While many comics (especially alternative and underground comics) are still hand-lettered, most Marvel and DC books are now lettered using a graphics program such as Adobe Illustrator or Adobe Photoshop, and a font that resembles hand lettering. Computer lettering provides a lot of technical shortcuts, especially by combining the lettering work directly with digital art files, eliminating the tedious physical paste-up stage altogether. Many cartoonists who formerly lettered by hand now use a computer font made to match their handwriting.
Critics of computer lettering feel that it lacks the freshness, roughness, and variety of letterforms made up on the spot. There are also still comics artists and inkers who prefer to have the lettering directly on their pages. First, it saves drawing time (not having to draw where a big caption will be); and second, comics tell a story, and a page of comics art without the lettering is only half the story. For these reasons, there are still some hand-lettering holdouts, such as John Workman, but they're dwindling fast against the rising tide of digital convenience. Read more about comic fonts on Wikipedia.
