Images © Marvel Characters, Inc. except as noted.

Friday, on my Todd Klein, artist page on Facebook, I put up the logo above as part of my series, “Logo of the Day,” which is nearing 400 entries. It’s a logo I designed for Marvel Comics in 1993, and it first appeared on the miniseries of the same name in 1994. Fellow letterer and friend Jon Babcock wrote there:

“Do you keep any of your roughs around? It would be great to see a series of roughs that led to this. That is a damn tough logo to pull off and I would probably have tried about 10 different things and never made it look this good. I love this stuff!”

I wish I had time to go into more detail on all the logos of my own that I put up on “Logo of the Day,” I don’t, but Jon’s question prompted me to look in my files to see what I did have on this one. What I think Jon most wanted to see are the preliminary idea sketches, and I didn’t save those. Typically I will sit at my drawing board with a few sheets of copy paper and doodle ideas, small, like thumbnails, trying to come up with a few starting points I like. Sorry, Jon, don’t have ‘em, but I do have the next step, which are marker layouts over pencils. (At least that’s what I was doing in 1993, now I often go from pencils to computer drawing.)

Each layout would be pencilled out on copy paper and inked with markers, pretty tight, but not as precisely as the final. My first idea, as you can see, was mostly what ended up on the final logo. With characters from the X-Men, any opportunity to get a big X in there is welcomed, and in this case we have the word PHOENIX, which ends in X. That led me to this idea of a large C and X bracketing the two names. I did the top line smaller and in script, for contrast and variety, and I put the AND vertically in the opening of the C. I went with block letters that have thick vertical strokes and thin horizontal ones, and I added style with gentle curves on some of the letters, probably initially as a way to get that large C in CYCLOPS to fit the space well, and extrapolating from there.

Version 2 follows the same idea, but slanted and with curvier serif letterforms for the character names and horizontal bars between each line. I thought this was a more elegant approach and I particularly like the & symbol.

For version 3 I went very blocky in a style I thought would show a lot of super-hero power, again using horizontal lines as a design element.

Those three marker sketches, all begun as pencil sketches from my original thumbnail ideas, were submitted to the editor. They liked the first version best, but asked for some changes.

First, they wanted the top line in the same style as the character names, so did a marker version of that and taped it over the original script one. I made a note about having the AND be open letters, that may have been at their suggestion. As it turned out, they wanted it in a horizontal row, in the same style and size as the top line, and in a box, so it could be positioned in front of the character names. I thought this was a poor idea, but did what they asked by lettering the final AND separately, letting them put it where they wanted it. I’ve simulated the way it looked on the printed book in my first image above. Still don’t like it, but so it goes. In this sketch, there’s the character name SCOTT SUMMERS above the logo in a similar but less curvy style, with a note about it being on an ad. That would be a house ad for the book, which I don’t have a copy of, so I’m not sure if I did that lettering eventually or not. In any case, with the logo approved, I inked a very precise version on Denril plastic vellum and sent it to Marvel as the finished product.

In interesting follow-up to this logo came a few years later, when JG Roshell of Comicraft got in touch with me to let me know that Marvel had commissioned him to create a font based on the letterforms in the logo. He had started work on it, and sent me what he’d done. JG is a fine designer, so it was good work, though I think there were some letterforms I felt I would have done differently. I agreed to help with the font, as long as I got a copy and was allowed to use it as I wished. I think JG did most of the work, and we shared credit. Comicraft agreed not to sell the font, and I don’t believe they ever have. My name for the font is TKurve, and it has two versions: Regular, matching the logo and Heavy, where all the strokes are the same weight. Not sure if Comicraft’s version is exactly the same, but if so, I’m pretty sure they don’t have the Heavy one. Here it is on a cover from 1999 with the logo by Comicraft:

I’ve used it in various places, including this 1996 logo for DC:

Image © DC Comics, Inc.

That’s all I can recall about this particular logo, hope you’ve enjoyed reading about my process. Lots more logo studies can be found on the LOGO LINKS page of my blog.

Image © DC Comics, Inc.

Interesting things going on in this book, which for once is not connected to a crossover. First someone breaks into the Bat Cave and steals something. Something that Batman has put under lock and key in the event he needs to take down one of his teammates. And it’s not the only such item! Great idea, that. Then we have two Leaguers undercover in the Middle East, the new Atom playing video games from the inside, a talk between the big three about the relationship between two of them, and real big trouble on the League satellite, with a surprise guest that should make next issue interesting, too.

