Redartz: Greetings, everyone! For our "Panel Discussion" today, we will consider some of those who put the color in our 'four color ' hobby. The art of color application is just as crucial to a comic's visual appeal as the pencilling and inking. Color adds dimension, atmosphere, and emotion to a scene. It can clarify (or muddify- hey, a new verb?) the art, and emphasize certain aspects of a panel while de-emphasizing others. Effective color gives the art a richness, a sense of depth and visual space. Poor coloring can make a panel seem flat, it can even be somewhat disconcerting (think of those panels where printing errors left someone with (unintentional) blue skin, or pantsless (in one infamous Spider-man panel). Therefore, today we salute some of those responsible for keeping Hulk green and the Thing orange. Oh, and a big thanks to Wikipedia, Comic Vine and the Grand Comic Book Database for some of the info in today's article.
To start with, here's a couple good looking pages, one from Marvel and one from DC. In both cases the colorist is sadly unknown (even the Grand Comics Database has nothing on it). For many years, the colorists got no credit line, despite such fine work as these. Incidentally, when scanning pages for a post, I often enhance the color for visibility and clarity. However, for these images, they are 'clean' scans- no color enhancement, so you can get the full subtlety of the artist's work.
Note that the Silver Age example on the left has simpler, less modeled color detail than one finds in Bronze age and later comics. Yet the effect is still dynamic and eye-pleasing. Compare to the backgrounds on the Adventure page on the right- more tonal gradation and variety of hue, but both work equally well for storytelling.
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| Fantastic Four 69 (?) |
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| Adventure Comics 439 ( ? ) |
We will now look at some sample pages from some notable colorists ; both Marvel and DC. First, some of those known specifically as colorists...
Janice Cohen- worked for Marvel; coloring art on many titles. Among them were Amazing Spider-Man, Captain America, Avengers and Howard the Duck. This page , by Janice, struck me for it's sharp, clear color contrasts and variety of tone. Also note the nice touch of orange in the action lines as Ben breaks his chains in the bottom left panel.
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| Fantastic Four 159 (Janice Cohen) |
Carl Gafford- Carl has done work for Marvel, DC and other companies as well. He produced a remarkably long run coloring the Legion of Super Heroes. This is a superbly colored page from one of those. Phenomenal color play here. Love the background effect in the top right panel.
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| Legion of Super Heroes 300 (Carl Gafford) |
Petra Goldberg- colored for many Marvel titles, including Avengers, Fantastic Four, Thor and various horror books. This page uses simple color schemes, but very strikingly. The complementary use of orange lettering against the blue-violet background really stands out.
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| Giant-Size Man-Thing 1 (Petra Goldberg) |
Linda Lessmann- Linda worked for Marvel Comics, First! Comics, and others. She had notable work on Amazing Spider-Man, Man-Thing, American Flagg, and Badger.Here she very nicely matches Frank Brunner's rich designs with a soft, wide ranging palette of pleasing color.
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| Dr. Strange 4 (Linda Lessmann) |
Adrienne Roy- Adrienne colored primarily for DC, especially focusing on the Batman titles. She also worked on Teen Titans, Warlord and others. These two pages show some strong, dramatic color work. I love the tone progression in Raven's faces on the upper right panel below.
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| Batman 401 (Adrienne Roy) |
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| New Teen Titans 4 (Adrienne Roy) |
Don Warfield- Don provided colors for a huge number of Marvel books, among them Conan, Fantastic Four, Invaders, Spectacular Spider-Man and Thor. This page uses fairly straightforward color, but interestingly frames Thor's head within the soft grey of the clouds.
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| Thor Annual 5 (Don Warfield) |
Glynis Oliver Wein- Glynis Wein, or Glynis Oliver, has been everywhere in comics, especially Marvel and DC. Her fine color work could be found on Amazing Spider-Man, Adventure Comics, X-Men, Star Wars, Thor, and much much more. Her eye for , and use of, intricate and appealing color is matchless. Just look at the warm color modelling on the exploding planet on the left. Then there is the beautifully subtle array of tones in the panel of Dr. Doom on the right. And that bottom page of Cloak and Dagger- simple color, but what a knockout. I'd like a poster of that page.
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| Fantastic Four 257 (Glynis Wein) |
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| Fantastic Four 236 (Glynis Wein) |
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| Spectacular Spider-Man 70 (Glynis Wein) |
Frank Brunner
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| Howard the Duck 1 (Frank Brunner) |
Michael Golden
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| Micronauts 7 (Michael Golden) |
Klaus Janson
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| Daredevil 180 (Klaus Janson) |
Barry Windsor-Smith
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| Conan the Barbarian 16 (Barry Windsor Smith) |
Barry deserves another look, specifically a little visual comparison. Here are two pages from his magnificent "Red Nails" in Savage Tales, scanned from the original black and white. Next to each are the same pages, with Barry's coloring added, from the Conan Marvel Treasury Edition. The intricacy of his color work is a wonder to behold.
As we have seen, these and other colorists have contributed immensely to the success, and to the enjoyment of, the comics we love. These artists, and artists they were, made incredible visuals from pen, ink, watercolor and brush. To all those colorists, known and unknown, a big "thank you" for helping flesh out all those classic tales.
12 comments:
Fantastic topic. Let's hear it for the colorists!
