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INTERVIEW: Nate Piekos - Blambot! Blambot is a company that specializes in logo design, comic lettering and custom fonts. They even offer free fonts online. You may have seen their work on any number of titles, such books as X-FORCE, THE ATOMICS or DR. STRANGE. Joining me here today is the man behind the sound effects, Nate Piekos. How's about an introduction to Blambot, Nate? Well, Blambot started in '99. I was in college doing some ashcan comics with my friends just for laughs. I was working towards a degree in Graphic Design. When I realized there weren't many free So how does one turn into a life of lettering and design? It was an accident really. I decided to pursue design because in the art world, it's the most lucrative field, and it allowed me to do something I love for a paycheck. I've always loved comics, and I was an illustrator long before I decided to pursue typography. I would have paid more attention in class if I knew typography was going to be such a big factor in my future! Blambot just seemed to take off and I decided to keep going with it. It's a lot of work. I pump out about 3-4 fonts a month, as well as site upkeep, and design work. What exactly goes into the process of creating a font? I know they begin as a sketch, but how do they go from your sketchbook to a workable font? I get inspiration from everywhere. I make copious notes in sketchbooks. Then each character is designed in CorelDRAW with those sketches as a guide. Those files are transferred to Fontographer, and finished off. It's a lot more complicated than that, but that's the short version.   Now you also offer hand lettering to your clients do you find many people still want their stories lettered by hand? No, sadly enough. It's really a vanishing art. I wish it wasn't. All my personal favourite letterers are also hand letterers (Sakai, Klein, Orzechowski, Workman). It's such a beautiful and underrated skill these days. But technology has made it more convenient and cheaper to go the way of computers. I guess that can be said of everything nowadays. I notice that the FAQ on your site addresses many 'How To' questions. Do you find your often schooling people on how THEY can do YOUR job? Most people aren't that interested in the "how" part of my job. But with any subject, people tend to want the quick answer, and with fonts there is none. Particularly comic fonts. Anyone can make a font with the right software, but there is a gargantuan gap between a font, and a good font. That gap consists of hours upon hours of trial and error; experience and subtlety. I've made upwards of 100 fonts or so, and I still learn new ways to improve the process. A new trick, a new way to save time, etc. I try to help people as much as I can, but typography is a tough art to learn. You have to "apprentice" with a typographer willing to share their secrets, or tackle it on your own. There are plenty of books on type, but almost no books on *how* it's done in any detail. You really have to LOVE doing it. Or else you must be insane. Who wants to spend hours tweaking and staring at the letter "Q" for a living? What do you require from your clients in order to get a feel for a design, or font? Or even something like Doop Speak – the Stylistic linguistics of X-FORCE character, Doop? In the case of a writer coming to me for a design, I like to read scripts. Luckily I'm a writer/illustrator myself, so I can envision the feel. For artists, I like to study as much of their art as I can. Then it's a matter of complimenting that. DoopSpeak is a funny story actually. Mike Allred pretty much gives me free reign on his designs, which is great fun. Mike's art is so organic and simple (in a zen way) that I really have to think like a hand letterer. When Mike was first working on X-FORCE, I guess the script called for an alien language that the reader couldn't understand. I hadn't made him one like that yet, so he grabbed Roswell Wreckage off my site and used it in the book. Later on, I made him a custom version (same dialect, but looking more hand lettered) called DoopSpeak. That's what he uses now. There was a little controversy once fans figured out that they could decode Doop's dialogue if they had a copy of Roswell Wreckage. If we had known, Mike and I probably would have just come up with something totally original.
