Free Comic Book Lettering

Alright, here’s the deal. I’m trying to get started as a letterer in the comic book industry. I need some lettering work to put in my portfolio. Over the next six months (October 1, 2006 - March 31, 2007) I will be offering my lettering services for free. Yup! That’s right. FREE! If you have a comic that needs a letterer then contact me. I will provide you a PDF file of your comic pages ready for printing . This would include designing a cover page as well. Not a bad deal now is it?

Wanna know what sweetens this deal? I use professional comic book fonts from the fine folks at Comicraft! Yes sir! Those expensive fonts. I’ve been buying them for years now and have built up a nice little collection.

Com’on and hurry, because six months will go by quick and I only have so much time during a day to work on lettering. Check out my portfolio to see some freelance graphic design work I’ve done.

Update on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 by Kris Black

I did it! I got a lettering project and it’s huge. The story is 100 pages of comic book awesomeness. I suppose this may qualify as a graphic novel. With this scope of work I’m afraid this is the end of the free lettering I was offering, and I’ve met my goal just a little over two months before my self-imposed deadline. This is great. I’ll post more about the project when I can.

Signs for my Local Comic Shop

I created these signs for Acme Comics and Records, my local (and favorite) comic book shop. The signs go on the various racks of comics in the store.

These are the first of many I’ll be creating. I’m working on their Web site and will be posting their first podcast this month. Stay tuned…

GROSX Icon and Logo Design

I’m a big fan of the Gmail Google Notifier and decided to search the Web to see if I could find one for Google Reader. Sure enough, I did. It’s called GROSX which stands for Google Reader for Mac OS X. It’s developed and maintained by Eli Dourado. At the time of this writing it is only at verison 0.1.4 but it freaking ROCKS!

Anyway, Eli had posted that he was looking for a designer to create a new icon for GROSX so I decided to step up to the challenge. Being that this is my first application icon design I thought it turned out pretty darn good. I also decided to create a new logo and for GROSX which is featured below. Heck, I even created a favicon for the Web site, and a couple of Mac OS X menubar icons with room for the number of unread feeds .

Freshly Squeezed Flash

I was contacted by Rachel Hill, the owner of Freshly Squeezed Flash, to design a logo for her company. Her products were featured in the August 2006 Teen People Magazine and she was invited to submit her products as includes in the celebrity “gift bags” at the 2006 MTV Music Video Awards. Everything was moving fast for her and she needed a quick turn-around on the logo design. I was able to meet her needs in less than a day.

Update on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 by Kris Black

This logo was featured in Comicraft’s newsletter, Balloon Tales, issue No. 70 published in August 2006 … read more.

4 Things Not Known

In response to some random surfing where I found a post called “4 things not known” I decided to share 4 things about myself.

Things that you probably don’t know about me:

Four jobs I have had in my life:
1. Wal-Mart Sales Associate
2. Graphic Designer
3. Art and Photography Director
4. And my favorite … being a daddy

Four movies I would watch over and over:
1. Star Wars Episode 1
2. Monsters Inc.
3. Mallrats
4. Spider-man

Four places I have lived in:
1. Shelby, North Carolina
2. Greenville, South Carolina
3. Clemson University Campus, South Carolina
4. Columbia, South Carolina

Four TV shows I love to watch:
1. 24
2. Smallville
3. Spongbob Squarepants
4. Heroes

Four books I would recommend:
1. Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons
2. Mythology by Chip Kidd and Geoff Spear
3. The Calvin and Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book by Bill Watterson
4. iCon: Steve Jobs, The Second Greatest Act in the History of Business

Four places I have been on vacation:
1. Myrtle Beach, South Carolina
2. Walt Disney World, Orlando, Florida
3. Boone, North Carolina
4. Washington D.C.

Web sites I visit daily:
1. Google Reader
2. MacMinute
3. Newsarama
4. Kris Black DIgital Studio

Four of my favorite foods:
1. Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich
2. Milk
3. Coffee
4. Cereal

Four places I would rather be right now:
1. Wherever my wife and daughter are
2. At home in front of my Mac
3. Local comic book shop
4. Marvel Comics Headquarters

Four friends I think will respond: (don’t have to, but if you want to you can respond via email)
1. Else
2. Stacey
3. Pat
4. Matt

Now, here’s what you’re supposed to do … and please do not spoil the fun. Copy the entire text in this blog, paste this text, delete my answers and type in your answers. And publish your post. The theory is that you will learn a lot of little unknown facts about each other.