Interrupting Word Balloons
The panels above come from the first page of the first issue of Y: The Last Man, scripted by Brian K. Vaughan, drawn by Pia Guerra, and--most important for today's observation--lettered by Clem Robins.
I was struck by how the speech balloons overlap greatly to show the characters interrupting each other. One balloon doesn't just encroach on another's border, which is common, but actually obscures some words inside, which isn't--at least in mainstream American comics.
I'd been thinking about how to use word-balloon graphics to indicate background speech when I read this story, so it was nifty to see such a technique in use.
But then it disappeared from the book. I don't know if editors didn't like it, or readers didn't get it, or the creators decided it was a failed experiment.
In this online discussion about lettering technique, Robins explained how he changes his usual method of working with a digital file as he creates overlapping balloons:
my normal layers areSo that might explain why Vaughan and Robins moved away from the technique. It could have been too much extra work.
text
balloons
spare clipping mask
info
page numbers
artwork
croplines
but for overlapping dialogue, i add six layers to this, and it becomes
text (top)
balloons (top)
text (middle)
balloons (middle)
text (bottom)
balloons (bottom)
spare clipping mask
info
page numbers
artwork
croplines
13 comments:
Thanks for posting this; it's fascinating. I love the overlapping effect.
I noticed these panels in Y: The Last Man months ago, then kept my eye open for other examples. Nothing. Yet within weeks of writing about such word balloons as something rare, I’ve spotted examples in Mark Waid’s The Brave and the Bold: The Lords of Luck and Scott McCloud’s Zot! Hmmm.
actually, the first few issues of Y were hand lettered. and whether digital or pen lettering, the overlapping balloons don't add much time at all to the process. if i remember correctly, Brian just stopped asking for the overlapping dialogue in subsequent scripts.
Thanks for the behind-the-scenes info, Mr. Robins. I guess the interrupted balloons got interrupted.
the first guy (to my knowledge) to really make use of overlapping balloons was Alex Toth. i can recall a dinner party scene he drew that was crawling with such balloons. kind of like a Robert Altman movie. it's a great effect.
Brian's departure from the use of such balloons was probably more rooted in the nature of the story he was telling than anything else. Y didn't have a lot of crowd scenes.
But there were so many characters who wanted Yorick to shut up!
I'll keep an eye out for Alex Toth examples. Thanks!
toth, kubert, infantino, and buscema: the best there ever was. there's a new guy out of Croatia named Tonci Zonjic who could soon be added to that list.
Thanks for the tip!
tonci's examples on the website are nowhere near as exciting as the work he's currently doing for Darkhorse's "Lobster Johnson" book, which is amazing stuff. he's better suited for noir than for super hero stuff, i think. if a book's got really, really good drawings, it is much easier to letter it.
Interesting comment. I can imagine someone saying that especially good art can make a letterer's task harder: "How can I cover up any of this?" Of course, a practiced artist learns to leave space.
Does very good drawing make lettering seem easier because it (a) is more inspiring and fun to work on? (b) conveys so much with no more lines than necessary? (c) has a coherent graphic sensibility that other artists can latch onto? (d) none of the above?
A and C, for sure. it's fun to be a part of a really well told story.
different teams of people have different sorts of relationships, which is one of the things which makes comics so much fun. in the case of Y, Brian was very trusting of the strip's pencillers, inkers, colorists, and me, and we got a lot of leeway to make our own choices about things. that kind of thing happens a lot when the same group of people work together for years.
Azzarello and Risso are a classic example. Risso overrides the art direction in the script more often than not, but Brian totally trusts him. sometimes this means that lettering needs to be rearranged to suit. usually the assistant editor maps out where he thinks things should go. sometimes it's left in my hands. the latter takes a lot of time, but it's a lot of fun, too.
I may move these remarks into a new posting, if that’s all right. (Most bloggers are eager for any new material.)
sure, i'd be flattered. is there anything else you want to know? this isn't rocket science or anything, but i've lettered thousands of stories.
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