Nate Piekos’ “The Essential Guide to Comic Book Lettering” threads the needle perfectly in creating a How-To book that encompasses both the artistic and technical parts of adding all the words to a comic book. Sprinkled through the book are methods by which you can repeat styles and techniques with a minimum of effort, starting with the lettering template he describes in the beginning of the book and all the things you could add to it along the way. It’s the dirty little secret of comic lettering: The job is one of graphic design that just happens to be applied to comic books in the aid of storytelling.