A flatter is a coloring specialist within the

comic book industry A comic book, also called comicbook, comic magazine or (in the United Kingdom and Ireland) simply comic, is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are oft ...

that prepares the inked or sketched comic book page for the colorist with digital art software such as

Adobe Photoshop Adobe Photoshop is a raster graphics editor developed and published by Adobe Inc. for Microsoft Windows, Windows and macOS. It was originally created in 1988 by Thomas Knoll, Thomas and John Knoll. Since then, the software has become the indu ...

. The specialist does so by selecting the objects on the page and filling them in with a solid color called a "flat", so that the "flats" can be used by the colorist by way of the "magic wand" tool. In this way, the colorist may select each object during the rendering process—to the exclusion of the other objects on the page—so that the object's base color may be changed, or to render the colors. Because each colorist has preferences as to how the flats are to be done flatters usually work as freelancers commissioned directly by the colorist. Pricing for flats vary but as of early 2010 one common going rate for a flatted page was $15 if the page were inked and of regular difficulty ($30 for a double page) with $20 for a sketched page of regular difficulty ($40 for a double sketched page). Notable flatters include Jeremiah Embs and Neil Fraser that obtained published credit for flats while working for the colorist Brian Buccellato on the comic book series ''Witchblade'' (issues #72, 73, 74) for

Top Cow Top Cow Productions is an American comics publisher, an imprint of Image Comics founded by Marc Silvestri in 1992. History During the early years of Image Comics, which was founded in 1992, co-founder Marc Silvestri shared a studio with Jim Le ...

in 2003–2004. Other notable flatters include Alex Petretich, Talon Kelley, and Fredric Paculba, who have worked for the colorist Dave Stewart on such series as

Hellboy Hellboy is a fictional superhero created by writer-artist Mike Mignola. The character first appeared in ''San Diego Comic-Con Comics'' #2 (August 1993), and has since appeared in various eponymous miniseries, one-shots and intercompany crossovers ...

, BPRD and received published credits for the comic

Shaolin Cowboy ''Shaolin Cowboy'' is an American comic book series created, written and drawn by artist Geof Darrow (with the exception of the opening dialog in the issues of the original 2004–2007 run, written by The Wachowskis). The book was published irre ...

References

*Tinsley, Kevin, (1999) ''Digital Prepress for Comics Books : The Definitive Desktop Production Guide'', Stickman Graphics. *Chiarello & Klein, (2004) ''DC Comics Guide to Coloring and Lettering Comics'', Watson-Guptill . *Miller, Brian & Kristy (2008) ''Hi_Fi Color for Comics : Digital Techniques for Professional Results'', Impact. Comics terminology Visual arts occupations Flatter {{comics-stub