Lettering

Lettering is used to convey the sound in a story. The words – often onomatopoeia – get across the actual sound, while almost all elements of the lettering can be manipulated to further portray aspects of the sound. You can use the style (font) of the lettering, its shape, size, length, colour and placement within (or overlapping) a frame to get across the tone of the sound, the volume, pitch and where the sound is coming from.

Here are some examples:

The way in which the lettering here is so large, jagged and in a fire-like colour illustrates the destructiveness and volume of Captain America’s action in breaking through the ice.

The placement of the onomatopoeia in this panel, along the walkway, indicates the wheels are making the noise, while the repetition of ‘rattle’ conveys how it’s constant.

Here the lettering style is mostly used to convey a video game sound.

Bryan Lee O’Malley – author of the Scott Pilgrim series – also uses lettering in a humorous, clever way in which he writes verbs (words which describe action and ways of being) and presents them in a way where comics are normally showing onomatopoeia, like Krash! Bam! etc.

For example:

Or, an even more extreme example: