Hand Lettering Your Comic Was Sometimes Ulcer Inducing
Lettering your comic used to be a nerve-wracking experience. That is when you were talking about dropping in the lettering by hand with a technical pen or a 107 nib. While digital lettering today can still be a frustrating process it’s miles easier than in decades past.
When I was first hunting for free comic fonts to test out in the early 2000’s the pickings were slim. There were only two or three worthy contenders. Since then thousands of free fonts can be found and downloaded online. By sheer numbers this also means more free quality comic fonts has also surfaced.
While I tend to stick with my paid for Comicraft fonts you should definitely play around with some of the free ones first to get a feel for comic lettering.
My goal for you with this post was three fold.
- The fonts had to be free.
- They had to be able to be used commercially (or at least partially)
- They had to at least be “almost” as good as a paid commercial font.
So I first stopped by Font Squirrel.
Font Squirrel is your best resource for FREE, hand-picked, high-quality, commercial-use fonts. Even if that means we send you elsewhere to get them.
The Comic category had 24 fonts but only two really jumped out at me. You can head over there and decide for yourself.
Laffayette Comic Pro
The Laffayette Comic Pro font is credited only to Jaws Laffayette. This one has been floating around the net for a good 10 years and has been downloaded tens of thousands of times just at dafont.com alone.
VTC Letterer Pro
VTC Letterer Pro is brought to us by Vigilante Typeface Corporation aka Larry Yerkes who is a tattoo artist, font designer and freelance Illustrator. This one has been around for a while and I remember downloading it back when I was scouring the net for free fonts.
Year Supply of Fairy Cakes
Sometimes you want something a little edgier or more offbeat in your font. I feel the uniquely named Year Supply of Fairy Cakes font delivers that. I don’t know that I’d want to read an entire comic lettered with it unless the point size was set larger. But I think it’d make a worthy addition to your font library.
Blambot Comic Fonts
My next stop was over to Blambot comic fonts and lettering. Nate Piekos has been at this for over a decade and has lettered comics for Marvel Comics, DC Comics, Oni Press, Dark Horse Comics and many others. Nate’s work has been seen EVERYWHERE.
He’s designed a lot of comic fonts and has made several of them free via a license agreement for independent comic creation.
· Anyone may use these fonts for non-profit projects.
· If you are a comic book self-publisher/small press publisher you may use these fonts for profit or non profit or as part of graphics printed on merchandise to support your independent comic.
· If you are an independent creator, publishing comics through a mainstream company (see above) there is a license fee.
Some of the standouts are:
And I dig Evil Genius as well.
While you’re over there be sure to read his post on comic script basics and grammar. It’s worth the trip.
Have fun with this and when you’re ready trust me, you’ll probably start buying fonts off of Blambot and Comicraft. I always check out the online sales in the summer and New Years over Comicraft.
Be sure to add your favorite fonts in the comments below. It’s always nice to grow a bigger list.
-Jay
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