In the Shazam backup, this issue is full of back-story and explanations, after very little of that previously. Black Adam is searching for Shazam, but can’t find him as Billy Batson. Batson wants help from his mentor on the Rock of Eternity, but can’t get to it without becoming Shazam. Unexpected help comes from someone I don’t think we’ve seen before, but Billy does not benefit from her advice.

Good writing on both from Geoff Johns. The Shazam story reminds me of a teenager: hardly telling you anything you want to know, then it suddenly all spews out at once and things get even more complicated! Great art on both stories by Ivan Reis with three inkers, and Gary Frank alone on Shazam.

Recommended.

Image © DC Comics, Inc.

Word is out that this book’s final issue will be #23, until it’s relaunched again for the umpteenth time. Paul Levitz’s run as writer this time is actually longer than that, as he was writing in the previous version, really it was just a reset of the numbering with little or no revamp. I’ve enjoyed this run, though I wouldn’t put it at the top of Legion runs I like. Still, Paul knows the team well, and plays out their dynamics and personal interactions with skill.

Right now in the book, everything’s blowing up, though. Was this an attempt to find new readers? Keith Giffen came aboard in the role of spoiler and destroyer, not for the first time, and things in the Legion universe are well messed at this point. The Fatal Five are loose and killing everyone in sight, some of the group are stuck aboard a sleeping giant who’s not completely asleep, and…well, no one is having a good day.

Giffen seems to be off the book except for plot advice. The art by Scott Kolins and Jeff Johnson is veering toward the cartoony, which has worked okay in the past but doesn’t serve this storyline well. Even the distortions on the faces on the cover, above, seem extreme and unappealing to me, though the cover is by someone else. The book feels like a sinking ship at the moment. We’ll see how the end pans out, I know Paul will deliver a satisfying conclusion.

Mildly recommended.

Image © DC Comics, Inc.

The crossover is nearly over. At least Sinestro is in this one. He’s back from the Dead Zone and flaming mad about the fate of his homeworld, Korugar, which has been destroyed. Kyle Rayner has the power of a White Lantern (all the colors combined), but even that, and help from Star Sapphire aren’t very effective against Sinestro’s wrath. (He’s the Kahn of the GL Universe, don’t you think?) Soon they’re joined by more Lanterns, including Simon Baz, the newest Earth one. Will that put a stop to Sinestro? Lots of fighting to find out.

Nothing wrong with the writing by Tony Bedard or the art by Andres Guinaldo and Raul Fernandez, I’m just tired of this storyline. Mildly recommended.

I can sum it up in one word: AWESOME. The 2009 revamp by the same team of creators and actors set things up nicely to continue the Star Trek franchise into the 21st century, and with this film, director J.J. Abrams and his writers have firmly announced they’ll take second place to no one. This film also shares some important story elements and characters from the second film of the previous era, but re-imagined in great ways to make it seem fresh and familiar at the same time. In fact, that seems to be the miracle that Abrams is able to bring to these characters. Despite a whole new set of actors, some perhaps a little better than others in the roles we know well, there is often a dual feeling of freshness and familiarity throughout the film. I saw some things coming, especially character moments and lines, but only seconds before they arrived, and it made me smile every time. Many other plot elements were unexpected and yet felt perfectly right when they happened. The overall plot is clever, complex and emotionally rich. The effects are wonderful, but never dominated the acting except here and there in moments of battle. Mostly if felt like they were tools to help tell the best and most exciting story possible, as they should be. There are echoes from the franchise’s past everywhere, visually, yet none that interfere with the story or feel dated. It’s really quite a remarkable balance of old and new.

Before this I always thought “Wrath of Kahn” was a film that couldn’t be topped as far as Star Trek movies go. This one may not top it, but comes in a VERY close second. Highly recommended.

Images © DC Comics, Inc.

Here are two more letter-column heading logos, for when most comics had actual printed letter columns.

Often the request was to have these titles follow the style of the cover logo, and both of these do. FILLER mimics my own logo for the comic THRILLER…

…while OUTSIDE INTERFERENCE uses the style of my logo for ADVENTURES OF THE OUTSIDERS, which itself used Gaspar Saladino’s original OUTSIDERS logo as a starting point, then added telescoping. Gaspar’s logo is the better one here, in my opinion! Letter-column logos were fun to do because the hard work of coming up with an original style was usually not required, you were simply adapting something already created.