Text/Lettering

[KonArtist]

Hello,
I'm looking for advice from other comic book/graphic novel creators. I am in the process of a crash course in lettering.
I am trying to pick up from examples such as The Dark Tower, The Crow, etc.
I am using an array of programs including Comic Life and CS3. I'm trying to figure out the standard text size and font for the industry (the story is a dark, historical, horror type comic.)
If you have any experience or information that would be useful, I'd greatly appreciate it (I'm fairly new to this industry, which isn't much help...lol)

[mckracken]

when i was publishing back in the 90's (alright... so it wasnt dark or historical horror) I used WHIZBANG! which I purchaced from either Comicscape or Wizard (I cant remember but I still have their little disk) it was supposed to come with additional comic type fonts... which i could never load properly on my machine... my standard font size was 10, now keep in mind that when WHIZBANG! is 10pt bold, its actually a 12pt font in itself, so using a 12 pt bold looked really big.
my advice, go with your gut. if you think it looks "dark and historical horror" then go with it. Mix sizes, mix bold vs unbold... perhaps try reversing the font so its white inside a black blast balloon too...
the first rule on comic book lettering that I've noticed is...

you simply cannot please everybody all of the time... please yourself first... show it to critics and get their opinion but the last line of defence is your initial gut feeling, that first reaction that screams "its so right" or "something is very wrong"

the second rule is readability.. can the viewer actually read it with the effects and tweeks place on top of it?