Manga Lettering
漫画の描き文字 / 1930s– / Style / Letterform Expression
The drawn sound-words of Japanese manga — don, shiin — writing noise and even silence as pictures. Translating sound's texture into line weight and shape, it dissolves the border between word and image inside the panel.
Sound drawn as shape / Weight matched to texture / Placement crossing panels / Even silence written (shiin)
Dictionary entry
- Best used for
- Comparing primary sources and canonical works · Extracting principles that transfer to other media
- Type
- Observe the letters, signs and scale of reference works
- Composition
- Extract the one structure that governs gaze and information
- Material
- Verify the materials and behaviors specific to era, region and process
- Caution
- Don't reduce it to surface signs. Verify the context of era, region, technology and makers.
- Further study
- Tezuka's sound effects / the invention of shiin / the translation problem