Comic typefaces are deep!
Do you know about a typeface for comics? ? ?
The fonts for the annual flat-rate font service "LETS" provided by Fontworks include fonts that are best suited for use in comics (manga). This font was developed and released jointly with a printing company that publishes a weekly magazine for a certain boy. It was born when there were few variations corresponding to the typesetting typefaces of digital fonts at the time when the manga production environment was changed from the conventional analog work method to digitization.
In this column, I would like to introduce the "comic typeface" that everyone who reads manga has seen.
At the end of this column, you will find useful information that you can try out all the LETS fonts for free, including the comic fonts that make you think "manga is this!"!
What is a comic typeface?
What is "comic typeface"?
A typeface often used for comic balloons, "Anticks".. This is a typeface that combines Gothic Kanji and “Kana” like Mincho. Combining the Kanji of "Cezanne" with the newly created kana of antique type Antic Cezanne Is ideal for basic typefaces in comics.
Perfect for mysterious scenes and lines in your heart Comic Mystery Is a comic typeface created based on the existing Fontworks typeface "Mystery". It has a serious but powerful impression.
Perfect for mysterious scenes and lines in your heart Comic Reggae“” is a comic typeface that has been adjusted in density to give a powerful impression to the existing Fontworks typeface “Reggae”. Often used in angry situations, this typeface is also suitable for telops.
The main part of the manga is "pictures", but the equally important elements are word expressions such as serifs, monologues, and narration.
Various characters (male, female, child, adult, old man, protagonist, villain, and so on) appear in the manga, and they each have their own "voice".
I can't really hear the voice because it's on paper, but I'm sure that I will be replacing the voice color in my head, depending on the character and gender of each character, as I read it.
If you think so, instead of expressing all of these with one type of font, it will be more immersive for the reader if they are expressed with each voice color.
The typefaces used in various scenes in manga are called "comic typefaces."
For the basic serifs, fonts with the highest readability are often used.
An antique typeface that combines Mincho and Gothic. Our typeface is "Antic Cezanne".
With many scenes in manga, such as joy scenes, slightly horror scenes, and mysterious scenes, the typeface is an important element that is essential to the production of the atmosphere. I think once again that it's a manga including fonts!
I took the main typefaces that are often used for comics as an example, but among them, "Comic Mystery" and "Comic Reggae" are the typefaces developed exclusively for comics!
Comic typeface, secret story of birth
Collaboration with Kyodo Printing
Kyodo Printing is a company that has a wide range of businesses including printing / publishing, business media, and living / industrial materials. The printing and publishing department provides various services centered on printing media, from planning and production to logistics, and is promoting sales through promotion activities that utilize various devices and IT-related solution businesses. ..
It is such a joint printing company, but he was working hard to digitize the manga production environment.
I've been producing analog manga for a long time, but <Everyone can easily make it> <Improving the work efficiency in making plates from magazines to comics> I felt the need, so from typesetting to plate making I tried to digitize part of the flow.
One of the bottleneck in the transition from paper typesetting of manga to DTP was the problem that there is no digital font that can express the power of manga. Since the designs and weights I have used so far are different, the situation was such that even if I used a similar font, the image on the magazine was scattered and weightless.
Therefore, Kyodo Printing and Fontworks decided to jointly develop a "digital typeface suitable for comics."
You may be wondering, "Which of these fonts were developed exclusively for comics?"
For more information about that, Based on a weekly magazine for boyscolumn Is posted.
There are lots of interesting contents such as how the fonts used in manga were digitized, the problems that occurred at that time, and how they are used in famous manga. Please read it!
