Comic Lettering

I use Adobe Illustrator to letter my comic pages. Why digital over traditional balloons? Well, for starters, it is so nice to have the option to Control+Z to delete dialogue and balloons. Also, like most artists, my handwriting is not the best.
In order to make word balloons, I use the Basic Shapes tools to create a shape that has a white fill and black stroke. I then use the Pen Tool- click once inside of the shape then click once outside the shape to create a long Path. I then close the Path by clicking once again into the shape- think of making a triangle Path for the tail of the balloon. I then select both the Basic Shape and the Path I've created, go to WINDOW>PATHFINDER. The Pathfinder panel comes up and I press the first icon where two squares are interlocked.

This is what I primarily use Adobe Illustrator for- text modification and creating word balloons. I'm so glad I taught a course on this program last semester, I was able to learn more techniques and see a little bit of everything this program has to offer- from vector graphics to gradient mesh to exporting layers as a Flash based animation.