X-O Manowar #8 Spotlight: Lettering

 

X-O Manowar #8 Cover B by Christian Duce

Right away, in the very first panel of the first page, letterer Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou centers us in X-O Manowar #8. He does this with his bold white "MANHATTAN NOW" lettering. This helps me know that Dennis Hopeless Hallum's story is picking up where it left off in X-O Manowar #7.

 

I really like the 3D effect Hassan gives these bold letters. At the risk of dating myself, it reminds me of how the opening title and credits swept toward the audience on cinema scenes at the beginning of director Richard Donner's 1978 classic, "Superman: The Movie."

By the way the dialogue balloon travels away from Desmond, you can tell he's just been thrown for a loop. 

Desmond's had his doubts about Shanhara's mental state, but the way Hassan colors the background of her dialogue balloon blue, and outlines it in yellow, tells us that she seems to have shaken off Troy Whitaker's upgrades.

 

Despite her attempts at calming Desmond, Hassan reveals the boy's anxiety in this next panel. Notice how large and bold he makes the letters in the first dialogue balloon, and the latter half of the second.

The way the arrow from Shanhara's dialogue balloons glows yellow when it reaches the orb seems like a beacon of hope.

Although we take industry convention for granted, it's interesting to remember that letterers have mostly moved away from revealing a character's thought as a cloud, and instead placed them into rounded rectangles.

This allows letterers like Hassan to use puffy clouds as dialogue balloons, as he does when showing the woman's shock in the next panel. 

As long as he uses an arrow instead of little puffy clouds to link to a bigger one, we know what's happening.

 

 

I'm less certain about the overlaid rectangles he uses for the nanite swarm's messages. Are these what the woman and children hear? Or is he showing the messages that appear on their computer screens, ipads, and smartphones?

 

 

Nonetheless, it's clear that amidst the chaos that Troy Whitaker and the nanite swarm have unleashed, Shanhara cares about Desmond. In today's terminology, she wants to keep him safe and well.

In this last panel, I also like how the wavy arrows from Desmond's dialogue balloons work with the rays shining down from the nanite cloud. Interestingly, Shanhara's arrow seems to join up, or continue on from one of the Hive Mind's rays. But then, Shanhara is an artificial consciousness, just like the Hive Mind.

 

Amid the unfolding chaos in X-O Manowar #8, Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou keeps us focused on young Desmond's plight. That's important, when our hero Aric of Dacia is nowhere in sight.

Dragon Dave