Folks often hail the Swamp Thing comic done in the seventies by Len Wein and Bernie Wrightson…and in so doing, they leave out a key credit. The evocative logo above and the lettering in most issues were the handiwork of one of comics' great unsung talent, a gentleman named Gaspar Saladino. If you read comics in the so-called "Silver Age" (especially those edited by Julius Schwartz) and for years after, you read word balloons lettered by Gaspar and you probably saw his sharp, commanding lettering on covers and in ads.
I'm not going to write a lot about him here because I want you to go check out two other places. "Robby Reed," the creator of the Dial B for Blog website, is offering up an extraordinary tribute to Mr. Saladino that will tell you a lot more than I can possibly relate here, plus its loaded with examples. It all starts here.
And then over the next few days, drop by the weblog of Todd Klein. Todd's the guy who wins the Eisner Award for Best Letterer so often that it has been suggested that they just hand him one every year when he arrives at the con, and then at the ceremony, they'll have a category called "Best Letterer Other Than Todd Klein." As Todd explained on a panel when I interviewed him at the last Comic-Con, Saladino is a special hero of his and he's also posting examples of the man's craft. That starts here.
Not much I can add to those two celebrations of the man, other than to say I think he's every bit as important an artist as anyone who drew on the pages he lettered. It's about time he got more recognition.