Coloring in the Time Before Computers
A look at my brief career as a colorist
Hey, let’s look at a startling, untold story from my past. Well, not that startling.
I got my bachelor’s degree from the School of Visual Arts in New York City, where I studied cartooning under teachers including Will Eisner, Art Spiegelman, Sam Viviano, Joe Orlando, and others. Artist and editor Sal Amendola taught a class in perspective drawing that I took and enjoyed, and I still have a decent grasp of one-, two-, and three-point perspective.
Sal also taught us other ways to establish perspective through use of tools like color – and he liked my handling of color on a class assignment enough that he offered to teach me the craft of comic-book coloring. Back then, in the days before computer-coloring, colorists would be given black and white photocopies of comics pages to paint in with Doc Martin’s Dyes, then code with the exact colors needed for each image.
Sal gave me my first coloring assignment in this issue of New Talent Showcase. Coloring for most DC titles was assigned by head of production Bob Rozakis, but Sal was allowed to assign this title to give newbies a chance. (Unless otherwise noted, these covers are NOT colored by me.)
It was around this time that I started writing for Marvel Age Magazine, and when some of the folks around the office learned that I was doing some coloring for DC, I had the chance to show my stuff. Unfortunately I found out that Sal had only taught me half of what I needed to know. What he left out was that I needed to invest in a full box of Doc Martin’s Dyes, not just the few bottles I had. A lot of the colors I had been mixing myself to muddy results were supposed to come straight out of the bottle. Once I got hipped to that, I started getting a few coloring assignments here and there. Hanging around the office has its benefits!
Along with writing for Marvel Age, I colored pages that featured a piece of art or two plus lots of type, along with complex pages like this calendar that ran on the back cover.
I also started getting emergency assignments like these…
SQUADRON SUPREME #4 - If you look it up, you’ll notice that this issue’s coloring is credited to “Mark Philips.” That’s because writer and editor-in-all-but-name Mark Gruenwald colored the figures, then asked if I could color just the backgrounds overnight.
SWORDS OF THE SWASHBUCKLERS #1 - The coloring for this issue got kicked back by the separators for being too complicated. My job was to recolor the issue overnight but simplify it. For this I got paid but got no credit.
THE THING #32 - Another overnight job, this one notable because I blasted through it so fast. By my recollection I averaged 15 minutes per page. The reason it was so easy? The entire issue up till the final page or so took place in a single setting and featured only the Thing and Vance Astro.
Not every job was an overnight, get-it-done-now assignment. Here are a few regular comics I colored at the time with a little breathing room…
I colored about half the issues of Vision & Scarlet Witch (now available as a Marvel Masterwork hardcover!) plus the entire run of The Liberty Project. Writer Kurt Busiek, then my flat-mate, recommended me for that job, and he seemed to like keeping an eye on what I was doing.
At this time Marvel had two colorists on staff: legendary artist George Roussos, who had been in the biz since the Golden Age as a penciller and inker who worked with Jerry Robinson, Mort Meskin, and other giants of that era. The other was artist Paul Becton, a member of Marvel’s production department. George colored covers exclusively, while Paul’s job was to make corrections on pages before they went out, usually by coloring a panel or even a figure and then pasting it into the color guide. He also colored covers here and there that George couldn’t get to.
When Paul was out for a couple of days I got to fill in for him, during which time I fixed a bunch of errors and also got to color this cover…
My coloring career wasn’t exactly taking off, though, and when I left Marvel for Video Magazine it more or less dried up completely. Well, it was fun while it lasted. At Video I concentrated on writing, and I didn’t have to worry about overnight coloring jobs anymore.