Comicraft font sale!

Indie comics publishers; want to add a professional look to your logos? Mainstream publishers; want to expand your font library? Now is the perfect time to do so because Comicraft are having a half-price font sale!

Simply choose the fonts that are appropriate for your comic, buy 'em, and download them to your computer to use in Photoshop, Illustrator or whatever. 

I've been using Comicraft fonts for my comics covers for the past few years, as you can see. (Click to enlarge.)

Sure, there are fonts you can get for free elsewhere, but if you're doing a comic you need the best, most professional fonts, and Comicraft delivers the goods. Yeah, I know this sounds like sales hype, and, no, I'm not getting any perks for doing this. I really think these are great fonts. Interested? Here's the link...
https://www.comicbookfonts.com

Font-astic!

New Year's Day is an important day for comic creators and designers across the world. Why? It's the day of the annual Comicraft New Year's Day Font Sale of course! They're the absolute best specialized comic book fonts in the business and if you're designing a comic, or lettering your own strips, they have a fantastic range of fonts to buy. I used some of their fonts on the cover of Brickman Returns! and I have some in mind for my future projects. Professional fonts at great prices. Don't miss their sale on New Year's Day!
http://www.comicbookfonts.com/ 

New Year, New Logo

As you may have noticed, this blog now bears a brand new masthead. The old one had been in place since July 2011 so I thought New Year's Day 2015 would be a good time to revamp it. 

Blimey! has had a few logo changes since I started this blog in December 2006. Originally I just used a font that Blogger provided, but that tended to look quite dull for something as bright and colourful as a comics blog so in 2007 or 2008 I started designing my own. Here's a few of them from over the years...

2008. Better than using Blogger's template but the background's a bit empty...

 A few comic covers added to liven up the background...

2009. A bolder logo...

2009, Christmas variant with snow on the logo and a few different covers in the background...

January 2011. Bigger, more like a magazine masthead, which is what I was aiming for. But the logo doesn't look 'comicy' enough...

So in July 2011 I redesigned it with a logo more akin to comics. I also dropped the sub-title 'It's another blog about comics' as a few other blogs had followed with something similar so I thought an emphasis on the Blimey! logo worked better.

I've usually done a Christmas variant every year. I can't find all of the files right now but here's the most recent one from Christmas 2014...

Today I designed the latest one. This was the first version which was only up for a few hours as I felt it was lacking something...

So I tweaked it a bit. Nah, still didn't like it too much...

I tweaked it a bit more, added a shadow, and here's the finished result. I'm quite pleased with this one as it echoes the design of a classic British comic logo...

Most of the fonts I've used over the years are ones I bought from Comicraft. (This latest logo design is from a font called Hero Sandwich.) I know there are lots of free fonts out there (some ok, some not so good) but if you want the best professional comic book fonts, Comicraft are the people to go to. (Which is why so many comics use them.) Their annual New Year's Day font sale is still on for a few more hours (as it's still New Year's Day in some parts of the world) so visit their website and have a look around:

http://www.comicbookfonts.com/

I hope you'll forgive the self-indulgence of this post. Don't worry, I'll be back to blogging about comics again soon! 

First comics of 2014

Years ago, shops used to be closed on New Year's Day but times change. Amongst the newspapers delivered to newsagents today were the first of this year's comics; 2000AD and Toxic. 

2000AD Prog 1862 continues the new stories that began in the Christmas triple-issue Prog 2014 a few weeks ago, so we have the second chapters of Strontium Dog, ABC Warriors and Ulysses Sweet, plus a complete Future Shock and the beginning of a new Judge Dredd epic, Titan. 

Britain's sole surviving adventure comic weekly enters its 37th year with a strong line-up. 36 thrill-packed pages and still only £2.35.

For younger readers, Toxic magazine No.231 comes bagged with several gifts including a Toxic Catapult Pen, a sturdy metal and plastic freebie ideal for kids to flick whatever they choose across a room. Use such power responsibly. 

Inside, there's a bunch of breezy features on movies, games and suchlike, an Angry Birds board game, and a few strips including Team Toxic, written and drawn by myself. As you may recall, Team Toxic went to reprint about ten months ago, but this issue marks the return of brand-new episodes. In this first new adventure, the Team encounter Guffzilla, a fart creature from Kid Zombie's nether regions. 

Toxic is £2.99 and is published every three weeks.

A new publication that launched at the end of 2013 was the Marvel's Mightiest Heroes Graphic Novel Collection. These hardback books are being packaged by Panini UK for Hachette, with Ed Hammond as editor and Alan Cowsill writing background material about the comics and characters. The books will reprint classic 1960s material alongside more contemporary stories. The first edition reprints Avengers No.1 from 1963 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, and Avengers vol.3 No.0, and 19 to 22 by Kurt Busiek and George Pérez. Launch price is a very cheap £1.99. The second volume (featuring Spider-Man) will be £6.99, then the partwork settles on its full price of £9.99 per book.

If you're quick you'll still be able to catch the annual Comicraft New Year's Day Font Sale. Every Jan.1st, for one day only, Comicraft price their excellent fonts at just $20.14 each. These are the top quality lettering fonts in the business, perfect if you're producing your own comics, or if you're a designer in any capacity. Some of those fonts adorn this very blog, used for the Blimey! title banner and elsewhere. Don't settle for less. Buy the best!
http://www.comicbookfonts.com/      

Finally, my wishes to you all for a healthy and prosperous New Year. 2013 was a very bad year for me, with the passing of my mum, the last of my family, (details here if you're interested) but I'm hoping 2014 brings better fortunes - for all of us. 

Comicraft's New Year Font Sale!

Comic book lettering is just as important as the artwork in the presentation of a professional looking page. Bad dialogue lettering can distract from the flow of the story and poor display lettering can diminish the impact of a cover. If you are thinking of putting together your own comic in 2012, or if you're an established publisher, or you want to brighten up your website, it could be a wise move to invest in a few smart top quality fonts from the people at Comicraft on January 1st! Yes, it's Comicraft's Annual New Year's Day font sale and all fonts will, for one day only, be available at the bargain price of $20.12 each!

I've used Comicraft fonts myself, and will be using them more often once I find time to self publish the comics I have in mind for 2012. (The font Danger Girl is the one I use for the current Blimey! logo for example.) I enjoy doing my own lettering and sound effects on single pages but for the sake of speed, convenience and versatility, computer fonts are ideal for bigger jobs such as full length comics. (And, for those artists who create their comics on computer they're essential of course.)

OK, some of you will be wondering why you should bother to buy fonts when there are free ones out there for the taking. Well, some of them are a poor substitute for specially designed comic book fonts. Richard Starkings and John Roshell have years of experience in producing top quality comic book lettering, logos and sound effect fonts for Marvel, DC and many more. You get what you pay for, although in the case (no pun intended) of the font sale you get better than what you pay for.

I certainly intend to purchase some this coming Sunday. (Still trying to decide which ones yet though, with so many to choose from.)

Anyway, if you're interested take a look at the easy to navigate Comicraft website (which is designed using their fonts, showing how effective they can be). Remember, the font sale is for one day only on January 1st!

...and while you're at it, check out Richard Starkings' other venture, the brilliant Elephantmen comic book (and graphic novels):
http://www.hipflask.com/news/index.html