Letter frequency: An interview with Nate Piekos

Do you read comic books for the lettering? Or, rephrased as sleazy old adage: do you read Playboy for the articles?

Yes, it’s the thrills and chills of story, paired with dynamic art, that keep comic consumers hooked. But don’t discount the letterer, whose crucial charge is making the story not only legible but just as aesthetically-pleasing as the art.

I admit I didn’t contemplate lettering much either until chatting with Nate Piekos. The RI-based letterer’s first-ever exhibit at Salve Regina University shares a title with his recent how-to guide, one of very few comprehensive books on the subject and art of lettering. It turns out lettering, like any good graphic design, is a humble mix of expression and function.

Piekos' two-decades of experience have seen him letter for most major comic publishers, and he shares insights from this storied career in The Essential Guide to Comic Book Lettering. There are step-by-step visuals of his process, a breakdown of typographic terms, and samples from Blambot, Piekos’ massive font foundry that's home to cheekily-named typefaces like “Upchucked” and “Boxer Shorts.” Complementing the education are a few tastefully placed sound FX, like a red FWOOOOSH rising from the floor, and a lime green ZZZZZAP greeting visitors as they enter.

Comic books are not only an iconographic medium but an accessible one, and to this end the show avoids pure abstraction of the letterer’s final product. The centerpiece is an assortment of seating and display stands, the latter stacked high and generous with TPBs of Piekos’ work. Exploring this trove requires a tolerance for sitting in gallery silence, so if you find this setting cozy, feel free to indulge. I didn’t want to scare the gallery sitter by staring too long, but a last-minute glance at the south wall provided a reassuring coda to my visit: a yellow caption box that reads: “To be continued…,” its ellipsis and shape unfurling toward the exit. Such is the letterer’s task: to add their careful marks, page after page, until the story is complete. As Piekos explains in our interview, lettering, like any freelance gig, calls for self-care just as much as it does ingenuity. Here's hoping the typography that follows isn't too harsh a sight for already-sore eyes.

ALEX CASTRO
No better place to start than an origin story: How’d you arrive at lettering as a profession? Were there other kinds of design work you did before comics?

NATE PIEKOS
As a student at RIC [Rhode Island College], typography was a small part of my design courses, and it’s something I really enjoyed. However my focus was corporate identity design, and immediately after college, I ended up in a corporate design job that I quickly realized was not for me. For the next five years I worked the day job and at night I was illustrating and lettering my own comics. I started designing typefaces, and a friend insisted I learn HTML and make a website.

This was in the prehistoric age of about 2001. I ended up creating Blambot.com and there I offered fonts and logo design services for comics. The site slowly gained popularity, and Mike Allred, creator of Madman discovered my work. We become friendly and when he ended up working on a new series for Marvel (X-Force/X-Statix) he asked if I’d be the letterer on the series. Once my foot was in the door at Marvel, I landed work at DC, Dark Horse and Image. At 28 I saved up three months of mortgage payments and made the jump to freelance work in comics…and here we are!

AC
To clarify: lettering involves more than just inserting dialogue. You’re responsible not only for placing text but designing balloons, captions and often titles or logos as well, right?

NP
Correct. Basically all the text elements you see in a comic – and that includes a direct impact on pacing and overall aesthetic of a project. The reading experience leans heavily on how well the letterer did their job.

AC
This is your first gallery show, which kinda surprises me given how prolific you are...How’d this show come about and what encouraged you to display your work in a gallery context?

NP
[Salve Regina art professor] Gerry Perrino was one of my art professors at RIC! He suggested my work for the gallery show. It’s funny – I never thought Gerry noticed my work as a student…but his thoughtful consideration has popped up again and again over the years. He was also responsible for nominating me for the 2010 Rhode Island College Alumni Honor Roll Award for Success in the Field of Design.

AC
The exhibit timing seems pretty opportune too, as your recent book (and the exhibit’s namesake) will be headed to a second printing soon. You’ve mentioned elsewhere that most letterers are self-taught or they learn on the job. What are some of the aesthetic principles or concerns that separate lettering from more general typography?

NP
Comic book lettering is a very specific niche field within the broader field of graphic design. The skills include the ability to guide a reader’s eye through the layout of every individual page of sequential art. There are also lots of oddball grammatical traditions and some unique terminology like, squinks, breath marks, roach chew, etc. These are things you’re not going to learn in any other course or book unless someone within the profession teaches them to you.

AC
How do artists and writers tend to understand the letterer’s role in the creation process? Are some more ‘considerate’ when it comes to layout design? Is a lengthy script no problem for a competent letterer, or are some writers just ignorant of what fits comfortably in a single panel?

NP
It varies widely. Long time professional artists and writers generally have a good sense of what our job entails, and plan accordingly. Creators new to the profession might not. Others just may not care, which is frustrating. In any case, it’s the letterer’s job to make sure everything fits, reads in an effortless order, is cohesive with the art and genre, and looks fantastic.

AC
Sound effects are extremely specific to comics as a medium. How much is left up to the letterers’ interpretation?

NP
A script may describe a panel where a fire is racing through a space station. It may also include a sound effect like “FROOOOOOSH”. But it’s the letterer who has to think about what that should look like. How should it feel? How should the design of the sound effect make the reader feel? Certainly different than the PLIP-PLOP of a dripping faucet.

AC
You started working for Marvel around 2002, when there was a company-wide push toward mixed case lettering. Were the books you worked on around this time (like X-Force and X-Statix) subject to this style change? What are your personal thoughts on the use of uppercase versus mixed case in comic books?

