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<TITLE>Re: DCML digest, Vol 1 #993 - 15 msgs</TITLE>
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Timo:<BR>
<BLOCKQUOTE><BR>
I don't know if Barks gave any <BR>
guides to colorist but most of the times he gave any guides they were <BR>
ignored (!) mainly because printer who did the printing plates removed them <BR>
before comics were colored. Therefore they might even vary in different <BR>
</BLOCKQUOTE> reprints. Sad.<BR>
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Comic books were invented as a second mass market outlet for newspaper comic strips, so production values were bottom of the barrel. Editors and creators eventually arose to introduce originality and quality into the stories, but they were without influence over the production values, which continued on pretty much as they'd begun. And the coloring, though a prime feature of comic books, was part of the production process.<BR>
<BR>
Black and white material, such as line art, is something any press can handle, and for the least expense. Color, on the other hand, is by far the most costly aspect of a print job (it was originally done by engravers, who worked directly on the printing plates using very nasty chemicals), and entirely reliant on the capabilities of a particular press and of the production process built around it.<BR>
<BR>
As you might imagine, when publishers began putting out magazines promising "All in Color for a Dime", they wanted to make sure the color was done as cheaply as possible. Therefore it was the printing plant, not the editors or artists, that established the color palates and the procedures by which color would be handled. (Publishers, in fact, often had the printer's color palates boiled down even more, to further speed up the production process and reduce cost. And printers often adopted these reduced palates in turn.)<BR>
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In such an environment, colorists were valued not for their artistry but for their capacity to accommodate the production process. And as costs rose and profits margins narrowed, this capacity became increasingly important, to the point that many publishers had a bare handful of colorists - and sometimes just one - to crank out color guides that were sent to companies hiring unskilled labor for minimum wage to produce the materials needed for printers to burn color plates.<BR>
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That was the situation for American newsstand comics when Gladstone came along back in 1985, at the tail end of that whole dubious "era". At that point the personal computer, like a beneficent virus, began to seriously invade the comic book production process and eventually bring to the colorist the power to confidently establish, if not outright cement, what would go on, and come off, the press.<BR>
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This has not removed coloring from being part of the production process, but it has, interestingly enough, turned the colorist into the equivalent of the old-time engraver - without having to use any of those nasty chemicals, thank god.<BR>
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Gary
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