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Jun

21

My Own Font! Plus Humanis Rex! and Amazing Dr. Rizal

Filed Under Dr. Rizal, Humanis Rex!, My Comics | 10 Comments

I’ve always wanted to hand letter my own comics. And I wanted to letter them on the original artwork because I believe it to be an integral part of the art of a comic book page. And I still believe it. It’s something I will apply to certain special projects like ELMER, which I will continue to letter by hand, on the original pages.

A time came early during the making of Humanis Rex! that I realized because of certain technicalities, I have had start lettering it on the computer, using a free comics font. The free font is nice, but I felt like it was out of place in my art. I wanted to have a font of my own, derived from my own lettering. I thought that would be very cool. It would make, at least from my point of view, a cohesive whole.

For a long time I just considered the idea, not really doing anything about it. With the ending of Humanis Rex and the compilation of it in the works, plus other projects coming in like Amazing Dr. Rizal and Mico & Jec-Jec, I thought I’d better get serious about creating that font.

My first attempt was, quite literally, a disaster. You can see the results here. I resolved to spend an entire day just studying how to do it properly, and create the font right. And I think I may have done it.

I didn’t find the process difficult to understand, but the work was exhausting and quite tedious. Actually, it was tedious as hell. No wonder these things are expensive. But looking at the results, I think it’s worth it, and I’m quite happy with it. It’s not slick and perfect, which is exactly what I wanted. That’s how my lettering really is, if I really spend time on it.

I’ve already begun using it in my daily online comics strip. And speaking of that, I’ve begun a series of strips where I talk about my experience with “sleep paralysis”, a strange occurrence that afflicts me quite often.

Once again, thanks very much to Joe of Forbidden Planet, who features The Marvelous Adventures of the Amazing Dr. Rizal this time around. I feel very grateful, but I also feel a bit embarrassed because I won’t be able to share the story with readers outside the Philippines in a more complete form until a compilation is made, which won’t be for quite a while. I began doing Humanis Rex for Fudge Magazine in March or April of 2005, and the 60-page compilation will be out only in October 2007. Based on that, a Rizal compilation most likely won’t be out until 2009. Nevertheless, thanks very much to Joe, Kenny, and everyone at Forbidden Planet for their continued support!

Comments

10 Responses to “My Own Font! Plus Humanis Rex! and Amazing Dr. Rizal”

  1. Ed on June 22nd, 2007 2:27 am

    Adobe Illustrator madaling gumawa ng balloons! Yun ba ang gagamitin mo?

    Congrats sa bagong font mo! Ako, di na nakakagawa. Huhuhu!

    -ed

  2. Jaime on June 22nd, 2007 2:46 am

    Anong format ng font mo…
    …True Type, PostScript or something else?

    Will you distribute it for free or for a fee? Sana free! :)

  3. Jonathan on June 22nd, 2007 7:10 am

    Is the old Tagalog spelling you’ll use in “The Marvelous Adventures of the Amazing Dr. Rizal” ? It could get harder to read it then.

  4. JESUS ANTONIO on June 22nd, 2007 8:01 am

    Gerry you do not stop to amaze me everytime you draw, font or write something…
    You know I have always thought about art, love and architecture pretty much in the same way you think.
    I can relate to what you have been over this time..(I watched some weeks ago some videos you loaded..my advice as usual “DO NOT PLEASE ANYBODY…ONLY YOURSELF”!!! :) by the way as some people wrote there..It is really great to see you smiling again!!!

    Be good and take care good pal!!

    JESUS ANTONIO

  5. Gerry Alanguilan on June 22nd, 2007 8:52 am

    Ed, I’ll do the balloons in Photoshop. I know it may look more precise in Illustrator, but I’m just trying to make it stand out less in the pixel based art.

    Jaime… True Type. Lumang program gamit ko kaya di na ito mababasa ng MAC. ha! ha!

    Jonathan… I’ll be writing Rizal in English. I’m just doing the ads in old Tagalog because I wanted to have some lesser known but actual quotes from Rizal. :)

    Hey Jesus! Thanks for visiting! It’s always nice and inspiring to read something from you. Take care man!

  6. Ed on June 22nd, 2007 9:50 am

    Oh, I remember my Lola when she was alive sent my Mom a letter and she wrote same way as what you’ve written there.

    :D

    -ed

  7. Rey on June 22nd, 2007 11:34 am

    Funny that you mention sleep paralysis, Gerry. Because I, for one, has been suffering for one since high school. though mine was more of hypnagogic paralysis (the one that occurs just as you falls into the state of sleep). When this happens, I can see blinks of what’s infront of me yet i cannot move, and breath. I later found out that this is called REM or rapid eye movement. With the movement of a finger or toe (which is frighteningly hard) I awoke.

    At first drinking water before sleep tend to do the trick, but later on, it happened more and more that it can occur up to seven times a night, since waking up and doing nothing make you fall back to sleep and have the attack again.

    A doctor has given me some anti-convulsants which seems to get the attack away. I still got attacks once in a while now, but sometimes it will go on months of peaceful sleep.

  8. Gerry Alanguilan on June 22nd, 2007 11:40 am

    Rey, it happens to me often. Sometimes twice in a week. Specially when I’m very tired. I tried drinking water before I sleep, but I only ended up getting up to piss a couple of times in the night. ha! ha!

    A surefire way of making it not happen for me is if I play music before I sleep. Sometimes when it has already happened, and it’s about to happen again, I play music, and it doesn’t happen anymore.

  9. LAR on June 23rd, 2007 8:11 am

    I like the new font, Gerry! Galing! Mas madaling basahin! Hope you’re doing fine and the rest of the Komikero gang! :)

  10. miel on June 23rd, 2007 8:35 am

    Dear Gerry, looking forward(and excited,too!) to the release of your “Rizal” graphic novel! dengcoy