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We all know manga is translated from japanese to english, but do you ever think about how the actual text is placed on the page, and who places it there? It doesn’t magically appear out of thin air - manga letterers are the folks responsible for putting the words you read on the page, which is not always an easy task, as lettering is more than just fitting words into a balloon, which is hard enough in of itself, but requires creativity and ingenuity to replicate the feel of the original text with creative solutions and hand-drawn effects, and even cleaning, touching up, and redrawing the original art!

We’ve had several manga Letterers on the show to discuss their work before, but today is an especially red-letter day, because we’ve brought on a dream team, some of the best in the business, to spell out what a manga letterer does and lay down the letter of the law for a letter-perfect walkthrough of the art, process, and career of manga lettering!

Joining us on for this auspicious and ambitious roundtable are returning special guests, longtime lettering enthusiast and breakout letterer Aidan, (letterer of Otaku Elf, School Zone Girls, and Toki), Final Fantasy XXV and COR enthusiast Ace Christman (letterer of Black Clover, World Trigger, and Goodnight Punpun), the hashtag LEGEND ™ himself Brandon Bovia (letterer of Kaiju No. 8, Dragon Ball Super, and Snow White with the Red Hair), and welcoming to the first time on the show a real lettering maverick, the queen of letterers - Sara Linsley (letterer of Sweat and Soap, Dandadan, That Wolf Boy is Mine!)!

Join us as we spend over three hours discussing the ins and outs of Manga Lettering, including different workflows, the best and worst fonts, working with editors and handling corrections, and many humorous anecdotes about the joys (and frustrations) of the craft! We discuss how essential the art of lettering is, and how it can really define the look of the series just as much as the rest of the artwork, even if many readers don’t consciously pay attention to it. We also explore how the work of letterers has evolved over the years, and what publishers can and should do to help make their jobs easier. We cover a lot of ground that will hopefully give you all great insight into one of the most interesting aspects of comics, and it’s a bread-and-butter letter of thanks from us to all the hardworking folks responsible for making the words in our comics fun to read!

As we’ve outlined on the show and in our Community Shout-outs, there is a wealth of resources out there to learn more about the craft and career of lettering and I’m glad that even more attention is being brought to discussing the work of manga letterers in particular. I hope that our own letterer's roundtable has provided a worthwhile and valuable contribution to this collection of helpful and educational resources and I hope we’ll continue to produce and provide even more spotlights on the work of different letterers and the lettering of different series in upcoming podcasts and profiles now and in many years to come!

For a complete list of links and Community Shout-Outs mentioned in this episode, please visit this podcast's webpage at: http://all-comic.com/2022/manga-mavericks-ep-187-letterers-roundtable/

PODCAST BREAKDOWN:

00:00 - Take the Manga Mavericks 2021 Podcast Survey!

01:45 - Intro
04:47 - New Patron Shout-Out
06:13 - Guest Spots on OverMangaCast (Mashle, Mermaid Saga)

LETTERERS ROUNDTABLE!:

09:46 - Introducing our Roundtable!
13:30 - What is Lettering in comics, and what is the job of a letterer? What is good lettering, and what is bad lettering?
18:45 - What are the differences between lettering for western comics versus localized manga?
21:56 - Manga Letterer Origin Stories
22:11 - Sara’s History
23:15