Tom Orzechowski

Infobox Comics creator
name = Tom Orzechowski


imagesize =
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birthname =
birthdate = 1953
location =
deathdate =
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nationality = American
area = Letterer
alias =
notable works = "Uncanny X-Men"
"Spawn"
awards = Inkpot Award, 1985
Wizard Fan Award, 1993
Harvey Award, 1994

Tom Orzechowski (b. 1953) is an award-winning comic book letterer, primarily known for his work on "Uncanny X-Men". Over the course of Orzechowski's career, he has lettered something on the order of 6,000 pages of (long-time "X-Men" writer) Chris Claremont's scripts.

Early career

In 1968, when Orzechowski was 15, he met a group of aspiring comic book artists at a comic convention in Detroit, and joined their comics club. Some older members of the club included future comics professionals Rich Buckler, Jim Starlin, Al Milgrom, and Mike Vosburg. An aspiring cartoonist himself, Orzechowski quit drawing when he saw their work. None of the club members wanted to letter their amateur comics, however, so Orzechowski took on that job.

Tony Isabella, who knew Orzechowski from the comics club, joined Marvel Comics in 1972, and soon got Orzechowski his first professional work, lettering retouches on the British editions of classic Fantastic Four, Thor, Hulk, Amazing Spider-Man, and Daredevil stories. Within a few months, Orzechowski had worked his way up to lettering for some of Marvel's black-and-white monster magazines. One of his first jobs of that kind was for "Monsters Unleashed", on one of the first Marvel stories written by future "X-Men" scribe Chris Claremont.

Orzechowski's connections from the comics club days paid off when Rich Buckler pulled him over to letter "Black Panther (Jungle Action)", and Jim Starlin did the same for Starlin's run on "Captain Marvel".

Lettering style and influences

Orzechowski's letters are almost perfectly square, with the exception of the letter "I." Everything has a solid, uniform look to it. Letters stand straight up and down, not at a tilt. They're all painstakingly the same height.

Orzechowski modeled his lettering on the Flash Gordon newspaper strips of the 1930s. Another influence was Robert Crumb's "Zap Comix": Orzechowski recognized that Crumb’s title work was clearly derived from the brush techniques of that same era, the 1920s and '30s. Orzechowski studied everything of Crumb's (as well as the late 1960s DCs and Marvels), and developed a lettering style based on all of those influences. In the mid-1970s, while Marvel’s production boss and cover letterer Dan Crespi was developing a tight, attractive house style, Orzechowski was 3,000 miles away in California, "buried in design books." Orzechowski figured that "since the "X-Men" didn’t overlap the rest of the Marvel Universe," there was no reason "not" to draw influences from calligraphy, record jackets, old movie posters — everything "except" comics.Contino, Jennifer. [http://www.comicon.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=36&t=001693 "ABCs with Orzechowski," Comicon.com: The Pulse (Dec. 30, 2003). Retrieved July 17, 2008.] ]

Computer lettering

In 1992, Orzechowski was among the first letterers to experiment with computer fonts. Working on Studio Proteus's "Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind", Orzechowski found the sound-effect work to be so demanding that computer lettering seemed like a way to save time on the extensive dialogue. His font program, however, was primitive, and he ended up doing that series entirely by hand after all. By 1994, however, Orzechowksi was lettering mainly on the computer, and in 2002 he switched completely to digital lettering, using a Wacom pen on a graphics tablet, in Adobe Illustrator. He hasn't looked back, explaining in an interview on Comicon.com's The Pulse that "even then I was losing the knack, as the majority of my work had been digital for a couple of years. The fine motor control slips if the muscles aren’t in continual use."

"X-Men"

By the time of the debut of the New X-Men in "X-Men #94", Orzechowski had developed a reputation as a "new projects guy," and was given the odd issue, and then finally the series. After a number of years on "X-Men" over Chris Claremont's scripts, the two men paired together on many future X-Men-related projects. (Orzechowski also designed the logos for "The New Mutants" and "Wolverine" comics, among others. [Klein, Todd. [http://kleinletters.com/Blog/?p=358 "Logo Study: X-Men part 3," Todd's Blog (Oct 5th, 2007). Retrieved July 20, 2008.] ] ) When all was said and done, counting "X-Men", many of its annuals, "The New Mutants", "Wolverine", "X-Treme X-Men", and "MekaniX", Orzechowksi lettered something on the order of 6,000 pages of Claremont's scripts over a 25-year period.

Post-"X-Men"

Orzechowski left the X-Men books shortly after Chris Claremont, in 1993. He joined the team putting out Image Comics' "Spawn" 1992, where his title was Copy Editor for most of the first six years. Orzechowski worked for the manga packaging outfit Studio Proteus from 1989 until their demise in 2004. Studio Proteus titles on which Orzechowski worked included "Nausicaa", "Appleseed", "", and "Ghost in the Shell".

In the early 2000s, with many publishers beginning to use "in-house" lettering teams, freelancers like Orzechowski lost a lot of work. Though Orzechowski still does the occasional job for DC Comics and a manga company called Studio Cutie, he is not currently a regular comic book letterer. Orzechowski lives in Portland, Oregon, where he operates a typography and logo design studio.

Quotes

On his favorite lettering projects:

On the toughest parts of hand lettering to master:

On comic book logo design:

Notes

References

* Contino, Jennifer. [http://www.comicon.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=36&t=001693 ABCs with Orzechowski] , Comicon.com: The Pulse (Dec. 30, 2003). Retrieved July 17, 2008.

External links

* [http://serifsup.com Orzechowski's topography and logo design website]