This article collects information on lots of DC Comics titles beginning with M that have some Gaspar Saladino lettering but not enough for a separate article. I believe the one-shot above was published to use up inventory from from the previously cancelled DOORWAY TO NIGHTMARE. Gaspar did the logo and the cover lettering. Interesting to see DC promoting creators in the cover blurbs, something they barely acknowledged ten years earlier.

The issue above again has a Saladino logo and cover lettering, his only work on the two-issue series. Despite that, the character had a long life elsewhere. I always felt the character and the logo were a misfire, a too-obvious result of someone switching the two halves of the name BATMAN around, and the logo has none of the interest of Batman’s own logo.

This series based on a toy line followed a four issue miniseries and ran nine issues, all but one with Saladino cover lettering. I like the way he fit FIRST ISSUE into an oval shape here.

Lettering held in a color looks best when at least one ink is used at a solid 100%, as was done here with the magenta ink.

A suitably rough and organic character name for a woman riding a monster.

Gaspar’s melty story title works perfectly with the similar effect in the art, and remains easy to read.

Another miniseries based on a toy line, Saladino lettered only this cover.

This charming series mixing humor and heroics ran twelve issues and three specials, and Gaspar lettered many of the covers. By this time, DC was totally into the comic collecting idea, promoting it in the top blurb. The character names are headline type.

In the early days of comics, multiple exclamation marks were common, but they were generally frowned on by this time. The top blurb here uses them, and I think they work fine. I also like the burst.

Gaspar could always be counted on for exciting flaming letters, as here. The blurb in the UPC Code box would have appeared only on Direct Sales copies in comics shops.

A nice example of an infinity cover, where the image is repeated in ever smaller sizes. Naturally, the lettering was only done on the largest size, and the smaller versions were created with photostats except for the character faces.

Metamorpho, an early attempt at DC at an anti-hero, starred in his own title for 17 issues in 1965 to 1968, and Gaspar lettered several of the covers, starting with this one. At this time he was still filling in for Ira Schnapp, the main cover letterer, and not quite up to speed. The caption shape is odd, and its border seems too thick here.

The caption on this cover works better for me, the shading on the border gives it depth, and the shape is better.

In all three of these early covers we see Saladino striking out in his own direction, not trying to imitate Schnapp. He got better as he went along, I think this caption is the best of the three.

By this final fill-in issue, Gaspar had arrived at a better approach to open lettering using wide letters with thin outlines, except on WITCH, which has a scary approach. That question mark at the end is crammed in, perhaps an afterthought.

By the final issue, Schnapp had left DC, and Gaspar was doing nearly all the cover lettering.

This eight issue event series had Saladino lettering on every issue, but all followed the same layout except for issue #2. They were probably all done at the same time, and only that issue needed a different layout because of the cover art.

This was a six-issue crime series of 1994-95 from DC’s Vertigo line. Gaspar lettered all the stories.

An interesting balloon style by Saladino on this page.

This crime series ran from 1948 to 1959, and Saladino lettered only the final cover.

Gaspar also lettered this one four-page story for the series, his only interior work.

Another long running series at DC for which Saladino lettered only this one cover as it was about to change titles to THE DOOM PATROL.

To sum up, I found Saladino lettering on these covers:

MADAME XANADU: 1

MAN-BAT: 2

MASK: 1-6, 8-9

MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE: 3

‘MAZING MAN: 1-2, 4, 6-7, 9-11, Special 3

METAMORPHO: 7, 9-10, 13, 16-17

MILLENNIUM: 1-8

MR. DISTRICT ATTORNEY: 67

MY GREATEST ADVENTURE: 81

That’s a total of 36. Below are the details of his story lettering.

MOBFIRE #1-6: 24pp per issue

MR DISTRICT ATTORNEY #35: 4pp

That’s 148 pages in all. Other articles in this series and more you might like are on the COMICS CREATION page of my blog.