There are a lot of talked about aspects when it comes to manga, but out of all of them, manga lettering is generally the one aspect that’s not talked about much. That’s mostly because the only time you would ever notice a letterer is if the manga they actually worked on has mistakes with the text, the bubbles, the sfx, etc. Outside of that, you just read the manga.
So I’ll definitely continue to get in touch with as many letterers as I can, but I might as well start with what I know! Lys Blakeslee took part in the advice for manga letterers article and throughout that process revealed some stuff that explained a bit about the industry, but also a bit about making a living in this industry as a letterer. So I emailed questions over to her some time ago, and she recently found the time to answer them.
Organization ASG: How were you introduced into the world of manga?
Lys Blakeslee: Through anime—Sailor Moon, naturally! Actually, Pokemon gets some credit too… My younger brothers were into the Pokemon cards, Game Boy games, and anime around the time I discovered Sailor Moon on TV, the summer before my first year of high school. Sometime around then, our dad took us to the local comic shop so the little bros could get trading cards, and while there I was browsing the shelves and spinning racks when I spied a familiar blonde hair style. It was Mixx’s Sailor Moon, issue number 10! I brought it home and was immediately hooked, requiring regular trips to the comic shop to keep up with the series and track down earlier issues. From there, I started picking up the collected volumes at my favorite bookstore, and soon developed a great love for the hand-drawn artistry of manga, the chatty columns from the artists, the satisfaction of a good big chunk of story contained in 200-odd pages…
OASG: When did you first learn about lettering and what did you believe people’s perceptions of lettering were?
Lys: This is a harder one to answer because I didn’t have that one “Aha!” moment of realizing that lettering was a Thing. I was always aware of it on some basic level. I’ve always been detail-oriented and noticed how things were done, so even as far back as Sailor Moon, I could find spots where the Japanese kana had been missed from retouching (I got out a little pocket mirror, since the art was still flipped then, and meticulously compared the marks to the hiragana/katakana charts in the J-E dictionary I’d borrowed from the library…). Other times I would notice how the screentone had been cleaned up to cover Japanese text (and when the Photoshop clone brush had been abused or used carelessly) or when text was placed in the wrong bubble: alas, as usual, good lettering by its nature tends to get overlooked, while bad work is what draws attention. As I grew more interested in manga titles, publishers, and the individuals who worked on books, I began to keep a list of translator/adapter/letterer credits so I could see who worked on what and get a better sense of the industry (for no other reason than my own curiosity, at the time). I remember specifically noticing and admiring Sabrina Heep’s lettering work: she’s one of the only letterers I know (from the titles I read) who hand-writes/draws many of the sound effects and asides, and I appreciated that level of care and respect for maintaining the artistry of the original page.
OASG: What’s it been like lettering for manga publishers for as long as you have? Did you expect this would be something you’d be doing in your life?
Lys: I didn’t expect it to be my career when I went to college for art or even by the time I graduated, but when the opportunity to try the work was presented to me, I was totally ready to go for it! And now it’s been four and a half years and I still love it as much as ever, or more, since I’ve learned so much in that time and get to work on so many wonderful series now! It does seem like a great fit for me, since I do pay attention to the fine details, and also don’t mind (even enjoy) some of the more tedious parts of the process. I hope manga publishing never goes away, because I’d love to keep lettering forever!
OASG: Making a living in manga is not easy, but you mentioned you’re able to make a full time living off of manga lettering. I’m guessing you can’t share everything in regards to your lifestyle, but I’m curious how you’re managing to do so.
Lys: I live pretty cheap! I don’t know how my city’s cost of living compares to others around the country, but it’s definitely cheaper than the really big cities, and that’s one advantage to freelancing—you can do the work from anywhere (with an internet connection). I don’t drive, which eliminates car payments, car insurance, maintenance, and gas—I moved from the suburb where I grew up into the city (it’s not a huge city but it’s big enough to have fun stuff going on) and can get a lot of places by bus, bike, or on foot. I don’t have a TV and my phone bill is probably lower than most people my age: I’ve used the same flip-phone since 2006 or 7 (I don’t use it for anything except calling—I’m kinda a grandma in that way). I love to make my own food rather than go out, so my groceries are pretty inexpensive too. Manga is probably my biggest expense, outside of necessities like rent and health insurance. I just bought a house so I expect my budget will be in for some changes going forward, but I can survive off beans and rice and foraging and my favorite manga, if need be! (I don’t think it will come to that.)
