X-9 by Mel Graff

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I discovered today that I like the look of Mel Graff's 40's-50's cartooning, so I tracked down some strips at Heritage Auctions. I turned them into line art and put them into one page as a fun comic strip continuity project! Thrill to the adventures of Corrigan (aka X-9), Corrigan's double, Joe Otterfoot, and the handling of illegal venison. Strips are from 1944, 1949 and 1955.

Also make note of Graff's special lettering for the caption boxes--good stuff!

Graff promo art and bio at Joakim Gunnarsson's blog

Secret Agent X-9 wikipedia entry

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Title Block

I have to put in some overtime at work this week (so my comic strip for this week is lagging), but a benefit, along with time-and-a-half, of course, is coming across stuff like this:

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Back in the old days big architects firms knew a good logo when they saw one. Nowadays I'm not so sure, they're a little too plain for me. This thing was handlettered by a professional! A couple more nice bits:

A graceful "of" can make even the ugliest stencilled numbers look nice.

Supplies

Just felt like putting up a picture of the pens and stuff I've been cartooning with lately. I ink all the characters with the brush pen. The backgrounds are done with the 512 nib and the brush pen. B-3 for the panel borders, B-5 for the balloon edges and other lines here and there, B-6 for that stuff, too. I use the Pigma Graphic 1 for the lettering, but may try switching to B-5 or B-3 for that eventually. I use the Micron 8 for fixing stuff here and there. I have a couple of brushes but only really use those for filling in blacks or applying white corrections.

That's a lead holder I got from the Colorado Art Istitute when I went there, I presume all brands are alike, mine's pretty good. I use a pretty hard lead, but I can't remember the number. It seems like it's 2H or 2B? I dunno. It comes out pretty light, erases pretty easily.

I also use a bottle of ink, right now it's Bombay brand, seems pretty good, and Pro White for white out and snazzy white on black effects, if I feel like it (i've done it once or twice only).

I really like the lines I get from the 512 nib and I've been using it all over the place on my comic strips. I really never used nibs very much, but I finally gave them a try after having one of those Speedball starter packs floating around forever. If you're scared you should try them out yourself. I still haven't gotten the hang of the Hunt 102, though.

It's The Result That Counts

From New Letters and Lettering. See the cover in this post.

Things I Have Bought Lately

The Speedball Text Book from 1948, 88 pages. Jam packed with sample alphabets and instructions for the letterer. I broke out the speedball nibs I have and did a page's worth of practicing, and it wasn't too bad. I improved right away...

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F.G. Cooper Lettering from 1916