far as you want to go in regards to fonts, good.  For those who really want a personal touch, tomorrow, I'll go over how to make your own fonts.

Tomorrow: Day 20 – Fonts, Part 3: Obstructions and Constructions (and occasionally Destructions)