NP
No. Thankfully. I’m not a fan of sentence-case lettering used as the main dialogue in comics. Mostly because it requires larger point sizes and wider leading than the standard all-caps dialogue. (I have no problem when it’s used for a specific effect, like a softly spoken ::ahem:: or the like.) I’m not saying it’s always bad – lots of webcomics and indie projects use the style to great effect. I’m just not a fan in general.

AC
I get the reluctance toward sentence-case. As a young reader in 2002, it was jarring to see, if only because it was so unfamiliar. I’m curious about the letterer’s reading experience of a comic. Do you read a script entirely beforehand or do you read as you go? Are you absorbing the words, or are you more focused on their appearance on the page?

NP
I like to think of myself as the first reader who is going to see the completed interior of the comic. I usually read through a script ahead of time to spot any notes directed at me, otherwise, I like to read as I go. Doing that helps me to make sure the writer’s and artist’s intent is being met…I want to feel the emotional reactions of dramatic reveals, or plot twists, and reflect that in the lettering. I’m also on the lookout for typos and deviations from comics-specific grammar, etc.

AC
Do you correct these typos and deviations when you find them?

NP
I do, yeah. I’m careful not to alter the writer’s intent, I just correct grammar, etc – things that I’ll inevitably have to fix anyway. It saves me time to just fix them on the fly.

AC
The exhibit shows you've redesigned logos for some long-running series, like Uncanny X-Men and Peanuts. I didn’t realize letterers are often responsible for designing the titles that appear on every cover. What are some of the challenges involved when re-interpreting such established brands?

NP
Well, to be fair, most letterers are not responsible for cover logos – it’s a more specialized service. Some letterers don’t have the design chops, or the desire to do any work beyond the lettering on the interior pages of a comic. Having the opportunity to redesign an iconic logo can be a stressful task. There is a lot of history there to live up to. You just have to do your research, rely on your design experience, and set aside the stress. It helps if you are a fan of the project you’re working on.

AC
I feel that design is especially vulnerable to perfectionism, since there’s the obvious need for legibility that, say, painting or sculpture lack. Would you call yourself a perfectionist? Is it easy to get lost in the endless revisions a project can entail? Do decades of experience (or an impending deadline) help speed up the decision-making?

NP
The older I get, the less I worry about it. Twenty years of experience has taught me what “my process” is. I trust in that. I also do a lot more designing in my head than I used to. By that, I mean before I ever touch pencil to paper, or stylus to tablet, I’ve designed a project in my head. I make sure I at least have a clear direction in mind before I start physically working on a logo or font project. Nothing spirals out of control faster than having no idea what to do while you’re sitting there staring at a blank Illustrator document. The stress has a much greater chance of eating you alive.

AC
That’s true; blankness can be very demanding on an artist, especially on a deadline. You mention letterers are usually last to work on a comic. Does this lead to extra time crunch on your end? How important is a consistent process in mitigating deadline pressures?

NP
We’re often forced to make up time that has been lost at the front of the project, yes. And it is very frustrating at times. Eventually you have to learn to spot those situations as early as possible, and avoid working with those teams in the future. When I work with other creators who respect my deadlines, I foster those relationships and make it a point to work with them as much as possible.

AC
Since you began working in the industry, how has publishers’ treatment of letterers changed (or not changed)? I’m guessing the pool of professional letterers isn’t enormous, so is there a pretty heavy demand for veteran designers like yourself (especilally when the big publishers put out hundreds of issues a month)?

NP
Much like working with a creative team that respects your deadlines, you either make it a point to work with publishers who respect your time, or you submit to being treated poorly for the rest of your career. Young letterers often let themselves get stepped on because they’re hungry for work. Sadly, this is also the origin of poor work habits. This job can destroy your health if you let it. Often you don’t realize your physical and mental health is suffering until it’s too late. When I got to that point, I decided there would be no more late nights or weekends of work. I may be a freelancer, but I deserve rest and time with my family. I decided to only work with publishers who respected those boundaries. To be fair, by that point, I was in a good position in my career. I could take the risk…but it’s a choice I wish I would have made sooner to avoid some of the physical problems I’ll be dealing with for the rest of my life.

AC
Lifelong physical problems——that’s no fun. I imagine these are the overuse injuries you’ve discussed in the past. So it sounds like there’s plenty of opportunity to overwork oneself. How important is it that industry veterans like yourself speak up about these issues when the opportunity arises?

NP
It’s not very widely discussed in the industry, but it’s a serious problem and more common than I ever knew. When you’re 20 nothing hurts. You can run yourself ragged and recuperate later. But once you’re 40, all that self-abuse comes back to haunt you. It’s cumulative and you don’t even realize it.

AC
To end on a happier note: you said in an old interview: “Handwriting is done without much thought. Every stroke when lettering is a conscious act.” I find that pretty beautiful; the idea of intentionality being present in every mark. Like any craftsperson, your eyes are better primed to see this thoughtfulness in others’ work. So, what specific work or designer comes to mind when you think of brilliant lettering?

NP
Oh geez…so many. Stan Sakai, Tom Orzechowski, Todd Klein, Janice Chiang, John Workman, the Rosen brothers, Artie Simek, Gaspar Saladino…the list goes on and on. Most of these are my heroes – the folks who were lettering when I was a teenager who had an entire ocean of comics yet to be read.

AC
Well said. Speaking of an ocean of comics: the stacks of trades paperbacks in the exhibit was a neat feature. I enjoy when exhibits invite people to actually spend some time in the gallery. Was this arrangement your idea?

NP
I think Ernie [Jolicoeur, the Hamilton gallery director] and I came up with it one day when he was visiting my studio. Those comps [free copies] have a tendency to pile up, and it’s nice that instead of sitting around in boxes, they’re actually being enjoyed by people.