William Douglas Oakley (April 1, 1964 – February 16, 2004) was a letterer for numerous comic books from Marvel, DC, and other companies. His most prominent works include the first two volumes of Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Batman: Gotham Knights #1-11, #15-37.

Biography

Oakley attended The Kubert School in Dover, New Jersey for a year, intending to be a comics artist. However, his experience at the school convinced him that he couldn't handle the workload of a comic book artist and, still desiring to work in the comics field, decided to do lettering instead. In July 1986 he started on staff at Marvel, he was forced to letter comics from his hospital bed to pay bills before he died of cancer in Utica, New York. His hometown was Oneonta, New York. Oakley was survived by his wife Leslie and son Stephen. Before the age of computer lettering, unlike Jim Novak and others, Oakley was one of the few letterers to continue to create word balloons entirely freehand instead of using templates.

  • 2002: Nominated for "Favorite Letterer" Wizard Fan Award, for The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume II
  • 2004: Nominated for "Best Lettering" Eisner Award, for Hawkman, JSA, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume II and Sleeper

Bibliography

Assorted titles:

  • Batman: Gotham Knights #1-11, #15, #17-37 (with Devin Grayson, Roger Robinson and others, DC Comics 2000-2002)
  • Daredevil #302-306, #308-322, #324-327, #329-332, #334, #336-343 with various Marvel Comics.
  • DC Versus Marvel (with Ron Marz and Dan Jurgens, DC Comics, 1995)
  • Grifter v1 #1-2, 5-10 (with Steven T Seagle, Ryan Benjamin, Image Comics, 1995)
  • Hawkman v4 #1-6, #8-10, #19-25 (with Geoff Johns and Rags Morales, DC Comics, 2002)
  • Spectre v3 #1-11, #13-17, #19, #21 (with J. M. DeMatteis and Ryan Sook, DC Comics, 2001-2002)
  • Sleeper #1-3, 7-8 (with Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips, Wildstorm, 2003)
  • Starman v2 #12-63, #55-80, ANNUAL #1&2, STARMAN: THE MIST, STARMAN #1,000,000 (with James Robinson, Tony Harris and Peter Snejbjerg, DC Comics, 1995-2001)
  • Team 7 #1-4 (with Chuck Dixon and Aron Wiesenfeld, Image Comics, 1994-1995)
  • Team 7: Objective Hell #1-3 (with Chuck Dixon and Chris Warner, Image Comics, 1999)
  • Team 7: DEAD RECKONING #1-4 (with Chuck Dixon and Jason Johnson, Image Comics, 1995)
  • X-men v2 #19-41 (with Fabian Nicieza and Andy Kubert, Marvel Comics, 1993-1994)

Notes

References

  • , The Daily Star, February 19, 2004