Jonathan Hickman’s The Nightly News is a wonderful mixture of graphic design and illustration. The one thing that amazes me the most however is the typography. Two of the biggest shortcomings in American comics is the fundamental concepts of typography and design. The fact that Johnathan Hickman accomplishes this both puts him light years ahead of most creators.

Lettering in comics was born out of the hand lettered days of comic publishing and have been incredibly slow to evolve. The lettering technology is often used to emulate that hand lettered look which is a shortsighted use of that technology and best left to the experts. Why buy a calligraphy font when you can hire a calligrapher? Obviously it isn’t practical to hire hand-letterers today, but its also asinine to omit an entire library of well designed typefaces that are legible, evenly spaced, and beautifully crafted from professional typographers. To quote Kody Chamberlain its like “Carrot Top narrating The Godfather.”

Comics in many facets, save for perhaps coloring, has always been locked into tradition rather than any innovation—the format size, process, and most stories are really relics of an adolescent culture. It is refreshing to see gems like Hickman’s The Nightly News and Kody Chamberlain’s Punks