Coloured Original Art?

[Hepcat]

All the original comic art I've seen has been black and white. Yet comic mags are coloured. This tells me that the process of producing a comic has usually involved copying the original art somehow and then having the copy coloured, albeit in some cases the original art itself may have been coloured directly.

 

The question that arises is therefore whether the initial coloured copy would still be original art. Methinks it should since it would have the actual original colouring.

 

But where is all the original final coloured artwork? Why is it so rare?

 

[Kevin Boyd]

Most new art is colored digitally so there is no physical colored piece to sell, just the black and white line art (or even just the pencils and/or the inks on separate pieces).

 

Colorists usually would take a scan/copy/stat of the inked work and then paint over that. These are generally referred to as color guides, which go to the printers for determining how the final color mixes should look on the printed pages. These are out there for sale, but are generally much lower priced than the original line art.

 

I own a few of these color guides, but my preference is for line art or fully painted original artwork.

[MutantKeys]

Not all modern OA is black and white. Some are painted such as some of the covers to Y: The Last man which is watercolored I beleve and Alex Ross stuff which is painted...

[Kevin Boyd]

Obviously, but he wasn't asking about cover paintings.

[mister_not_so_nice]

There are a couple threads on COLOR GUIDES, one IS HERE.

 

 

I think most color guides are still with the colorist since they have limited appeal(and that is, of course as Kevin said, if they were even used and not done on computer).

 

If you're looking for color guides from a particular issue I'd try to contact the colorist directly.

[Kevin Boyd]

I know Patricia Mulvihill still has most of her color art, but John Kalisz has sold or tried to sell most of his on eBay. Last time I talked with Trish she indicated that nearly everyone, including herself, have gone digital.

[matewan1990]

Tom Fleming at www.fanfare-se.com has color guides for sale.

Mike B.

[Hepcat]

Does anyone have a list of colorists from the Atom and Silver Ages though? Who did the coloring for DC, Marvel, Charlton, Dell, harvey etc. anyway?

 

 

[Hepcat]

Does anyone have a list of colorists from the Atom and Silver Ages though? Who did the coloring for DC, Marvel, Charlton, Dell, Harvey etc. anyway?

 

 

[Dick Pontoon]

Stan Goldberg was the main Marvel colorist. Marie Severin colored ECs and later moved to Marvel. I forget who was at DC.

 

Some background info on old-school coloring is here on Todd klein's site .

[Hepcat]

...but are generally much lower priced than the original line art.

 

Which is always a good thing in my book.

 

(thumbs u

[Juswuh]

For a long time colorists were uncredited, presumably because when stories were reprinted they'd either be recoloured by someone else or would be in black and white.

 

I remember reading that somebody had bought a page of John Byrne b/w art from X-Men and had it hand-coloured. Byrne was not pleased.

[Scott Goodman]

For a long time colorists were uncredited, presumably because when stories were reprinted they'd either be recoloured by someone else or would be in black and white.

 

I remember reading that somebody had bought a page of John Byrne b/w art from X-Men and had it hand-coloured. Byrne was not pleased.

 

Back during the 1980s, colorist Steve Oliff colored numerous pages and covers and other artists colored their work, too. I own a Flash splash by Alex Saviuk and he colored it, himself, when he was bored at a comic show. What sucks is that it is one of the "Death of Iris Allen" storyline issues and is amazing, but the value is significantly decreased because it was colored. It's part of my permanent collection and it looks beautiful, but if I ever decided to trade it or sell it, the value would be way lower than what it should be -- just because it is colored.

I owned a Jim Starlin Ghost Rider page that was beautiful with its brushstrokes. But, the previous owner had Oliff paint it and it made it a gorgeous page, but not one highly valued by other collectors (until I traded it off; the guy told me he couldn't get $100 for it and then sold it for $325 on his web site).

I have even seen at least one Frank Miller Power Man and Iron Fist cover that was colored. It wasn't as devalued, but that was because it was a Frank Miller cover.

[Juswuh]

I remember now that it was Steve Oliff who coloured the Byrne page, a full-page splash featuring Arcade.

[Scott Goodman]

Oliff colored a lot more than just one Byrne page. I've seen others for sale. Those still sell for quite a bit, though.

Oliff did such a nice job and, to me, it doesn't detract from the art if you want it for your wall. I love the Saviuk that Alex colored and Alex even wanted to trade me for it so he could have it back. By the way, he sold the Flash splash for $25 way back in 1987. The Flash splash is completely colored the same as the comic and it looks beautiful.

[Terry Doyle]

Most of my favorite pieces are colour originals.

 

But most of those are UK-produced strips that exist as painted art.

 

A Hampson DAN DARE cover and a Adams TOMAHAWK cover, side-by-side: