Ben Oda

Ben Oda (21 December 1915–November 1984) was a Japanese–American comic strip letterer. He fought in World War II as a paratrooper and later provided lettering for many leading comic strips, including "Apartment 3-G", "Big Ben Bolt", "Dondi", "The Dropouts", "Flash Gordon", "Little Orphan Annie", "Mary Perkins, On Stage", "The Phantom", "Prince Valiant", "Rip Kirby", and "The Spirit".

Oda lettered numerous comic books, notably for the Harvey Kurtzman-edited EC Comics, Warren Publishing and DC Comics and is also known for his title logos, as seen on the early "Mad" and Warren's "Eerie".

When Oda was in an all-Japanese bowling league, one of his teammates was Bill Yoshida. He taught the trade to Yoshida, who went on to letter for Archie Comics and other companies.

Odaballoon, created by Ben Oda's family, is a tribute freeware typeface in the style of his lettering.

References

*Citation
last = Helfer
first = Andrew
title = Ben Oda Remembered
journal = Superman
volume =
issue = 408
pages = p. 1
date = June, 1985
year = 1985
url =
doi =
id =

External links

* [http://www.coincidental.net/comics/creator.cfm?CreatorID=439 Christopher DeLisle's Creator List: Ben Oda Story Credits (118 credits)]
* [http://www.supermanartists.comics.org/letters/letters.htm Samples of Superman letterer's work, including Ben Oda]
* [http://www.comics.org/search.lasso?type=letters&query=ben+oda&sort=alpha&Submit=Search Grand Comics Database: Ben Oda (2539 records)]
* [http://www.geocities.com/odaballoon/ Odaballoon typeface]