Following up on the second part of Thom H.’s question, this time regarding my favorite colorists and why. But here are a couple of notable ones
Like I said last time, I don’t know if I’ve got quite the skills to adequately describe the qualities of colorists’ performances.
I’ll start off with Tom Ziuko, whose work I started to notice when he was coloring Atar Force, as seen on this page I had to copy from some dubious source on the internet since my copies are currently not in a readily available place:
I appreciated the boldness of the coloring on the foreground characters, while the background characters are painted with a single hue as to emphasize just what exactly we’re supposed to be looking at here. I know it’s not an uncommon strategy, but I really first noticed it with Ziuko and he’s stuck in my head ever since as a colorist to watch for.
Next up is the late Tom Luth, the brave soul who tackled Sergio Aragones’ Groo the Wanderer for decades:
All of Sergio’s meticulous detail required a colorist just as meticulous, and that man was Mr. Luth. Other capable hands have taken the coloring reins on this series, but Luth remains the gold standard.
Now here’s where it gets tricky. As a Swamp Thing fan, I particularly appreciated the color on these series, most notably the original ’70s run. Coloring a horror comic definitely requires a different tone from coloring a Superman story, and the colorists on the first Swamp Thing run were up to the challenge.
So, I picked a solid, attention grabbing page from Swamp Thing #9 (1973), with some nice coloring (scanned here from my personal copy):
…and I had to go look up the credits online since DC titles at this point didn’t credit colorists or letterers, usually. My assumption was that it was Tatjana Wood, as customer Sean notes, the person usually associated with coloring the early Swampies.
I look up this issue on the Grand Comics Database, and…the colorist is not known. Another site says the same thing. The later reprint in Roots of the Swamp Thing also gives no indication.
Interestingly, the GCD says earlier issues were colored by Bernie Wrightson himself, including a note on #1 citing a letter from a later issue as a source. Wood doesn’t start getting credited, at least on the CGD, ’til #11, after Wrightson leaves the title.
Anyway, I still don’t know who colored that above page, or the issue #9 it came from, so…Good Job, Anonymous Person! And I don’t know the full story on Wood vs. Wrightson on the other coloring jobs. Thus, let’s just say Whoever Colored 1970s Swamp Thing is one of my favorite colorists. If anyone can straighten this out for sure, that’d be great. I don’t have the time to investigate further as I write this, but I’ll look into it as I can.
Like in the previous post about letterers, I’m sure there’s plenty more colorists all of you can name in the comments. (Like, I forgot to mention Master Letterer Ken Bruzenak? Or Chris Ware?)
Here is a listing for some Tatjana Wood color guides. She definitely did the colors on the covers of the reprints of the Wein/Wrightson Swamp Thing stories.
Apparently she also colored many DC Comics covers from around 1973 through the ’80s.
Tatjana Wood Comic Book Art for Sale | Value Guide | Heritage Auctions https://share.google/CCziZEInhZHYWYMfc
I really do not mean to disparage the many great, pre-digital colorists, but the first colorist who really made me sit up and take notice was Laura Martin’s (nee DePuy) work on the Authority and Planetary. Absolutely astonishing work on a completely different level then some of the crude computer effects you’d see on some of the X-Books and such in the mid-90s.
My favorite colorist right now is probably Mike Spicer, who I think uses bold, rich color but keeps everything clear. Also tend to dig Jordie Bellaire– her work on Birds of Prey is especially good. Dean White is another one, whose work is as transformative as some inkers used to be.
My pet peeve is that some comics these days might look great on a backlit screen, but when printed on whatever color stock the publisher decides to use, ends up printing way too dark or muddied. And some reprints of classic material have the opposite problem, where the colors are too bright because they’re no longer soaking into newsprint. Some of the pages in the recent ‘Nam omnibus are eye-searing.
I came here to talk about Laura Martin, too! She was a real game changer in the industry. And quick — her name was everywhere for a while. Apparently, she was the go-to colorist for John Cassaday and Brian Hitch when they were at the height of their fame.
I remember Tom Ziuko’s color work from the cover of Legends #1 back in 1986. I don’t know what process he used, but it was so painterly. It made an impression on me back then.
Whoever colored that Swamp Thing page knew how to mix some weird greens. Unsettling.
As mentioned in the comments before, Javier Rodriguez is killing it on Absolute Martian Manhunter right now. Color is an integral part of the story — because of the different color Martians — and the way Rodriguez uses it to direct readers’ attention around the page is next level.
I tend to like the work of colorists who use bold colors with fewer gradients- Javier Rodriguez, Mike Spicer, Laura Allred, Sarah Dyer, Dave Stewartm Matt Wilson, etc. I also like the colorists who apply a painterly overlay to the line art without obliterating it- Jordie Bellaire is probably the best in that regard.
The colorist who has been impressing me most recently is Marte Gracia. Their colors over Pepe Laraz and others have been stunning, with a watercolor surface and changing brightness and desity in ways that make sense.
Finally, I want to mention Christie Scheele. Her colors on Daredevil during the Nocenti/ JR Jr run were sublime. She used a darker, more limited palette to great effect. DD looked moody and gritty, which perfectly matched the stories and line art.
I’ll second the work of Dave Stewart—there’s a sequence from Hellboy in Hell #4 that I use in my comics lecture to illustrate the effective use of colors in a comic.
And one of the hardest coloring jobs in comics must be coloring Green Lantern; not making the comic seem like a never-ending sea of green has to be highly difficult!
Mike: will you be going with two categories, one where the colorist worked on one genre, another on someone who worked superhero, space opera, I’m sure there are some that fall into each of the two categories.
And I always wanted to see Don Martin’s take on Ultra, the Multi-Alien.
I know the recent Warlord omnibus has caused some discussions due to the type of paper it was printed on, but from photos online, I think the colours look better printed on that paper than the super glossy stuff. Same for a lot of older material.
José Villarrubia has a great public Facebook album called “From a colorist’s perspective” where he looks at the colours of various comics and how they’ve been reprinted. He actually talked about that very page of Swamp Thing back in 2020! (And how the reprinted and recolored version is bad.) https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10163251757970117&set=a.10163251815750117
Glynis Oliver [Wein] and Laura Allred are my two favorites!
Muntsa Vicente’s did Brubaker/Martín’s Friday and I think it’s the best colored American comic this century.
I wish more omnis had used the same paper as the Warlord one.
Jordie Bellaire is a fantastic colorist but additionally she has the super power to pick winners – I can’t think of a comic that she’s written that isn’t wonderful. In fact, if I see her name on the credits I will pick up the book knowing that if she is the colorist I will love the book!
That Atari Force character is 100% the basis for The Pirates Of The Black Water
Lopez’ art on AF was so amazing. Why he isn’t as well known as Perez, I don’t know!
Other than specialists like Richmond Lewis or Lynn Varley, my view is that the best colorists in the pre-digital era were actually inkers like Klaus Janson, Tom Palmer, and Kevin Nowlan. They had an understanding of color theory that most full-time colorists never really demonstrated (exceptions exist, of course).
@Daniel
Agreed! I’m pretty sure Steranko also colored a lot of his own work at Marvel during the Silver Age. I’m all for a visionary artist doing their own coloring for an overall enhanced viewing experience.
@Bully
Agreed that Glynis Oliver did great coloring.