I do have to stress that it wasn’t an immediate jump from starting lettering to doing it full time. When I started, I was also doing freelance illustration (a couple children’s books a year) and working part time as a cashier. And even if my employers had offered me work on enough series to make a livable income, I just don’t think I was able to work efficiently enough to keep that pace at the beginning: there was a lot to learn!
OASG: What has challenged you in regards to lettering manga?
Lys: Following up on my last response, learning to work quickly and still do quality work was one big challenge. For a couple years in the middle, it seemed like I was under a constant weight of rush deadlines with no end or break in sight (and I did have a ton of work, but part of this was perception and learning more efficient methods). These days I have a good idea what I’m capable of, what tasks need to be done and how long each will take me, and how far I can condense that time under urgent deadlines. I believe I’ve learned when I need to hunker down and just work and forgo outside distractions like having a social life, and also when I can (and should) take a break to interact with other people or just to step outside and pull some weeds in my garden while enjoying the sight of bees buzzing around the flowers. I love my work and doing it well is very important to me, but I also think it’s so important to balance that with keeping a good quality of life and not forming my identity solely around my job, or even this one particular interest of manga.
OASG: What tricks have you learned when it comes to lettering manga?
Lys: All kinds of things along the way: creating character styles to make my fonts consistent (in font style, size, leading, etc) throughout the book; using one of the Japanese fonts that came with my mac to insert the hearts, stars, and music symbols often used in playful character dialogue, so that I don’t have to nudge a symbol from the scanned page around in Photoshop to match up with the lettered text in InDesign (that’s assuming I’m even working from scans and not from textless art, which is becoming much more common); finding the setting InDesign that makes the text default to being centered vertically in the text box, which makes it easier to center the box in the bubbles; how to use the keyboard to switch between tools in ID and PS—most recently (and from my own brother!) that I can hold down the spacebar to use the hand tool that lets you navigate around a page in Photoshop and InDesign (you can also type the “H” key, but this actually switches between tools permanently, so you’ll have to type another key to switch back to something else, rather than just releasing the spacebar); holding down shift between two brushstrokes in PS to make a straight line (this took me embarrassingly long to discover); drawing a line with the pen tool in PS (but not giving it a stroke, so it’s just the two vector points) as a guide to help with lining up screentone dots when I want to match a gradient—at that discovery, I remember thinking, Peter Pan style, “Oh, the cleverness of me!”
This one I only use for replacing sfx in Kingdom Hearts (all my other projects retain Japanese sfx), but when a sfx is “transparent” and screentone-filled (so you see the artwork through it, but it has screentone dots overlapping the lineart), I create a new layer in PS and redraw, following the lines with a gray brush so I can see what I’ve done and what I still need to go over. Then I can erase the sfx on the first layer, adjust the levels of the second so that the redrawn lineart is black, and flatten—much easier than erasing the screentone around the edges of the existing lineart (which I did for some time).
OASG: What’s been the best and worst part of working in the manga industry as a manga letterer?
The “worst” is probably that, because I’ve had to train my brain to look out for little things that need attention in my own books, I’m even more nitpicky about mistakes and sloppy lettering/retouch than I was before. I don’t think I can read a page of manga for pleasure without some corner of my brain analyzing how the lines are centered in the bubble and if that word might not fit better if it were pushed to the next line or hyphenated a couple letters over, and how those screentone dots aren’t even trying to line up with their surroundings, how dare they, and so on. But I’m happy to say that working in the industry hasn’t “ruined it” for me or made me unable to enjoy reading manga for fun just because I read it all day for work. Phew!
The best for me has been getting to broaden my range of interest and discover series (as I was assigned to work on them) that I otherwise would have overlooked because they’re not in the demographic I typically go for (shoujo). DRRR!!, Thermae Romae, Shoulder-a-Coffin Kuro, Soredemo Machi wa Mawatteiru (over at CR), and even Kingdom Hearts are just a few that I probably would not have tried, but that I now absolutely adore and can’t imagine going without.
OASG: So what manga series are you lettering currently, and any future projects you can share that you’ll get started on soon?
