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comics a medium used to express ideas with images, often combined with text or other visual information. It typically the form of a sequence of panels of images. Textual devices such as speech balloons, captions, and onomatopoeia can indicate ...
, a colorist is responsible for adding color to black-and-white line art. For most of the 20th century this was done using brushes and dyes which were then used as guides to produce the printing plates. Since the late 20th century it is most often done using digital media, with printing separations produced electronically. Although most American colorists work directly for comics publishers (either as
employee Employment is a relationship between two parties regulating the provision of paid labour services. Usually based on a contract, one party, the employer, which might be a corporation, a not-for-profit organization, a co-operative, or any ot ...
s or
freelancer ''Freelance'' (sometimes spelled ''free-lance'' or ''free lance''), ''freelancer'', or ''freelance worker'', are terms commonly used for a person who is self-employed and not necessarily committed to a particular employer long-term. Freelance ...
s), there are a few coloring studios which offer their services to publishers. American Color, Olyoptics, Digital Chameleon were the companies notable in this field.


History

Originally, comics were colored by cutting out films of various densities in the appropriate shapes to be used in producing color-separated printing plates. The typical colorist worked from photocopies of the inked pages, which they colored with special dyes. Dr. Martin's Dyes was a brand notable in this field within the comic strip industry.
CMYK The CMYK color model (also known as process color, or four color) is a subtractive color model, based on the CMY color model, used in color printing, and is also used to describe the printing process itself. The abbreviation ''CMYK'' refers ...
codes were written on the page to indicate the final printed colors, and these hand-colored pages were used as guides by the engraver.
Tatjana Wood Tatjana Wood (née Tatjana Weintraub,Tatjana Wood prof ...
was the main colorist for
DC Comics DC Comics, Inc. ( doing business as DC) is an American comic book publisher and the flagship unit of DC Entertainment, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery. DC Comics is one of the largest and oldest American comic book companies, with the ...
' covers from 1973 through the mid-1980s. More recently, colorists have worked in transparent media such as watercolors or airbrush, which is then photographed, allowing more subtle and painterly effects.


Digital color

Colorist Steve Oliff and his company Olyoptics were one of the first to use computers to do color separations. Although other companies at the time were experimenting with computers, Oliff and his crew were the first to blend the color guide artist with the separator.Khoury, George. ''Image Comics: The Road To Independence'' (TwoMorrows Publishing, 2007). https://books.google.com.pa/books?id=xjVEjumBEIgC&pg=PA177&lpg=PA177&dq=akira+digital+coloring&source=bl&ots=nt7gmV9Kif&sig=ACfU3U2IpHO_7NSokcIv2e2JhWu0Wpn4fA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiG0_Dmg7_qAhUuWN8KHZRMAJ4Q6AEwEHoECAoQAQ#v=onepage&q=akira%20digital%20coloring&f=false In 1987, the Japanese
manga Manga ( Japanese: 漫画 ) are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long prehistory in earlier Japanese art. The term ''manga'' is ...
'' Akira'' was in preparation to be translated and published by
Marvel Comics Marvel Comics is an American comic book publisher and the flagship property of Marvel Entertainment, a divsion of The Walt Disney Company since September 1, 2009. Evolving from Timely Comics in 1939, ''Magazine Management/Atlas Comics'' in ...
's
Epic Comics Epic Comics (also known as the Epic Comics Group)Shooter, Jim. "Bullpen Bulletins: The Truth About the Epic Comics Group!" Marvel comics cover-dated November 1982. was an imprint of Marvel Comics from 1982 to 1996. A spin-off of the publisher's ...
line. Oliff was chosen as the colorist, and he convinced Marvel that it was time to try computer color. After the publication of ''Akira'' in 1988, computer coloring became increasingly prevalent in the comics industry. By the early 1990s, even though the larger comics publishers were using computers, there were variations within the field. DC Comics allowed only a 64-color palette, while Marvel had expanded it to 125 colors.
Dark Horse Comics Dark Horse Comics is an American comic book, graphic novel, and manga publisher founded in Milwaukie, Oregon by Mike Richardson in 1986. The company was created using funds earned from Richardson's chain of Portland, Oregon comic book shops know ...
allowed even more variations.Hollingsworth, Matt
"Color Guides," MattHollingsworth.net.
Accessed Apr. 6, 2009.
The dominant programs in use during that time were Color Prep and Tint Prep, both originally implemented by Olyoptics. This software was invented and written by "Pixel Craft", the first company to create software that used a personal computer that could output files for a digital image setter to make negatives for color printing. Pixel craft was a small company in Long Island, New York, created by Kenneth Giordano and Khouri Giordano. The father and son team went on to accomplish many first in the computerization of color print. In 1993,
Image Comics Image Comics is an American comic book publisher and is the third largest comic book and graphic novel publisher in the industry in both unit and market share. It was founded in 1992 by several high-profile illustrators as a venue for creator-o ...
' use of computer color and more advanced color separation technology propelled DC and Marvel to further upgrade their coloring techniques. Finally, in the mid-1990s, Digital Chameleon's facility with
Adobe Photoshop Adobe Photoshop is a raster graphics editor developed and published by Adobe Inc. for Windows and macOS. It was originally created in 1988 by Thomas and John Knoll. Since then, the software has become the industry standard not only in rast ...
helped make that program the industry standard. The improvements in the technology used for coloring have had a great impact on the way comics are drawn. Before the use of computers, artists would often use the pen or brush to put in detailed
shading Shading refers to the depiction of depth perception in 3D models (within the field of 3D computer graphics) or illustrations (in visual art) by varying the level of darkness. Shading tries to approximate local behavior of light on the object ...
effects; now the artist is more likely to leave the drawing open and leave it to the colorist to insert shading through variation in color tones or through adding a layer of
translucent In the field of optics, transparency (also called pellucidity or diaphaneity) is the physical property of allowing light to pass through the material without appreciable scattering of light. On a macroscopic scale (one in which the dimensions ...
black. Most contemporary colorists work in
digital media Digital media is any communication media that operate in conjunction with various encoded machine-readable data formats. Digital media can be created, viewed, distributed, modified, listened to, and preserved on a digital electronics device. ...
using tools.Sierra, Jerry A
"Digital Chameleon Colors The Vertigo Universe - Part Two,"
''Publish'' (July 1994). Accessed Apr. 6, 2009.


