Best font for dialogues

[Juggertha]

Title says it all...

what do you think is the best font for dialogue within a comic?

[Telekinetic Ketchup]

I assume it wouldn't work for more serious stuff, but for my whimsical half toony stuff LetterO'Matic is brilliant.



Only problem with it really is it's all capital letters, which makes emphasizing lines and so forth somewhat harder.

[noiretblanc]

I prefer Keelhauled -- really expressive and not quite as standard as Letteromatic. Anime Ace is also quite good.

[amadarwin]

It really depends on the comic, imo. For awhile, I was hooked on Lint McCree for my standard dialogue fonts, but slowly fell out of love with the way the 'R' looked. It's still a good font, but I use it sparingly. Light hearted fare tends to go better with more whimsical fonts. A font like Billy the Flying Robot would work for something kid-centric but it's energetic enough to be used on an indie, or self-published title.

In fact, I may just have to drop some coins in Piekos's pocket soon...

[CyberLord]

"We have me the enemy and he is us!"
The only real answer to your question is to direct you to Walt Kelly's "Pogo"!
"Pogo" Was a comic strip back in the 1950's and into the 1970's.

CyberLord

[F!]

The best font is the one that most closely resembles the artist's line work.

[Symson]

Sadly there is no definitive answer for this one. If a comic is densely written a font that is more condensed and/or has a large x-Height would be best . A comic that is not text heavy can use a more open font.

[Inkthinker]

Kelly (Pogo), or Eisner (The Spirit, A Contract with God, City People, Last Day in Vietnam, etc). Or for a more modern application try Sakai (Usagi Yojimbo) or Dave Sim (Cerebus, which takes a lot of cues from Eisner), or Jeff Smith (Bone, which is in many ways a visual descendant of Kelly's Pogo).

Of course, all of those guys hand-lettered their work, and never used digital fonts. So maybe that's only a solution for style... personally, I can handle a font for dialogue, but (IMO) sound effects MUST be hand-drawn. A sound word is more than just the letters/sounds, it's also a chance for graphic design that enhances the effect, and it should be integral to the art that it's associated with. Few things are as ugly as canned onomatopoeia... they just cover up the work, they don't enhance it.

On Joe is Japanese we used Wild-n-Crazy, which worked all right. But I hated pretty much every example of onomatoes that were added after I drew the pages.

[RemusWriter]

I'm partial to Blambot's Digital Strip (NOT 2.0). Then again, my comic-related activities are pretty much constrained to this, so I just picked the most serious looking font I could get for free.

[F!]

Kelly (Pogo), or Eisner (The Spirit, A Contract with God, City People, Last Day in Vietnam, etc). Or for a more modern application try Sakai (Usagi Yojimbo) or Dave Sim (Cerebus, which takes a lot of cues from Eisner), or Jeff Smith (Bone, which is in many ways a visual descendant of Kelly's Pogo).

Of course, all of those guys hand-lettered their work, and never used digital fonts. So maybe that's only a solution for style... personally, I can handle a font for dialogue, but (IMO) sound effects MUST be hand-drawn. A sound word is more than just the letters/sounds, it's also a chance for graphic design that enhances the effect, and it should be integral to the art that it's associated with. Few things are as ugly as canned onomatopoeia... they just cover up the work, they don't enhance it.

On Joe is Japanese we used Wild-n-Crazy, which worked all right. But I hated pretty much every example of onomatoes that were added after I drew the pages.

We'll keep butting heads on this, Ben, as long as you keep regurgitating the same post every time lettering gets brought up around here. Your issue isn't with digital lettering, it's with shitty lettering. If the letterer has the skill and the will, then integrating sound effects and other flourishes into the art isn't difficult to do digitally.