After bouncing around at a few local colleges in upstate New York, Randy Gentile made the decision to move to New York City where he attended Pratt Institute. He landed an internship in the famous Marvel Bullpen and was able to turn that into a full-time gig in the now defunct Marvel in-house lettering department. He later transitioned to Chris Eliopoulos’ Virtual Calligraphy lettering studio.
With VC he lettered damn near every Marvel book at one time or another including Amazing Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, Incredible Hulk, Iron Man, Uncanny X-Men, Punisher, and Marville… wait, Marville?
Anyway, after 7 years of lettering Randy decided to make a go of it on his own without the aid of Chris “Obi-Wan” Eliopoulos. Since then he’s begun lettering for DC Comics where his work can be seen in funny books like Batman, Detective Comics, Gotham Underground, Teen Titans and Booster Gold.
Outside of his lettering work he self-publishes an autobiographical comic called NYComix and an uber-fast paced superhero strip called Randall. Both comics have been featured on Comic Geek Speak and Fanboy Radio.
When he’s not wallowing in lettering self-pity he spends his time in Brooklyn along with his lovely wife, Ereisa and their three cats Finnian, Don Fanucci and Olive.
The R. Crumb Influence
Font You! Week 2
So last week I put in some serious time at the lettering desk. I had a few books due and with the day job that means I basically get home from work at like 7 p.m., have dinner, spend as much time with my wife as possible and then head to the studio where I'll letter until like 1 a.m. or so. Then I go to bed, wake up a little before 7 a.m. and do it all over again. The good thing is that this schedule isn't completely horrible, I mean, I'm sure there are folks out there that would kill for 5 or 6 hours of sleep a night.
Right next to my monitor is a little 13-inch TV and DVD combo that's absolutely indispensable to me. Most artists that you talk to either play music or listen to TV for that much needed background noise. I obviously can't watch a movie and letter at the same time but while I'm saving a file or whatever I'll take a peek. Or if I'm watching Goodfellas I'll take a break to watch Billy Bats tell Tommy to go get his shine box. You can't not watch that scene.
My DVD collection is decent at best, nothing overwhelming, I'd love to have a lot more discs but hey, I've got my go-to flicks that not only provide me with a little entertainment but, more importantly, with instant inspiration. One of those titles is Terry Zwigoff's documentary Crumb.
If you haven't seen Crumb you're truly missing out on one of the best documentaries ever made. Even if you're comic fan who isn't familiar with Crumb's work it's a film worth watching. Hell, even a non-comic fan would enjoy this film. It won the 1994 Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival and the late Gene Siskel named it his best movie of that year.
Crumb's art is some of the most complex and deep work that comics have ever seen and every independent artist of today owes a huge debt of gratitude to his contribution to the medium. From Adrian Tomine's Optic Nerve to Joe Matt's Peepshow, his influences are more deeply ingrained in independent comics than Kirby's or Eisner's are in mainstream comics. The honesty that Crumb so unabashedly injected into his work is something everyone who has done an autobiographical comic strives to have the courage to put into his or her own work. That kind of courage isn't something that's easy to put down on paper. Somehow Crumb seems to have no problem letting the world take a peek into his somewhat disturbing psyche.
Even Crumb's lettering has had a huge impact on how I letter my own strips. His style is clean and as instantly recognizable as his art. Take notice of his title page designs, which are as intricate and beautifully done as his sequential work.
Blending my lettering with my art is something I struggle with every time I do a new comic. Randall was my first time hand lettering a strip and while I think I was successful in some places, I failed miserably in others. Looking at Crumb's lettering it's amazing to think that you could white out his art, leaving just his balloons, and you'd still know it was Crumb's work. 
Take a look at the lettering of guys like Chris Ware or Dave Sim. Jim Mahfood's lettering is instantly recognizable. It's both inspiring and refreshing to see artists putting as much thought into their lettering as they do into every other aspect of their comic, reminding you that comics aren't always assembly lines.
Anyway, getting back to the Crumb flick, I'm willing to bet that after you watch the movie, you'll go out and pick up some Crumb books. There are plenty of places to start and I'd recommend any of the Complete Crumb Comics, which I believe are up to Volume 17 now. They're a neat mixture of sequential and sketchbooks, you can't go wrong with some art from one of the greatest cartoonists of all-time.
Font The News!
- Brain K. Vaughan's fan-favorite Vertigo book Y: The Last Man came to a conclusion with issue #60 recently and while I admit I've only read the first trade of Y. I'm a huge fan of Brian's work and Y is a book I'll surely finish reading at some point.
I've always, however, been a huge fan of Runaways. It was my best lettering experience at Marvel and in a bit of serendipitous coincidence the last issue of Brian's run on the book was the one of the last issues I lettered. One thing that always irks me about Big 2 Comics is the lack of new characters and directions. Runaways was just the opposite. It's a fresh and fun story that you don't find anywhere else in the Marvel Universe. You can pick up the digest size trades in full color for like 8 bucks. Give ‘em a shot. If not just for the lettering. :-)
Some other BKV books worth picking up are Pride of Baghdad, which boasts some gorgeous art by Niko Henrichon. BKV has a Marvel limited series hitting in April called Logan with art by Eduardo Risso. You often hear about Wolverine being in every book but c'mon, BKV and Risso? That's awesome. So while Y may be over…. There's plenty of other BKV goodness left to enjoy. - Long time Marvel artist Mark Bagley has to be elated to no longer be drawing those webs on Spider-Man's costume. The man who has drawn Spider-Man more than anyone else is history (and did so on time!) has moved on after signing an exclusive contract with DC. This piece of the Big 3 caught my eye. Word is he'll be working on a weekly series called Trinity written by Kurt Busiek.
- Cool news out of the Big Apple last week when the Feds pinched 61 reputed Mobsters… including the ENTIRE Gambino hierarchy. These poor guys, just trying to earn… there's no such thing as the Mafia.
"Joe Rackets". Dom "The Grease ball", "Bobby the Jew" Epifania, "One Eye" Ferrisi. You can't make this stuff up, folks. The local NYC Rag covered it here.
Here's to hoping Scorsese is looking into the film rights of that story. - Huge news for Star Wars fans as Lucasfilm announced that the long awaited Clone Wars Animated series will debut as a feature film this August followed by a television series running on TNT in the fall. The Clone Wars animated shorts on the Cartoon Network a few years back blew my mind. Here are a couple of links including the first trailer. I just turn into a giddy fanboy when I see this stuff. I loved the Prequels. Yeah, I said it.
Pics
Trailer
So that's enough for this week folks… I'm heading down to Jim Mahfood's first art show here in NYC this weekend. I'll be taking pics and maybe get a word with Food One himself. Stay tuned for Week 3…
Font You!
-Randy
Got a comment or question about this Soapbox?
Leave at message at the Font of Wisdom Forum.