Welcome to the first of our series of Live Broadcasts celebrating Women’s History Month. We will be bringing you a different group of women creators and professionals each week to talk about their experiences, as well as their inspirations and hopes for the comics industry.
Our first group of women helped to create the backdrop for many a young person growing up in the 1980s and beyond. They are masters in their craft and continue to excel while showing the younger generations how it is done.
The calendar flipped to March, and here at Pop Culture Squad, that means Women’s History Month. We will be spending the next few weeks celebrating the contributions that women have made to pop culture industries, particularly comic books.
There will be a series of Live SquadCasts with an amazing array of creators and professionals in the comic industry. Tune in as the all women guest panels talk about their history in the business as well as those that came before and who is coming next.
Throughout the month we will also have other special content devoted to celebrating Women in Comics History. In the meantime, you can also check out our archive of Women in Comics History posts from 2021. Continue reading “Pop Culture Squad Is Celebrating Women’s History Month”
Every September 1st is a chance to celebrate Letterer Appreciation Day. It is the birthday of one of the greats in the craft, Gaspar Saladino, but it is a opportunity to honor and appreciate the talent and hard work of the most underappreciated member of the comic book creative team.
Lettering is the thread that binds the comic narrative together. It is often said that if you don’t notice the lettering, then the letterer did their job. While there is some truth in that, it dismisses the important role that a letterer plays in creative process. If the lettering doesn’t pull the reader out of the story, then the story flows better, but if the letterer adds to the narrative with creativity in font choices, balloon shapes, sound effects, then doesn’t that improve the book overall.
Letterers are responsible for placing word balloons and caption boxes on the pages. They often have to make difficult choices to ensure a seamless narrative for the reader. They create the logos for comic series, and they add dynamism to the page with sound effects. A good letterer can make a comic sing in special ways.
Today we celebrate the craft of lettering and the artists who are the least compensated for their effort.
We are speaking live with two fantastic letterers: Janice Chiang and Ariana Maher. You can find the live stream embedded below or you can watch it on the PCS YouTube channel here. It is also available at our Facebook page here. Continue reading “Letterer Appreciation Day is Here – Livestream”
As we continue our Women’s History Month tribute to Women In Comics History, we focus on two areas of comic making that are often overlooked: Colorists and Letterers. Both of these disciplines have changed radically since the women in this list began working in comics.
The technological innovations of the last couple of decades have revolutionized comics coloring and lettering. They have also opened the doors of opportunity. Both of these careers were at one point considered part of the in house production department of comic book publishers. These women who were innovators and trailblazers made great strides in their fields and showed that they are part of the creative team deserving of recognition.
When these women were working in the industry the process of coloring a comic involved using dyes and creating color maps on copies of comic book pages to give printers instructions on how to apply color to the pages. Today almost all comics are colored using digital software to add tones, hues, and effects. Without those tools, these women were able to generate amazing depth to comic books for decades.
Glynis Oliver spent most of her career working for Marvel Comics. She colored the pages of Amazing Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, New Mutants, Thor, and Uncanny X-Men among many others. She also worked at DC Comics and contributed to titles such as Batman, Superman, and Adventure Comics. For a time she went by her married name in the comics and was credited as Glynis Wein. She was a constituent contributor to some of the most important comics for over twenty years.
Colorist Adrienne Roy has special meaning to me as she colored my childhood. Her work on the New Teen Titans and Infinity Inc. series was glorious. She worked primarily for DC Comics during her coloring career with long runs on the afore mentioned series as well as Batman, Detective Comics, and the Outsiders titles. There was richness and depth that Adrienne brought to the comics she colored. Her life was cut short by cancer at the young age of 57.
Christie Scheele worked as a comic book colorist for over two decades. She is most well remembered for her long run coloring Daredevil for Marvel Comics. The famous Frank Miller and Ann Nocenti Daredevil stories were painted with color by Christie Scheele. Her use of tone and hues give those stories important emotional narrative. Besides over one hundred issues on Daredevlie, Christie worked mostly for Marvel on titles like Squadron Supreme, Defenders, and The Avengers.
Award winning colorist Lynn Varley created the color pallet for some of the most critically acclaimed comic books of the last half-century. She was the colorist on The Dark Night Returns, 300, Sin City, and Electra Lives Again. The color work on each of these books is a critical factor in the texture of the story and how the reader experiences the comic.