Notable colorists

*
Jack Adler Jack Adler (July 1, 1917 – September 18, 2011)Bails, Jerry''Who's Who of American Comic Books, 1928–1999''.Accessed Feb. 18, 2009. was an artist who worked as a cover artist and colorist for DC Comics. He was a staff member of DC's production ...
* Marina Amaral * David Baron * Josette Baujot *
Jordie Bellaire Jordie Bellaire is an American comic book writer and colorist who lives in Ireland and works for DC, Marvel, Valiant, and Image comic book publishers. She has colored '' Pretty Deadly'', '' The Manhattan Projects'', ''Moon Knight'', '' The Vis ...
*
Jeromy Cox Jeromy Cox (born October 23, 1970) is an American colorist. He has worked on several notable titles including Detective Comics, Spider-Man, Promethea, Mage, Avengers Academy, DMZ, and Grendel. Biography His coloring career began at WildStor ...
*
Nine Culliford Janine Culliford (née Devroye; 29 March 1930 – 5 July 2016) was a Belgian colorist of comic strips. Nine Culliford was the wife of the comic strip creator known as Peyo (the pseudonym of Pierre Culliford, 1928–1992). She colored his illus ...
* George Freeman, formerly with Digital Chameleon * John Higgins * Matt Hollingsworth *
Richard Isanove Richard Isanove (born 1968) is a French artist and painter working in the American comic book industry. Early life Richard Isanove was born in the south of France, studied film and animation at the Ecole nationale superieure des arts decoratifs ...
* Vittorio Leonardo *
Lee Loughridge Lee Loughridge is an artist who has worked as a colorist in the comics industry. He is possibly best known for his work on the various ''Batman Adventures'' titles. Bibliography His other work includes such titles as: *''Accelerate'' *''Angel'' ...
* Thomas Sanna, WadeeKT *
Laura Martin Laura DePuy (credited later in her career as Laura Martin, having married Randy Martin in 2001) is a colorist who has produced work for several of the major comics companies, including DC Comics, Marvel Comics and CrossGen. Career A sometimes comi ...
*
Dave McCaig Dave McCaig (born December 6, 1971, in Thunder Bay, Ontario) is a Canadian artist and colourist who also works in the animation industry. He has worked on comics including '' Adam Strange'', ''X-Men'', ''Star Wars'', '' Superman: Birthright'', ' ...
* Paul Mounts * Steve Oliff, founder of Olyoptics *
Cris Peter Cris Peter (June 15, 1983) is a Brazilian colorist. She works mainly in the American comics market for publishers like DC Comics and Marvel Comics. She was nominated for the Eisner Award for her colors in comic series ''Casanova''. She also did ...
* Joe Rivera *
Alex Sinclair Alex Sinclair (born 2 December 1968) is a Mexican comic-book colorist known for his work with Jim Lee and Scott Williams. Career Sinclair is well known for his collaborations with Jim Lee and Scott Williams. He has previously worked on '' A ...
* Marie Severin * Dave Stewart * Christina Strain * Lynn Varley * Jose Villarrubia * Glynis Wein *
Tatjana Wood Tatjana Wood (née Tatjana Weintraub,Tatjana Wood prof ...


See also

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Color grading Color grading is a post-production process common to filmmaking and video editing of altering the appearance of an image for presentation in different environments on different devices. Various attributes of an image such as contrast, color, ...
*
Flatter A flatter is a coloring specialist within the comic book industry that prepares the inked or sketched comic book page for the colorist with digital art software such as Adobe Photoshop. The specialist does so by selecting the objects on the pa ...
*
Inker The inker (sometimes credited as the finisher or embellisher) is one of the two line artists in traditional comic book production. The penciller creates a drawing, the inker outlines, interprets, finalizes, retraces this drawing by using a pencil ...
*
Letterer A letterer is a member of a team of comic book creators responsible for drawing the comic book's text. The letterer's use of typefaces, calligraphy, letter size, and layout all contribute to the impact of the comic. The letterer crafts the com ...
*
Penciller A penciller (or penciler) is an artist who works on the creation of comic books, graphic novels, and similar visual art forms, with a focus on the initial pencil illustrations, usually in collaboration with other artists, who provide inks, colors ...


References

{{color topics Comics terminology Visual arts occupations