Hi CJP,
You’ve mentioned how colourists can sometimes mess up and not colour scenes the way the writer or artist intended (Klang, for instance). How is this possible? Do they not have notes to ensure scenes are coloured correctly? And if the notes are ignored, why hasn’t the editor picked up on it? In this day and age with computers is it not easy to correct mistakes before they go to print?
Speaking of computers. I personally feel that modern colouring has made comic books too glossy looking and it’s lost it’s ‘cheap’ but stylised look. I especially like the sort of pastel tones of the books from the early 80s.
Modern comic colouring veers towards very muted tones where it’s hard to actually see what’s going on. I don’t know why this is because surely the idea of comics is to make everything easy to follow.
I’m just wondering what your views on modern colouring are?
Thanks in advance.
I think most what I see when I flip through books off the rack is too dark. The first issue or two of Q2, I could not tell what was going on, period. The opening kids sequence is supposed to be a sunny day, the words “Norman” and “Rockwell” in the actual description. It was colored as post-dusk, the night battle scenes has the bad guy in a dark brown costume (?). All I can do is include color notes in the script, but if the ed does not provide the script to the colorist or if the colorist does not read the script and/or if the ed does not review the color *along with the script*, then I am just wasting my time.
The artist can, presumably, include color notes. I have no idea what Doc did; he traditionally has refused to include color notes because, as he explained to me, “the color notes ugly up the pages” (presumably for resale).
I honestly know very little about the modern production process or what the colorist sees or does not see. A colorist is like a film’s director of photography–a very important job. Guys and gals I am used to working with would actually call or email if something was not clear. The Acclaim Q&W stuff was written and drawn by the same guys and looked *great.*
I am assuming colorists now, more than ever, are likely coloring pages without the lettering attached: they are coloring the page as the letterer is lettering it. I have no idea if eds routinely send script to colorists.
I am loathe to blame the Q2 colorist, for example, because I have no way of knowing what he knew or didn’t know. After seeing the Norman Rockwell opening scene rendered like a Freddie movie, I emailed Valiant and asked for the colorists’ contact info, but received no reply. I assume it’s because I was becoming an annoyance (and, yes, I was) and maybe somebody didn’t want me poking my nose in. But nobody, I mean nobody, was paying any attention whatsoever to that project, and I am left to assume the colorist had no idea, literally, whether it was day or night.
It’s the circle (or cycle) of hell that’s led me away from comics: time after time having my work ruined such that I get blamed for confusing or unclear things in a comic book that were neither in the script. I’m *really* tired of taking beatings because nobody else seems invested in what we’re doing.
That’s the neat thing about writing prose. Whatever you liked or didn’t like about “1999” is all my fault; and I’m happy to take that hit because I know, for that project at least, what went on sale was what I actually wrote.
(Oh he’s so bitter…)
Yes, all the color mistakes in 1999 are Priest’s own fault. 🙂
Dave is making reference to some funkiness in the color spectrum where I make liberal use of the term “Indigo” to mean “violet,” which is scientifically incorrect. This is exactly what I mean: some dope making a mistake and my (or, in this case, Dave) getting blamed for it 🙂
I felt a responsibility to Dave to try really hard not to screw up the science because I knew anyone who cared enough to realize something was wrong would assume it was Dave’s screw-up. But Dave knows the difference between Indigo and violet, but I overruled him because I didn’t feel like rewriting everything 🙂
“Purple” and “violet” sound like sissy terms, while “Indigo” evokes terror!
The sequel features a new character called The Blue Man, which will likely have Dave pulling his hair out 🙂
Also, amber is a shade of yellow, not red. 🙂
Priest: It’s the circle (or cycle) of hell that’s led me away from comics: time after time having my work ruined such that I get blamed for confusing or unclear things in a comic book that were neither in the script. I’m *really* tired of taking beatings because nobody else seems invested in what we’re doing.
Trev: Ah, yes. I can’t speak for anyone else, of course, but I have often blamed the writer for the confusion I see in comics thinking that the writer has told the artist to do so, especially now more and more books are written in full script. If you hadn’t mentioned mistakes that happened in your books you had nothing to do with I’d have blamed you myself.
I now just take a step back and just presume something was lost in translation by any number of people.
Yeah, but don’t discount the possibility the screw-up *was* mine 🙂 Just saying that, regarding Q2, I begged, literally begged, “Mark: I’m begging you.” And then I just threw my hands up because I felt I was being branded a lunatic. And later faulted for being “uncooperative” when I refused to participate in the review process, a process that actually meant “rewrite your script to fit the art these other people created by not having followed it.”
Priest…..Your “Everett Ross” made the cut in Captain America: Civil War. Did you know?
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/captain-america-civil-war-backstory-868347