Has this come up before?
http://www.cinematical.com/2008/04/19/the-spirit-gets-two-posters/
Has this come up before?
http://www.cinematical.com/2008/04/19/the-spirit-gets-two-posters/
So forties! Aside from this fanciful usage, lettering made of bricks has an ancient heritage in Chinese and Islamic architecture. Bricks of different colors or in relief would form the outline of square-shaped letters in a frieze. Here is a an example
http://www.flickr.com/photos/youngrobv/884594610/
This style later evolved into an Arabic lettering - and now font - style called square kufic.
Sorry sii if this is not exactly the intended direction for this thread!
I strongly doubt the name "Sand Saref" is a coincidence. Punny names are not uncommon in The Spirit comics.
The poster with the buildings turned into letters is very much in keeping with the graphic style of The Spirit. Eisner often worked the title of the strip graphically into the opening "splash panel" of his comics like that. The poster may even be based on one of them.
As to Sand Serif herself, one must admit she is a very modern type with an extra bold character...
http://www.comicbookbrain.com/_large_spirit_darwyn_cooke_no_12.php
Is she from San Serriffe?
http://typophile.com/node/43808
Oh, by the way, here are some images of The Spirit and Sand Saref, as drawn by Will Eisner.
More on Sand Saref, the character (comic book character, that is).
Interestingly, the site mentions that "Eisner patterned many of his women on movie stars of his day. (...) Silk Satin was Katharine Hepburn; Sand Saref was Lauren Bacall..."
Try to live up to that, Eva Mendes!
Nice links, Ricardo - I don't care much for Will Eisner's comics, but his approach was brilliant and influential on almost anything interesting or good being done today in comics.
It seems there should be a huge crossover between fans of type and fans of comics/graphic novels... of all the art forms, comics takes its lettering most seriously. (Daniel Clowes & Chris Ware are not my faves - but, oh, they can letter! So can Crumb. Damn.)
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eeblet.com
You know, speaking of R. Crumb, I believe Steven Heller dedicated the book Handwritten to him, with an introduction that displayed many examples of Crumb's lettering over the years. (I don't have a copy of the book now, but I once borrowed it from the Brooklyn Public Library.)
[EDIT] And yeah, I agree -- those guys (Ware, Crumb, and others) are damn good when it comes to lettering, titling, etc.
Captured from commoncrawl.org on 25 Apr 2015. original URL