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I just finished my umpteenth reread of Watchmen, and I feel like we don't appreciate @davegibbons90 enough as a letterer. So here's a quick thread on some of the cool lettering stuff in Watchmen. (CW: Violence against women.)
For reference, this is the actual lettering style of the book – Dave Gibbons's default hand-lettering, with balloons drawn with quick, angled strokes. Further (not seen here), only the tails actually break the panel borders. The balloons themselves are butted against them.
But when the narrative shifts to the 1940s, for the Minutemen sections, Gibbons shifts to using more retro-looking scalloped balloons. It's a subtle but effective indicator of a simpler, brighter time (which turns out to be nothing of the sort).
The same trick is repeated later for the 1940s sections of the Doctor Manhattan narrative, for obvious reasons.
Then when the narrative shifts to the 1960s for the "new Minutemen", Gibbons shifts to drawing more traditional round balloons, stylistically splitting the difference between the 40s and 80s sections.
And once again, we see that Doctor Manhattan's sixties segment *also* has rounded balloons, creating a visual match.
The little Tijuana Bible based on Sally Jupiter gets its own individual lettering style even though it appears only for a panel, and this time it gets its own font too, and both are inspired by actual Tijuana Bible lettering styles. (CW: VAW)
This one goes last, since it's likely a John Higgins trick rather than a Gibbons one, but the torn-parchment captions of the Black Freighter narrative, with calligraphic initial caps, are coloured with halftone dots to distinguish it from the clean colours used for "real life".
I don't know how to end this thread, other than to reiterate how well-made this book is, and how good Gibbons's work in it, down to the lettering. [FIN.]
PS: As @stealthmunchkin pointed out, that last one was most likely something Higgins did while recolouring the book in the 2000s rather than something that existed in the original. Still very cool.