I speak about enough Spanish to talk trash, and I studied the martial arts of Aikido and Iaido for three years and I've picked up some very basic Japanese. That's about it. The thing is, when designing weird symbol fonts for some alien or fantasy language, it always helps to take visual clues from actual languages. There's a pattern to languages. You can't just scribble and call it a language. There is grammar to think about... It's fun to invent a whole new grammar for a fictitious written language. I'm working on a font now that I intended to be used for the language wizards use in their spell books. It helps to invent a little back story! Tell us about the attention you've been receiving outside the comics field for your fonts and designs? Like I mentioned, I've licensed designs to Microsoft (used in an Xbox game that was so top secret they couldn't even tell me what game it was for), The Gap (Gap Kids), Sierra Software (Greeting card software). Is all your design work done through Blambot or do you freelance on the side? I still do freelance corporate ID work on the side: Piekos Arts.com Daddy always said: Have a backup plan! But I really enjoy designing logos, so I won't give up work outside comics. You also offer free fonts on your site, are these completely free or do they operate on an honour system? The fonts are 100% free for independent comic creators. (that includes self publishing) When and if their book gets picked up by a mainstream publisher, only then do we ask for a small license fee (less than most prices you'd pay for a font online somewhere). We're here to help get them off their feet. We only ask that little bit in return once they've made it. Any non-profit use outside of comics is fine (many schools, non-profit groups use Blambot fonts). Commercial use outside comics requires a small license fee... As for the pay fonts, once purchased, those can be used in any commercial project. I'd love to do all this for absolutely no cash... but I gotta put mac 'n cheese on the table somehow.
Yep, I've been writing and illustrating since I can remember. Making my own comics with crayons when I was little. Now I use bristol board and ink pens... and sometimes crayons too. LINT McCREE MYSTERIES is my pet project. I'm a firm believer in "Story is everything". Too many comics today exist based on art alone. I'm a sucker for getting lost in a good meaty story. I love movies, I'm a voracious reader, and I do an insane amount of research. I'm working on a brand new Lint McCree series right now, and in it, I've got a 5 page flashback in Vietnam, circa 1971. I went out and bought every first hand account of Vietnam I could find as well as a bunch of photographic encyclopaedias. Those 5 pages will probably take me several weeks to complete. But that's how I do it. Historical warfare is actually a hobby of mine. I minored in Ancient Weapons and Warfare in college. But that's just an example of how methodical I get. I don't care if it takes me a year to do three books. Three good books are immeasurably better than 12 mediocre ones. That's how we need to approach the industry now. There's a maturity we need. A distinction between quality and quantity. Give me a story that rivals the depth and emotional investment of a good movie or novel ...and THAT's a masterpiece. There are some people in the industry who operate like that. Mignola is one. Miller is another. Speaking of which, I can see a definite Mignola influence in your work, and of course Allred is there, but who else do you find influencing you these days? The Mignola influence was kind of accidental. It was like osmosis. I was heavy into Mignola when I started Lint, and it kind of oozed through. If you look at the brand new Lint concepts: you'll see it's largely gone away. These days I'm really not looking to many comics artists for inspiration. I'm going back, cracking open my old art history and anatomy books and as Yoda said, "unlearn what I have learned". Too many comic artists focus on other comic artists for reference. Comics are a tiny piece of the art world - there are so many other wonderful sources to look to for inspiration. What's ahead for Blambot? For AKF Comics? Work work work!!! Blambot is lining up lettering work for some mainstream and indie companies. Visitor hits are climbing weekly -- up to several thousand a day now -- so I'll keep cranking out the fonts! As for AKF Comics and Lint McCree, well I've already had offers from some publishers to run the new series, but right now I'm focusing on the comics themselves. Once they are largely finished, I'll worry about where the story will end up. Thanks Nate.
 Jonathan Ellis is Interviews Editor for PopImage  PopImage Forum - Discuss this message at the PopImage forum. E-mail Us. - Send us an e-mail, commenting on this article. Industrial Archive - Read past Industrial articles |
or affordable comic lettering fonts on the web for a starving indy creator, I made my own. As a whim, I tossed them on a Geocities website and well, the rest is history. When I graduated, I had a little more business sense, and I decided to organize it a bit more with the principal that young creators should have access to good lettering fonts. There's a lot of talent there and any financial break they can get, helps. Things have been going very well in the last 3 years. Blambot fonts appear in comics worldwide and I've licensed designs to companies like Microsoft and The Gap. In 2000, a fan referred Mike Allred (MADMAN, THE ATOMICS, X-FORCE) to me, and I've been his type designer ever since. Just this year I decided to take it to the next level and offer a professional lettering/design service on Blambot. Pat Brosseau who you might know for his work on HELLBOY and ANGEL, has come on board to help out with his lifetime of experience, as well as designer/illustrator Logan DeAngelis and my stalwart tech guru, Shane Clarke. We're busy lining up work. 
I notice you base a lot of symbols on ideograms found in Middle Eastern and Asian alphabets. Is this a mere influence shining through or have you actually learned these other alphabets? 
But lettering and design isn't all you do, you're also a self published writer and artist?
