When peoplereadmanga, they often focus on the Instagram caption-worthy one-liners and larger-than-life illustrations that fill their pages.
Letterers are localizing everything from restaurant signs to handwritten love letters.
If the reader is meant to read it, then the letterer has to localize it.
“The Guy She Was Interested in Wasn’t a Guy at All” by Sumika Arai, lettering by Brandon Bovia.© Yen Press
The kinds of things we have to localize vary from genre to genre, Linsley said.
Furthermore, letters are also tasked with stylizing the font in the manga.
Lettering is an art, and sloppy lettering can ruin a localization, Linsley said.
Sara Linsley’s lettering for Pupposites Attract by Hono Natsuna © Kodansha
In laymans terms, manga letterers must erase handwritten Japanese text elements and replace them with English text elements.
If something needed to be retouched, it needed to be retouched twiceboth in black and white and green.
Then add the green back into the new English text, Bovia said.
Sara Linsley’s lettering for Pupposites Attract by Hono Natsuna © Kodansha
And I was juggling eight other books at the same time.
I have a go at avoid using fonts for my sound effects.
A modern manga looks fine with modern fonts, but an older one doesnt.
Brandon Bovia’s lettering forThe Hunter’s Guild: Red Hoodby Yuki Kawaguchi. © Shonen Jump
That results in very different-looking implementations of the same font between those publishers, Clarke said.
Mind you, some of these rates havent changed much since 2013 for letterers.
But currently I do other side hustles to earn [more] money.
Brandon Bovia’s lettering forThe Guy She Was Interested in Wasn’t a Guy at Allby Sumika Arai © Yen Press
However, even this security blanket has an element of a double-edged sword.
As a freelancer, you dont want to ask for extensions too often.
Whether that means youre lettering a manga or whether it means youre making the nextGrand Theft Autogame.
Ink-drawn manga lettering forAshita no Joe.© Evan Hayden
People have to work crushing hours to make that happen, Hayden said.
And if youre a freelancer, youre getting whatever youre getting, whether you do it quick or slow.
At the same time, some letterers jerry-rig their workflow so that theyre ostensibly working a full-time job lettering.
Barri Shrager’s lettering forMeda-Ude: Mechanical Armsby Yoshino Koyoka. © Azuki Manga
The manga industry is notorious for contractor-only work; its pretty cutthroat.
The things I do out of love, y’all.pic.twitter.com/46SsP9Od8V
Brandon Bovia | Beyblade X volume 1 available now!
Its a really hard thing to make ends meet with.
Barri Shrager’s lettering forMy Dear Detective Mitsuko’s Case Filesby Natsumi Ito. © Azuki Manga
I have a part-time job that Ive held the entire length of my lettering career.
The longest Ive had to wait was a little over two months, and that was hard.
Despite this, letterers balance their workload by typesetting manga monthly or weekly.
Sara Linsley’s lettering forKamudoby Akira Himekawa. © Viz Manga
People are interested in comics because they are a form of art.
Theyre not just content.
Despite the encroachment of AI, the manga industry faces other persistent issues.
Sara Linsley’s lettering forDandadanby Yukinobu Tatsu. © Shonen Jump
Rates are fairly stagnant.
Ive seen companies make efforts to raise rates, but its been a slow process.
Linsley added, The pay is so low that letterers have to overload themselves.
Barri Shrager’s lettering forHikaru in the Light!by Mai Matsuda. © Azuki Manga
That doesnt have to be the case.
That doesnt feel like the best way to run things to me.
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