Broken Frontier

This article is part of a series of spotlight articles on the winners of the  Broken Frontier Awards 2005 .

When you reinvent an entire way of doing something you become immortal in your field. When you do that and maintain a publishing company and remain at the top of your own field, sought after by everyone from the likes of Kurt Busiek and Jeph Loeb, well, then you’re Richard Starkings, letterer extraordinaire and winner of Broken Frontier’s 2005 Award for Best Letterer.

To say that Richard Starkings is the most viewed letterer would be an understatement.  Aside from lettering a huge variety of books personally, Starkings, together with his company Comicraft, also creates new fonts upon demand for publishers all over the world.  He reinvented the entire process of comic book lettering with the use of computers and brought stability and voice to so many books and characters.

“My own feeling is that a good letterer is not only a sign painter, foley artists, sound recordist, and graphic designer but also a performer.  The writer and artist are directors, and it is the letterer’s job to help tell the story in such a way that their vision is supported and, when appropriate, embellished.” – Richard Starkings

To the ones who may scoff at the idea of detailed lettering, seeing it as nothing more than filling in the text for each character and writing a couple of large words for sound effects, Starkings’ words above might seem to show off an inflated sense of self worth. But anyone who would think that has never seen a poorly lettered book. For over time, lettering becomes as much a signature of the character as his look. It is through the lettering that we get a true feel for how the character speaks. It is here where they show off their emotions. Without good lettering, would the internal monologue in Superman/Batman feel almost like an unspoken conversation? When two characters are getting angry with each other, the words have to take on that harsh aspect as well. Starkings completes all this, seemingly effortlessly.

In just this past year, Starkings points out the following books as some of his favorites done for other companies:

GØDLAND
CONAN
RED SONJA
SUPERGIRL
SUPERMAN/BATMAN
CATWOMAN: WHEN IN ROME
WALLACE AND GROMIT: THE BOOTIFUL GAME
WALLACE AND GROMIT: A PIER TOO FAR
WILDSIDERZ

Just looking over that list, it’s easy to see the variety in his work.  He describes Superman/Batman as his “Summer Blockbuster!” The work is full of larger than life characters in amazing situations with tons of action and his lettering has to match.  Supergirl has similar themes but also must capture the youthful femininity of the young protagonist instead of two older men who have been doing their job for years.  Meanwhile, over in books like Conan and Red Sonja, Starkings uses a variety of fonts. “Kurt also requested the typewriter font for Conan, which I resisted at first but grew on me as I started to grasp the pulp tone and style of Kurt’s retelling of the Conan storyline,” Starkings says about his work there. But even that is just one part of the Conan lettering, because while the captions maintain that typewriter font, the words that come out of the characters’ mouths must highlight the fantasy aspect of Conan in an almost romantic way.

“In contrast, Jeph’s work with Tim on Catwoman is quieter and requires a more sensitive performance, more akin to an Art House Independent movie. Fewer explosions and way less shouting… Tim’s work is, in its very nature, more studied, focused, and serious, much like Tim himself.” Even with just this short analysis, it’s easy to see how much thought is put into each decision.  It’s like maintaining a look for Wallace and Gromit that must highlight the scientist’s sense of discovery with the childish naiveté and excitement; matching the artwork and storytelling homage to Kirby in Gødland with an appropriate style of lettering; or highlighting that wild sense of youthful exuberance in J. Scott Campbell’s Wildsiderz.

Comic book lettering is often the most overlooked aspect of a book.  But in every instance, the choice of the proper font for everything can really make a book come alive.  Richard Starkings knows this, and that is why he is Broken Frontier’s 2005 Letterer of the Year.