Magic Santa

Over at Pappy's Golden Age Comic Blogzine there is a new post of a scanned Santa story from Santa Clause Funnies, 1943. If you want to see the entire issue, follow the link provided at Scott Saavedrad's Comic Book Heaven.

Something that I found interesting in the book was that the lettering was done in upper and lower case. The usual form in hand lettered comic books and newspaper strips is to use all capital letters. Legibility is one main reason for this. The smaller lower case letters might tend to fill in because of the cheap paper and printing processes used in early comics and newspapers. The descenders, like a y,g or p, would also tend to be more difficult to allow room for when hand lettering. It is easier and faster, to cram only upper case letters into the word balloons.