Ariana Maher

Ariana Maher is a letterer whose name is a seal of quality across the biggest publishers in comics. She’s lettered X-Men: Red, Hellions, Silk, Marvel’s Voices: Pride, and Demon Days for Marvel; Detective Comics, Superman, Zatanna and the House of Secrets, and DC Pride for DC; and was part of the team behind Empyre: Aftermath Avengers, which won the GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Comic Book.

For Critical Role fans, Maher is something even more special: she lettered the entire Mighty Nein Origins line at Dark Horse Comics — all eight volumes, from Jester Lavorre to Caduceus Clay — plus the Vox Machina Origins series and Tales of Exandria. When a review of Caleb Widogast singles out the lettering alongside the art and colors, you know the craft is working: Maher’s sound effects and dialogue placement let the emotional rhythm of a page breathe.

Based in New York, Maher runs her studio through arianamaher.com, where she describes herself simply as a “Digital Comics Letterer” — the same job title behind some of the most beautiful pages of the past decade. She shares her work on Twitter. If you’ve ever read a comic and felt the lettering was invisible because it was perfect, Ariana Maher is likely why.