Lys: There’s one series I lettered the first volume of recently, and I had declared to my editor that I would tell everyone I knew to buy it, so I guess this works! My newest darling project is Love at Fourteen, which will be out from Yen Press in December. When they announced the title this spring, it sounded like a very sweet series, the kind I expected I’d enjoy. And when I started lettering it, I found it was all I could ever hope for! Sweet and nostalgic, earnest and sincere and even a bit youthfully awkward in the very best way. I hope it will find many sympathetic readers once it’s out, and that they will fall in love just like I did!
I also have the pleasure of lettering Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer for Seven Seas! I had read some of its releases on JManga when that was still going, so when SS picked it up I was excited that it would get a second chance (and a print release!). I can’t wait to see the final product (of the first omnibus release)!
I’ve been working on DRRR!! for a few years on, and have loved every book. The first of Yellow Scarves will be out in a couple more weeks! This is probably my very favorite series to letter, because as soon as I sit down with the script and the layout, I can’t stop reading (or lettering)! Each time I reach the end of the book I’m working on, I lament that I’m done and hope longingly that the next volume will come my way soon.
Also debuting any day now is my first book lettered for Kodansha—Noragami! Two good friends and I got hooked on the anime when it was streaming, and when I suggested they ask their editor to let them translate it, they returned the favor and suggested I ask to letter it! And I asked, and took their lettering test, and tada! And it’s so fun. Like, of course it’s better than the anime (I’ll almost always say that, because it’s almost always true — but the anime WAS good too). Now that I’ve gotten over the hurdle of lettering the first book for a new publisher (even with plenty of experience with other publishers, it’s always so scary!) I’m looking forward to seeing where the story’s headed!
For a full list of (published) series I work on, you can look me up on ANN, where I keep my credits list pretty up-to-date. In my experience as a letterer, I rarely hear about a series (and even more rarely start working on one) before the publisher announces it to the public—lettering is far enough along in the process that they don’t need to assign someone until somewhat closer to the release date. This is probably for the best, since on the few occasions I did get early news, I was soooooo impatient to be able to talk about it with others and hear their reactions!
OASG: What manga series have you been keeping up with recently that people should consider checking out?
Lys: I picked up the first volume of My Love Story!! from Viz/Shojo Beat as soon as I could, and oh man was it funny. And adorable! The perfect combo. I started reading it as soon as I walked out of the comic shop and I was laughing out loud throughout my walk home. The hero of the story is an unlikely one (in his appearance) for a shoujo manga, but you can tell the author and artist love him and want to tell his story with sincerity and not just turn him into a hi-larious gimmick.
Also, I would be a failure as a fan of Kaze Hikaru if I didn’t use this opportunity to promote its recent release last month! I’ve been a loyal and devoted fan of this series for all the years since it was first published, and while I like to think I’m a loyal person in general, the true reason I’ve stuck with it so long is the quality of the series itself. It really brings the historical figures to life and turns them into people I care deeply about.
What else… Vinland Saga is pretty awesome. A lot more fighting and guts and death than most of my reading, but it’s very well done and has fascinating characterization for all that!
OASG: Are there any manga series currently in Japan that you’d like to see someone license over here?
Lys: I am pining for Akatsuki no Yona, a shoujo manga set in Ancient/Fantasy Korea. After thoroughly enjoying the artist’s previous series NG Life (about ancient Pompeiians reborn in modern Japan, and exploring various ideas of past life and memory and identity that I thought were really well done and thought-provoking), I sought out Yona in Japanese and was highly impressed. It’s getting an anime, so I am thankful I’ll be able to enjoy it in English in one form or another!
I also really enjoy Tadaima no Uta and Gakuen Babysitters, two more Hana to Yume shoujo titles (most of my Japanese manga is from that imprint: I have an addiction haha). These are both kinda slice-of-life-y and deal with family and friendship. Gakuen Babysitters’ Hari Tokeino draws the most ridiculously cute tiny children I’ve ever seen, while retaining her own individual art style that reminds me of something storybookish or illustrative, and sets it apart from generic “kawaii” manga art.
And I’d love to see Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun published (especially if I could letter it! (dreamin’))! I’m a fan of the artist from her Shojo Beat titles so I checked out a couple of the webcomics in Japanese when Nozaki-kun first started, and the anime is a hoot! So much of Tsubaki-sensei’s sense of humor is a perfect match for mine.
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Justin
Justin is the founder of Organization Anti-Social Geniuses. Anime & manga fan that likes to blog about anime and manga, is addicted to sports, and weak to crossovers. You can follow Justin on Twitter @Kami_nomi.Latest posts by Justin (see all)
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