Sweeney Todd, that is. In honor of Neil’s birthday today I thought I’d post this lettering from the Prologue to what was planned to be a series written by Neil Gaiman, art by Michael Zulli, lettering by me. Only the Prologue was ever produced. This was lettered on vellum over Michael’s art in 1991 or ’92, and per the instructions, reversed to white lettering on black for the printed book. For the title I was going for something Victorian as well as demonic, and I think it works pretty well. The subtitle lettering is less successful, not really an appropriate style and the ink spread a bit making it hard to read in spots. Or that might just be from a too-dark photocopy. Too bad it never went any further, but I did work with the two of them on some Sandman issues that were quite enjoyable a few years later. The text is © Neil Gaiman. Happy birthday, Neil!
it’s quite lovely, todd.
would i be correct in suspecting that you used a point that gave you heavier lines than normal, anticipating that the lines would close up a bit when reversed? at Marvel, Danny Crespi coached me to use heavier lines when stuff was gonna get reversed.
yeah, happy birthday, neil. i mighta lettered your stuff sometime someday, if you hadn’t discovered Todd first.
Yes, I would have used a thicker line on this, another reason the subtitles might be too heavy and running together a bit.