9 COLORING

I love colored comics. There’s something about those vibrant colors that really brings the pages to life for me as a reader. But here’s the thing: Coloring is becoming a more and more technical craft in the comics business. Originally, coloring was done by hand coloring the page and indicating to the printer what combination of colored ink you wanted that color to be. It was almost mathematical and it wasn’t precise by any means.

As technology of the printing press and the computer developed, that method of coloring died. Gone are the days of completely hand coloring anything. Gone are the days of physical color guides. Now, the colorist gets a digital file of the inked page and he uses primarily Adobe Photoshop to do the coloring work. However, you don’t need to be a computer whiz to understand what makes good coloring.

The first thing to realize is that colorists are artists—not computer operators. The most important thing a colorist needs to do is understand color theory.

The second thing a colorist needs to know is how comics storytelling works.

The last thing a colorist needs to know is how to work in Adobe Photoshop or whatever program he uses. Be an artist first, figure out the computer stuff later.

Like with the inking chapter, I’m turning this chapter over to a colorist I’ve worked with consistently for the last six years. His name is Chris Sotomayor and he has colored Captain Marvel, The Avengers, The Vision, Ms. Marvel, Annihilation: Super-Skrull and X-Men, and that’s just for me! He’s a top-notch colorist and one of the best in the industry. So, without further ado, here’s Chris!