Color's Not Free

I think we forget how important good coloring is, particularly in super hero comics. In every comic, though, I think we think it's incidental, perfunctory, and after the fact, perhaps because not every comic has it. I think we forget that color is a choice. The truth, though, is that good pencils and good inks can be sunk by bad coloring, and good color can salvage less than ideal pencils. Colors, good or bad, can have as much effect on meaning as any other aspect of the process (and, if inking is merely misunderstood, lettering is similarly marginal).

One of the reason that good superhero comics are so hard to find is that they're often the result of a collaboration between four or five different people. For a comic to pass muster, a team has to work together on every aspect of the book, color included. Matt Hollingsworth is one of the best colorists we've got, and this series of tweets about his work with Matt Fraction and David Aja on Hawkeye, posted earlier this week, are a good reminder of why he's so good, and why color matters.

Hawkeye #3 with @mattfraction & @davaja. Hawkeye always has color laid out over the entire issue, not page by page. pic.twitter.com/I4govOPmSO
— Matt Hollingsworth (@MDHollingsworth) November 25, 2014

Hawkeye #8 with @mattfraction & @davaja. #colorswithoutlineart pic.twitter.com/4192du2t8I
— Matt Hollingsworth (@MDHollingsworth) November 25, 2014

Hawkeye #11 with @mattfraction & @davaja. Pizza Dog issue. pic.twitter.com/DfVZ9nkWbE
— Matt Hollingsworth (@MDHollingsworth) November 25, 2014

For Pizza Dog, @mattfraction sent me this as a concept. And a sound concept it was. @davaja pic.twitter.com/gZ5CkTsDaY
— Matt Hollingsworth (@MDHollingsworth) November 25, 2014

With Hawkeye, look for mirrored colors. Same colors appear throughout the book on pages w/ different palettes. Hawkeye wastes no colors.
— Matt Hollingsworth (@MDHollingsworth) November 25, 2014