Continuing my ongoing series about the cover lettering of Danny Crespi at Marvel Comics, mostly from 1974-1978. Photocopies of saved cover lettering from Danny’s files were compiled into a collection by letterer and friend Phil Felix during the 1980s when he worked with Danny on staff at Marvel, and Phil sent me copies. This time I’ll look at pages 37 (above) to 40. On page 37, one item is not like the others. It has a much narrower panel border, the open lettering outlines are also narrower, and the textures are more delicate and perhaps a bit more artful. If you spotted it as “INFERNO,” you’re correct. That’s the work of Gaspar Saladino, clinched by his particular style of open R where the break in the right edge is below the center of the middle stroke, as if it was a P with the right leg added. Here are the sources I’ve found.

Continuing my ongoing series about the cover lettering of Danny Crespi at Marvel Comics, mostly from 1974-1978. Photocopies of saved cover lettering from Danny’s files were compiled into a collection by letterer and friend Phil Felix during the 1980s when he worked with Danny on staff at Marvel, and Phil sent me copies. This time I’ll look at pages 33 to 36.  Page 33, above, has many characteristic style points of Danny’s own work on covers, including thick caption borders that extend past the corners (those extensions were trimmed off when photostatted and pasted on the cover art), generally bouncy and somewhat rounded open letters, an upturned right leg on the open R in “Deathcry,” and very wide standard lettering, as seen here on “The menace of the.” Uses of these captions are below.

Continuing my exploration of Phil Felix’s photocopied pages of (mostly) cover lettering by Danny Crespi, with a few things by others, this time covering pages 29-32. Page 29, above is all lettered by Crespi. The bottom piece is a rare title from an interior text page (rare in this collection, at least). Sources follow.

This time I’m covering pages 25 to 28 of the collection of Marvel cover lettering from about 1974 to 1978—mostly by Danny Crespi—compiled by fellow letterer Phil Felix. I never met Danny but have an ever-growing respect and appreciation for his work seen in these photocopies of his hand-lettered cover titles and balloons.

This time I’m covering pages 21 to 24 of the collection of Marvel cover lettering from about 1974 to 1978—mostly by Danny Crespi—compiled by fellow letterer Phil Felix. Above is page 21. These are all lettered by Danny I believe. If you’re following the series, you should have picked up some clues by now about his style. One obvious one on this page are the heavy panel borders that often extend beyond the corners. Those extensions were cut off when the lettering was photostatted and pasted onto the cover art. Another clue is the right leg of the R in display lettering often turns up at the end. Not every time, but there are several examples here. Danny’s non-display or regular lettering is very wide and very even and regular with little or no “bounce.”