that he actually knew that the earlier Old English version (long obsolete) had
an iota more calligraphic flourish than the newer, ever-so-slightly streamlined
version. Yet more importantly, he put in the extra effort (which is
considerable when one is on a tight deadline) to render these intricate letters
by hand. And that’s not all. Throughout the interior of the Book Review,
Ware used an original, quirkily curvilinear abstract display lettering style that
transformed the publication from its usual literary look into a typographic
carnival that transported the unaware readers some-WARE-else.
Indeed, Ware’s comics are so conceptually astute and
compositionally engaging that they cannot fail but connect with their
audience. Among the key attributes of this connection, his sympathetically
melancholy characters ( Jimmy, Rusty, and Quinby the Mouse among
them), his nostalgically futuristic worldscapes, and his genius for conveying
subtle time shifts in two-dimensional space are all components of
compelling narrative. But it does not take a design critic to realize that his
ingenious typography is equally (perhaps more) essential in enabling access
to an eccentric comic world that could otherwise be opaque. Ware’s various
lettering and typographic compositions, though they will never be mistaken
for the neutrality of Helvetica or Univers, exude a curiously universal allure
and a timely timelessness, like that of a personal signature. Yet one will be
hard-pressed to find any of his custom (and nameless) faces in digital type
foundry specimen books.
Although Ware’s comics are receiving wide exposure these days
(his critically praised 2000 book Jimmy Corrigan: Smartest Kid on Earth
remained a bestseller two years after its release, and he was featured as the
only comics artist in the 2002 Whitney Museum Biennial in New York),
his lettering is not for sale. Rather than being commercial property, his type
is a personal signature and each typographic confection stems from a
private obsession. “A type company asked me to do some fonts a while
back,” Ware explains, “but I realized that seeing my lettering appear on
billboards and annual reports would be about the most horrifying thing
imaginable. Besides, I don’t really think of my lettering as ‘fonts’; it’s more
or less circumstantial to the page on which it appears, and I try to let my
instincts shape how it looks.”
In addition to instincts, however, Ware is inspired by Victorian,
art nouveau, and a multitude of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century
commercial display styles, specifically from old sheet music, magazines,
advertisements, record labels, and fruit and cigar labels. “I steal constantly
from all sorts of things,” he admits, “especially when something emotionally
affects me, either for reasons of color, composition, letter style; sometimes
it’s even something as simple as the ascender and descender width relative
tuis.
(Tuis.)
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