- Bill Oakley (artist)
William Douglas Oakley (
April 1 ,1964 -February 16 ,2004 ) was aletterer for numerouscomic books from Marvel, DC, and other companies. His most prominent works include the first two volumes ofAlan Moore andKevin O'Neill 's "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen " and "" #1-11, #15-37.Biography and early career
Oakley attended the
Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art inDover, New Jersey . He started on staff at Marvel working underJim Novak before going freelance.For Marvel, Oakley lettered "Avengers" for a long time, "Avengers West Coast", the "X-Men", the "Fantastic Four" during
Walt Simonson ’s run, "Rampaging Hulk," and "Amazing Spider-Man". For DC, he worked on a number of the Superman titles, "Batman", "Lobo", "DC vs. Marvel Comics", "Batman: Gothic Knights", "Justice Society", and "Hawkman".Lettering style
Oakley had a distinctive but understated lettering style. One of his trademarks as a letterer was to often erase or omit panel borders when they touched the top, side, or bottom of a word balloon or caption, thus opening up the balloon/caption to the gutter. In this regard, Oakley's lettering style was similar to
John Workman 's.Also like Workman, even in the age of computer lettering, Oakley did all this lettering by hand, using a Hunt 107 pen [Klein, Todd. Comment on the Comicon.com tribute to Oakley (Feb. 18, 2004). Retrieved August 23, 2008.]
Death
Due to the fact that he did not possess medical insurance ("because he had a previous medical condition and the insurance companies refused to cover him"cite web|url=http://www.comicon.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=36&t=001854|title=Chris Eliopolous tribute|publisher=COMICON.com Panels|date=
2004-02-18 ] ), he was forced to letter comics from his hospital bed to pay bills, before he died of cancer in his hometown ofUtica, New York . Oakley was survived by his wife Leslie and son Stevie."" was dedicated to his memory.
Notes
External links
* [http://www.comicon.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=36&t=001854 Chris Eliopolous tribute]
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