I think Glynis Wein was the first colorist whose name I began paying attention to in the credits, because she was doing such spectacular work on the X-men - in my opinion, she elevated Byrne and Austin's already spectacular art into comic book perfection.
Also nice that you pointed out a few pencilers who did their own coloring, although in that context it's almost criminal that you failed to mention P. Craig Russell, who did much of the coloring on the stories he drew. Standouts include his run on Killraven and the Dr. Strange annual from the mid-1970s.
By the way, on the topic of Red Nails, I currently have both versions, the b&w one in the Savage Sword phonebook published by Dark Horse, and the color one from the 1983 special edition reprint. I like the colored version much, much more.
You failed to mention what is the most important aspect of colorists in my eyes, that in an industry dominated by men, colorists were very often women. I wonder why that was, and will have to look to see if any scholars have looked into that.
I agree with Edo that Glynis Oliver is the name that stands out to me, as someone who elevated most of the work she colored.
These days more and more pencilers are coloring their own work (what with computers making it easier and there being a broader range of available colors) to amazing effect. Though my favorite current colorist is probably Matt Wilson, who is doing the current Thor comic. Amazing work over Russell Dauterman (who also sometimes does his own colors), who draws the best Asgardian stuff since Simonson.
Nice examples! I appreciate when colorists create a sense of lighting by using color, like Man-Thing with the light hitting him from above. It's not overdoing it and trying to shade everything, but more than a simple flat color--just right. Glynis Wein is the first that came to my mind--always fantastic. Descriptive and expressive with her coloring. I also prefer Barry Smith's colored version of Red Nails. I think at other times he overdoes the color, but in that 1983 version of Conan he hit it just right.
For new colorists, I like Val Staples and Elizabeth Breitweiser.
Edo- yes, quite right: P. Craig Russell does phenomenally well, pencils, inks and color. Another I'd mention is Marshall Rogers. Those Dr. Strange issues with Roger Stern are beautiful.
Osvaldo- excellent point regarding the abundance of female colorists. It would be fascinating to hear, from some of those involved with comics production at the time, on that subject.
These are great samples, Red. I've never been too attentive to colorists during the Bronze Age as I simply don't know enough about the process of how they came about and what vagaries the art might experience in the printing (that in addition to being a lazy sod). I'll definitely start giving it more thought going forward, though.
That inertia carried on to current books until I saw the work of Laura DePuy in the Authority, which really knocked my socks off. She won an Eisner for it, I believe.
Cheers!
I've never thought much about colorists, but you're right about their importance to the field. I'd say Glynis Oliver and Adrienne Roy are my favourites, just from the comics they worked on. I also liked Andy Yanchus, who did the coloring on the Marvel Tales reprints in the 80s; in a lot of cases it turned out to be RE-coloring, since the printing process in the 60s left colors rather muddy much of the time. By the 80s, the process was much better and so were the colors.
I never really notice colouring unless its really bad but I've always loved Marie Severin's colouring on Marvel Spotlight #12, The Son of Satan's first appearance. There's something about it that helps brings the whole comic to life.
I liked Glynis Wein’s work as well. The color orange always stood out for me in her work on X-Men. She used it very effectively in backgrounds. To this day I can remember some panels she used it in. Also I distinctly remember a sunset in the Wendigo issue in which the color was magnificent.
I liked Michael Golden’s work on colors. Often he would have detailed backgrounds colored in a monochromatic way with central key figures fully colored. It was a great way to highlight the focus while still sharing a ton of detail.
Klaus Janson used a pale green effectively in Daredevil. You can see it in the water of Redartz’ sample of Janson’s work. It was a nice contrast to DD’s costume.
Great topic.
Red - thank you for the education! Charlie's knowledge of "who does what" in comics is rather limited so this is much appreciated!
Selenarch, Mike W. and Steve DC- like all of you, I was generally unaware of the role of colorists during my young reading days. It was only when I started really noticing certain impressive examples of color that I began paying much attention. And it often seemed, incidentally, to be a Glynis Oliver (Wein) book that struck me so.
And Mike, glad you mentioned Andy Yanchus. Another fine practitoner of the paintbrush.
Steve DC- Marie Severin- yes! One of the pillars of the Marvel Bullpen, and one who could do so many things.
Charlie- Glad you found it interesting! It's wonderful how much there is to learn even at our age, and great how much we all seem to learn from each other here...
Here's another vote for Glynis Wein/Oliver as the name that springs to mind. It was reading the Mutant X and Hellfire Club storylines where I first noticed her colours just really popped.
I think Tatjana Wood is another one for her work on Swamp Thing. That must have been a very challenging one (especially with all those different hues of green) but it looked beautiful.
Anyone remember around 1984 when Marvel gave a few books a different colouring process, I think it was called flexographic printing, and all the colours got crazy bright? I first remember noticing it around Alpha Flight #20 or so. I forget what other books featured it, I think Rom may have been another. What happened to that process? Did it become the norm and I just got used to it? Inquiring minds want to know...
-david p.
Extra thumbs up here for Marie Severin - her term as a colourist goes right back to the days of EC Comics in the early 50s!
Could I nominate Tom Palmer, whom I believe colours most work that he inks.
Lyn Varley was also someone who really added to Frank Miller's work back in days gone by - he must must have been quite impressed by her work, among other things, as I believe they were married for some years.
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