Tatjana Wood began working in the comics in the 1950s doing uncredited work in issues published by EC Comics. By the 1970s, she was the primary colorist on covers for DC, and that role lasted into the mid 1980s. She had long runs for DC on Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing and Grant Morrison’s Animal Man. She brought the color to the well regarded Brian Bolland line work in Camelot 3000. She has over 1000 comic book credits to her legacy. Chances are that some of your favorite historic covers from the ’70s and ’80s were colored by this legend. Continue reading “Celebrating Women’s History Month – Comic Edition: Part 3 – Colorists and Letterers”
Welcome to the latest installment of Preview Reviews. This is where we give advanced glimpses at some of the comics that will be coming out this Wednesday.
Here at Pop Culture Squad, we are decidedly Anti-Spoiler. We feel that ruining someone’s experience with something for the sake of getting a scoop or clicks is the wrong thing to do. Therefore, we have decided to publish this column, as necessary, with mostly spoiler-free reviews of upcoming issues. Hopefully, the information that we share with you will increase your excitement for these books.
This week we have two great new books to preview. The first is a new series called Getting It Together from Image Comics, and the second is a one-shot from Storm Kids (the young adult imprint of Storm King Comics, called Stanley’s Ghost
You can find these books at your LCS on October 7, 2020.
Getting It Together #1Original Solicitation:
SERIES PREMIERE! Newcomer artist JENNY D. FINE shines alongside Marvel Comics’ Iceman writer SINA GRACE and co-creator OMAR SPAHI in the all-new modern dramedy you didn’t know you needed! Sam and Jack are best friends, and Sam is dating Lauren, Jack’s indie rocker sister and roommate. When Sam and Lauren open up their long-term relationship, skyrocketing tensions send social shockwaves through their friend group and the entire Bay Area. And Jack, caught in the middle of it all, may be forced to take sides in a conflict he never wanted to be a part of. Life gets pretty messy when you’re in your 20s and your friends are your family.
PCS Review:
This book is just lovely. I often find myself enthralled with the writing of Sina Grace. The casual relaxed nature of his dialogue is mesmerizing. There is an immediate attraction to the characters in this book and the opening sequence probably has a lot to do with that. The collaboration with Omar Spahi is wonderful. The two combine to tell a compelling story about relationships that are damaged and have a very real-life feel to them.
Jenny D. Fine does a phenomenal job in realizing the essence of this story and generating a wonderful visual narrative. While there is a cartoony aspect to the art, the facial expressions, background details, and character interactions are spectacular. The color work by Mx. Struble is excellent, particularly the textured backgrounds and the lighting elements. With a book that is mostly conversational the letterer needs to be extra careful to get the dialogue in without obscuring the art, and Sean Konot takes advantage of panel borders in an fantastic way to do exactly that.
I am very excited for this book and and looking forward to the next issue. Don’t miss it.
John Carpenter Presents Stanley’s Ghost: A Halloween Adventure #1Original Solicitation:
Oh no! Who’s been stealing fruit from all the gardens in Arbordale? Was it the prankster Chester Chipmunk? Or maybe Baby Fang? Accusations fly until someone suggests that maybe it was the Ghost of Bunnyburrow Manor! Neighbors have claimed to have seen it flying around, but are ghosts even real? And if they are, why would they be stealing fruit? Stanley Squirrel offers to lead an expedition into the house to see if it really is haunted and find out just what’s been going on. But as the gang creeps around the house looking for answers, what they find isn’t what any of them were expecting!
PCS Review:
Sometimes there is a book that just fits the time and this book does in unconventional ways. This is a fun cartoony adventure that fits the spooky season. It is a breath of fresh air in world of chaos. Paul Storrie and Jeff Balke crafted a lively tale that has a bunch of anthropomorphic cartoon friends investigating a mystery that turns scary. The dialogue in this book is engaging and charming.
The line art by Dave Alvarez is joyfully sweet, and he does a great job with expression and characterization. The colors by Jeff Balke are vibrant, and Janice Chiang is just a fantastic letterer who always bring high quality work to everything she does.
This book is a perfect gift for young readers, but also a wonderful Halloweeny comic experience for every age.
