WORK STAGES on 2013 GUTTERS webcomic strip with Takeshi Miyazawa! (Patreon)

So! Recently stumbled across the files for a 2013 installment of the now apparently defunct webcomic Gutters that I wrote and the great Takeshi Miyazawa drew—and lettered, an appropriate detail because the one-pager I wrote was one long, fulminating rant about crappy trends in comics lettering featuring superheroes "Burst Balloon" and "Electrical Balloon." (For the uninitiated, their "supranyms" are technical terms from comics lettering.) 

Alas, nine years later, most if not all of the criticism in this strip remains all too relevant to modern-era comics lettering.

(As a note of explanation, I should say that this page was knocked out when Takeshi was drawing the 2013-ish Guest Artist one-shot Empowered: Nine Beers with Ninjette, a project for which Patrons will be seeing further Work Stages posts down the line.)

First off, my rough for the page:

---and a guide to what the heroes' namesake word balloons should look like:

...and a rough set of designs for the characters:

Next, Takeshi's pencils for the page, with very generous bleed spaces around the edges of the page. This might've been done to accommodate webcomic formatting, or possibly a title block or credits, but as the actual online version of Gutters seems to have disappeared, I have no means of confirming that.

And next, the lettered version!

I'm honestly not sure if the serifed "I" was used on purpose for the text, as that is an absolute no-no in comics lettering. Well, regardless, this font-usage error works as a hidden in-joke of sorts, though I'd likely have called attention to the riff if it was indeed done intentionally. Who knows, folks?

Next, a version with a final lettering tweak or two:

And there's our strip, dear Patrons—and non-Patrons, too, if I decide to open this post to the public. Yay?

And finally, as a bonus for completists, here's my alarmingly lengthy script for the one-page story:

BURST BALLOON AND ELECTRICAL BALLOON'S GUIDE TO HOPELESSLY BUNGLED COMICS LETTERING

PANEL 1: Large panel, introducing the two srsly crappy superheroes who will be delivering this strip's rants about comics lettering blunders. At left, striking a heroic pose, is the brawny male superhero BURST BALLOON (as per his name, he always speaks with burst balloons). On his chest, he sports a big ol' burst balloon containing the FX-style bold letters "BB"; his masked forehead is similarly emblazoned with the characters "?!" (Note: We need to see his eyes under the mask, as opposed to leaving 'em white, so as to set up the "INJURY TO EYE MOTIF" in panel 5.) At right is the winsome superheroine ELECTRICAL BALLOON (as per her name, she always speaks in electrical balloons). On her chest, she sports a big ol' electrical balloon containing the (electrical) FX-style letters EB; her masked forehead is emblazoned with a stylized lightning bolt symbol. A pair of electrodes protrude from the top of her head like horns or antennae, with glowing blue electrical FX constantly arcing from them (and also looping around her body, at times). To avoid confusion in the lettering portion of the script, I'll just refer to these two characters as HERO and HEROINE from here on out, okay?

Anyhoo, our crappy pair of superheroes are striking poses and addressing each other with fixed smiles. However, our first lettering error is already underway: Though the HEROINE is speaking first, she's on the right-hand side of the page, instead of the left. So her (electrical) balloon is located on the left side of the page, over the HERO's head, with a balloon tail pointing diagonally across the panel to her. The HERO's subsequent response is placed over HEROINE's head on the right, with a similar balloon tail pointing diagonally across the page to him. As the balloon tails cross over each other, sparks (and sound FX) are flying from their impact point, as if the tails were crossed blades or the like. At the bottom of the panel, the error repeats yet again, with two more misplaced balloons and another pair of diagonally crossing balloon tails spraying sparks and sound FX as they clash.

HEROINE: (electrical balloon, at upper left) HEY, BURST BALLOON! IT'S AMAZING HOW MANY WAYS COMICS LETTERING CAN BE SCREWED UP, DON'CHA THINK?

FX: (by intersection of first two balloons' tails) SPANGG

HERO: (burst balloon, at upper right) YOU KNOW IT, ELECTRICAL BALLOON! FOR EXAMPLE, SOMEBODY MIGHT FORGET THAT IT'S A GOOD IDEA TO PUT THE FIRST SPEAKER IN A PANEL ON THE LEFT, NOT THE RIGHT!

HEROINE: (electrical balloon, at lower left) WHICH CAN LEAD TO DUELING WORD-BALLOON TAILS, AS SEEN HERE… EN GARDE, B.B.!

FX: (by intersection of the tails for balloons #3 and #4) SPANGG

HERO: (burst balloon, at lower right) HAVE AT THEE, E.B.! PARRY! RIPOSTE!

PANEL 2: Head-and-shoulder shots of HERO and HEROINE at the bottom of a large, open panel. The BG is a sparsely detailed room, a warehouse interior or the like, with some distinctly "metatextual" signs posted on its walls (see below). At left, HERO is frowning as he looks up at a pair of badly placed word balloons that are inexplicably touching his head, even though plenty of panel space remains open above them; helpfully, a SIGN on the wall indicates where the balloons should've been placed ("THIS SPACE OPEN FOR NON-CRAPPY WORD-BALLOON PLACEMENT"). At right, a puzzled-looking HEROINE faces the opposite type of balloon-placement problem as she looks up to the room's ceiling, where her own word balloon appears to be lodged WAY up high in the corner, dropping a long, skinny tail down to point at her. Once again, another SIGN on the wall indicates where this word balloon might better have been placed ("THIS SPACE WOULDN'T BE BAD, EITHER"). As in panel 1, blue "electrical FX" crackle around the HEROINE's electrode antennae.

HERO: (burst balloon; touches HERO's head) HERE, MY WORD BALLOONS ARE CLUSTERING WEIRDLY CLOSE TO MY HEAD… FOR WARMTH, MAYBE?

HERO: (burst balloon; touches HERO's head) EITHER THAT, OR I'M WEARING A VERY, VERY STRANGE HAT.

SIGN1: (above HERO's balloons; this is a large sign mounted on the wall) THIS SPACE OPEN FOR NON-CRAPPY WORD-BALLOON PLACEMENT

HEROINE: (electrical balloon is placed way up in upper right corner; very long tail points down to HEROINE) WHEREAS MY WORD BALLOON IS HIDING WAY UP IN THE CORNER… 'CAUSE IT'S SAD AND LONELY, I GUESS? (small lettering) AWW… I FEEL SORRY FOR YOU, POOR, BADLY PLACED WIDDLE WORD BAWWOON…!

SIGN2: (below HEROINE's balloon; this is a large sign mounted on the wall) THIS SPACE WOULDN'T BE BAD, EITHER

PANEL 3: Vertical panel. Tight-close-up on the HERO's masked face, as he addresses the camera directly. Importantly, don't leave any room for the copy, filling up as much of the entire panel as possible with the HERO close-up; thus, the word balloons will have to obscure big chunks of his face.

HERO: (burst balloon, at top; obscures a big chunk of HERO's face) AND HERE, THE ARTIST COULDN'T BE BOTHERED TO LEAVE ENOUGH OPEN SPACE-- OR ANY OPEN SPACE AT ALL, REALLY-- FOR THE LETTERING!

HERO: (burst balloon, at bottom; obscures another big chunk of HERO's face) HE WAS ALL, "HEY, YOU CAN JUST SUCK IT, LETTERER! I EARN, LIKE, TEN TIMES YOUR PAGE RATE, PEASANT!"

PANEL 4: A large panel, here, but most of it is being taken up by a single, grotesquely large word balloon. The HEROINE is just barely visible at the panel's left edge, peeking out from around the huge word balloon to address the reader with a sad expression on her face. (The balloon's tail has to circle around to point at her, in fact.) As in panels 1 and 2, blue "electrical FX" crackle around the HEROINE's electrode antennae.

