How to Letter Comics by Hand Without Guidelines Showing

Hand lettering makes a comic feel alive, but visible guidelines make it look unfinished. Here is how to have both.

Mini-comics are the best place to learn pacing because you cannot hide anything. Eight pages, four panels a page, and every panel has to earn its spot.

Pencils

• Non-photo blue pencil for roughs
• A brush pen for figures
• A 0.5 technical pen for borders
• White gel pen for fixes

Pencil loosely, ink tightly. Use a brush pen for figures and a technical pen for panel borders, and letter before you ink so the words never get squeezed.

Letter first. The words always win.

Inks and letters

Photocopying flattens everything, so push your blacks darker than feels right and leave more white space around the lettering than you think you need.

If something here doesn't work for you, write in. Half of our how-tos have been corrected by readers, and the corrections are always better than the original.

We keep a guest book by the door. Some people write their name, some write a poem, and one person drew the entire floor plan of the shop from memory. It is the best zine we have never printed.