Design Literacy: Understanding Graphic Design

are pasted on the originals, or assembled in Quark (like the introductory
pages for the comics, etc.). Regarding the claim in the first paragraph of
this article that he spends untold hours lettering, Ware quantifies that,
saying, “On an average strip, the actual balloon lettering usually takes an
hour or two, the ‘logo,’ an hour or two. The whole strip takes about forty
hours. The cover of the last issue [of ACME Novelty Comics] took about
three weeks.” And that is because he rendered what he refers to as “super-
fancy engraving lettering” that “I’ve pathetically tried to imitate in the
comic books sometimes, that’s more of just a personal challenge to see if I
can do it, to see if I can get that sense of delicacy and care into my stuff—
which I never do.”
The sheer virtuosity of Ware’s lettering should belie his effacing
modesty. But when asked to explain why he is so painstakingly perfect
while Crumb’s work, for instance, is so rough-hewn, the answer suggests
his motivating force: “He’s a good artist and I’m not.” But he quickly adds,
“I don’t know—I used to cartoon much more loosely, with a crow quill, and
still do in my sketchbook, though I want the fictional stories I do, at least,
to have a distance to them—a sort of mechanical clarity—that I can’t get
from just a pen.”
Over the years Ware has focused on expanding his lettering
repertoire. His self-published journal The Rag-Time Ephemeralist, devoted
to a passion for arcane turn-of-the-century American music, is exquisitely
lettered and accurately typeset (with lots of Cooperplate and Latin
Condensed) to suggest late nineteenth-century magazines like Phrenology
or Frank Leslie’s Monthly.It is a masterpiece of typographic history. And it
is this love of history that keeps Ware interested in pursuing type. But
when pressed as to why exactly he renders a new logo for his weekly Rusty
Brown comic strip, he doesn’t extol the virtues of art or history. He’s got a
more practical motive: “I do a different one every week, just to keep things
lively, and to keep in practice.”