HEROINE: (BIG electrical balloon, taking up most of the panel and crowding the HEROINE to the left edge of the panel) CHECK IT OUT, FOLKS… I'M BLITHERING A RIDICULOUS TORRENT OF DIALOGUE SCRIPTED BY A WRITER WHO IS, APPARENTLY, TOO AWESOME TO BE EDITED! GOD FORBID THAT THE EDITOR EVEN DARE CONTEMPLATE TRIMMING A SINGLE MOTE OF THIS SURGING FLOOD OF OVERWRITTEN DIARRHEA TO FIT WHAT LITTLE SPACE THE NEGLIGENT ARTIST LEFT IN THIS TOO-SMALL PANEL! NO DOUBT THE WRITER WOULD DECLARE THAT, IF EVEN ONE WORD OF THIS DEATHLESS, SPARKLING WORDPLAY WERE TO BE CUT--LET ALONE AN ENTIRE LINE-- THEN THE ENTIRE COMIC WOULD SPONTANEOUSLY FALL APART! THIS STORY CANNOT CONCEIVABLY BE TOLD WITHOUT GIANT, READER-INTIMIDATING BALLOONS OVERSTUFFED WITH AT LEAST 200 OR MORE WORDS, IT SEEMS! REST ASSURED, THE WRITER SPENT COUNTLESS WEEKS-- OR DAYS, OR HOURS, OR MINUTES, AT LEAST-- AGONIZINGLY CRAFTING AND POLISHING THIS DIALOGUE TO SUCH EXQUISITE TECHNICAL PERFECTION THAT NO EDITS OR ALTERATIONS ARE POSSIBLE! OKAY, FINE, SO MAYBE THE MIGHTY SCRIBE JUST HACKED THIS OUT IN A SINGLE, LAST-MINUTE DRAFT, BUT NONETHELESS HE CAN'T BE ARSED TO MAKE ANY CHANGES, UNDERSTAND? OH, AND BOLDED "EMPHASIS LETTERING" IS OUT OF THE QUESTION, HERE, BECAUSE PROSE WRITERS DON'T USE IT, WHICH IS COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT TO WRITING IN THE COMICS MEDIUM, BUT WHO CARES ABOUT THAT? WAIT, ARE YOU STILL READING THIS? HOLY CRAP, ARE YOU A MASOCHIST OR SOMETHING?

PANEL 5: Vertical panel, featuring an EC-Comics-style horror image of sorts, riffing on the classic "INJURY TO EYE MOTIF." At the bottom of the panel is HERO's head, as if he's lying down (or has his head strapped to a table); with a look of abject terror, he's gazing upward and gibbering with fright, eyes bulging wide in horror. The rest of the panel above is left blank of artwork (save perhaps for an expressionistic background pattern, perhaps?) to leave room for some rather odd word balloons uttered by the HERO. The balloons themselves are at the top of the panel, but are dropping absurdly long, skinny, needle-like tails down towards the HERO's face; in fact, their tails are all pointing directly and threateningly at one of his bulging eyes.

HERO: (burst balloon, at top of panel; drops a very long, skinny tail down to point directly into his eye) WHAT'S UP WITH THESE WORD BALLOONS ROCKING BIZARRELY LONG, SCARY, POINTY, NEEDLE-Y TAILS?

HERO: (burst balloon, at top of panel; drops a very long, skinny tail down to point directly into his eye) INJURY TO EYE MOTIF!

HERO: (burst balloon, a bit below the first two, partially obscured by their dropping tails; in turn this balloon drops its own very long, skinny, needle-like tail down, likewise pointing close to the HERO's eye) (half-burst) >GASP<

HERO: (burst balloon, a bit below the first two, partially obscured by their dropping tails; in turn this balloon drops its own very long, skinny, needle-like tail down, likewise pointing close to the HERO's eye) (half-burst) >CHOKE<

PANEL 6: Horizontal, panoramic panel, featuring one last lettering blunder. We see headshots of a speaking HEROINE at far left and HERO at center, but the only open space left to place HEROINE's dialogue is way the hell over on the right side of the panel. So, her balloon's placed in the upper right corner, but trails an absurdly long, curving tail that loops along the bottom of the panel to point to HEROINE's happily chatting mouth; in the process, though, the balloon's tail slashes across poor HERO's throat as if it (the tail) were a physical blade, slashing his neck open in a gush of spraying blood. HERO's eyes bulge in shock as he gasps and sputters out two final burst balloons.

HEROINE: (electrical balloon, at upper right; has long, looping tail swooping down and over to point to HEROINE at left; in the process, the tail slashes the HERO's throat) SO, YEAH, WHEN SELF-INDULGENT WRITERS, OBLIVIOUS ARTISTS, OVERWHELMED LETTERERS AND STRESSED-OUT EDITORS JOIN FORCES, COMICS LETTERING CAN TURN OUT… FATALLY CRAPPY! (add little red heart after "CRAPPY!")

FX: (by HERO's slashed throat) SHLUKK

HERO: (burst balloon, at lower right) (half-burst) >GUCHKK<

HERO: NOT LIKE ANYONE ACTUALLY CARES ABOUT LETTERING, ANYWAY… (full burst) ><

Aaaand we're done!

NEXT TIME ON THIS HERE PATREON: Not sure at the moment, but as I'm rolling with Monday/ Wednesday/ Friday updates as usual, Patrons should see something at the start of next week.