<p>I'm looking to have text display vertically, first letter at the bottom, last letter at the top, within a JLabel.  Is this possible?</p>

You can do it by messing with the paint command, sort of like this:
```
```
public class JVertLabel extends JComponent{
  private String text;

  public JVertLabel(String s){
    text = s;
  }

  public void paintComponent(Graphics g){
    super.paintComponent(g);
    Graphics2D g2d = (Graphics2D)g;

    g2d.rotate(Math.toRadians(270.0)); 
    g2d.drawString(text, 0, 0);
  }
}
```
```