West Behemoth Italic
West Behemoth was designed by Dave West for Photo-Lettering in 1960. PLINC’s One Line catalog from 1971 shows West Behemoth (Clarendon) with Italic and Italic Swash styles (this image), Semicondensed and Condensed, Shaded (outlined letter with solid shadow), Comstock (solid letter and shadow with white contour), and a decorated Starred variant.
While the non-swash Behemoth Clarendon Italic 11 (5270) was shown already in Alphabet Thesaurus Vol. 2 from 1965, the swash variant appeared only in Vol. 3 (1971), as Behemoth Clarendon Italic Swash (5546). It had been used already in 1967 and is distinguished by swash forms for the capitals and several lowercase letters including d g h k l n r t v y. Unlike the swashless variant, it has no entry strokes and less pronounced exit strokes on a i m etc.
West Behemoth was revived by Martin Wenzel for the digital PLINC reincarnation. This version includes the italic, but unfortunately not the more popular swash italic. Among digital fonts, Tutti Paffuti NF is probably the closest option. Nick Curtis based his interpretation on Stymie Black Italic, which seems to be an anonymous knockoff of West’s design that appeared in catalogs by Typeshop (1973) and Lettergraphics (1976).
West Behemoth Italic
West Behemoth was designed by Dave West for Photo-Lettering in 1960. PLINC’s One Line catalog from 1971 shows West Behemoth (Clarendon) with Italic and Italic Swash styles (this image), Semicondensed and Condensed, Shaded (outlined letter with solid shadow), Comstock (solid letter and shadow with white contour), and a decorated Starred variant.
While the non-swash Behemoth Clarendon Italic 11 (5270) was shown already in Alphabet Thesaurus Vol. 2 from 1965, the swash variant appeared only in Vol. 3 (1971), as Behemoth Clarendon Italic Swash (5546). It had been used already in 1967 and is distinguished by swash forms for the capitals and several lowercase letters including d g h k l n r t v y. Unlike the swashless variant, it has no entry strokes and less pronounced exit strokes on a i m etc.
West Behemoth was revived by Martin Wenzel for the digital PLINC reincarnation. This version includes the italic, but unfortunately not the more popular swash italic. Among digital fonts, Tutti Paffuti NF is probably the closest option. Nick Curtis based his interpretation on Stymie Black Italic, which seems to be an anonymous knockoff of West’s design that appeared in catalogs by Typeshop (1973) and Lettergraphics (1976).