Posted in: Comics, Recent Updates | Tagged: colorist, comic con, Comics, Jordie Bellaire

Con Wars: Vs The Colourists

Published Thu, 24 Jan 2013 10:00:18 -0600

Colourist Jordie Bellaire posted on her tumblr, addressed to an unnamed comic convention who had decided not to list comic book colourists as guests at their next event

Your archaic view of creatives is part of what keeps jobs of this industry undervalued. Congratulations, you've officially locked out a great percentage of talented, friendly, hard working creatives who would originally have had great interest in attending your convention.

Your one sentence, "this is not a colorists thing", was surely the most pigheaded and dismissive thing I've been told since I began professional coloring. This is a seriously small-minded view of the way things work. Let me explain why:

Colorists make or break a book: Colorists are extremely essential to the medium of colored comics. I don't think I need to explain to most any fan, the value of a colorist like Laura Martin or Dave Stewart. Colorists create form for figures and their environments, mood, tone and "Effects" like, blurring, flares, glows, color holds, etc. If any of this is done badly or doesn't give clarity to an artist's work, the artwork fails.

Colorists are the unknown amazing backup singer who makes every track awesome BUT-Colorists are not compensated nearly as much as artists: Colorists, while paid in some instances very fairly, are never compensated even half of what the artist on the title is generally making. Colorists work because they love COMICS.

It continues… of course the real question people will be asking is… which convention? All we know is it isn't "Thought Bubble, Heroes, NYCC, ECCC, D.I.C.E"…

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