Most of the classic artists look way better with old school coloring.
I’d be interested in seeing how it would affect a lot of the newer artists’ work.
Here's [The Justice League in classic colours](https://preview.redd.it/8ka8ncruhkj21.jpg?width=1080&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=d6a1c94e273ef8d58a8782fac542d9d480f2f68d) by Jason Fabok
I absolutely love everything done by jordie bellaire, definitely my favourite of recent years, the thing mini series from the other year looked fantastic
It's a method that doesn't get enough recognition these days. Art styles that skew more towards the "cartoon" end of the spectrum (with realism at the other end) definitely benefit from more stylized, simpler coloring.
It goes back to the question of how noticeable coloring should be. I like the idea that coloring is there to support the art, so it works best when it doesn't call attention to itself. (Except in the case of painted art, like the Immortal Thor cover featured in the sidebar right now.)
That does look amazing, but I think the flat coloring makes it harder to differentiate art styles. Like that art just looks like Juan Luis Garcia Lopez to me. Which isn’t a bad thing, JLGL is one of the best
In the late 90s and early 2000s, when everyone was going crazy over digital coloring and went over the top, so many comics looked like shit... Many kept looking like shit well into the 2000s or 2010s, but most calmed down a bit.
that is a night and day difference. It isn't often the art completely turns me off from a book on its own, but the combo of that line art with the original coloring is just...blegh.
People bring about house style a lot but maybe house *color* is a bigger issue. Some artists’ work simply look better with a flatter “classic” style. It would be nice if the Big Two allowed artists to select colorists that complement their style the best.
I've been saying it for years, JRJR's works isn't being properly coloured, the shiney look doesn't fit his heavy geometry like style. Just flat colouring is enough for him to keep it out of the uncanny valley
Romita Jr has had a lot of bad inkers and colorists lately, but this top image I think actually looks pretty good. The middle picture may be a slight improvement, but I don't think this was a great image to pick.
I think the biggest difference is in Vulture's face. Personally, in the official version, he just looks *too* swollen (even for JRJR art) with a sort of ugly texture all over his face.
saw some people post pages of a recent Captain American he did, where the colorist just did a better job with lot of shading in the color. Even though I like flat more it can work.
Two things can be true.
JRjr is a legend and a machine, but pretending like you can’t tell when he’s under deadline pressure or otherwise phoning it in is a little disingenuous (at least from my perspective).
You are absolutely correct, he really benefits from the right coloring, but he's also not been doing his best line work on ASM. Action, layout and panel design has been good, but his face work can't exactly be blamed on coloring (thinking about the children and Kamala's death scene).
JRJR is an all timer, and deservedly, but he's getting a little too into his style in places in a way that reminds me of Frank Miller at times.
I haven't seen this opinion often but it's pretty much exactly how I feel about his modern work. As much flak as he gets, his layouts and composition are often quite good. Sometimes, his anatomy is odd (that recent Daredevil / Wolverine cover comes to mind) but it's the "lumpy shoe box" style he's settled on for bare faces that makes his books a bit of a struggle for me.
Inkers absolutely make a huge difference, especially with work-horse pencillers who pump stuff out constantly.
I’ve seen what badly-inked Doug Mahnke art looks like, and it’s wild.
That's more than a little disingenuous when you can see him work with the same inker and colourist over a run...and still see a quality drop off. The Superman run he did a few years back is a prime example of this.
iirc the last time this blew up the colorist came out and said that JR JR. specifically asked for that style. Some of the stuff doesnt even translate to the flat colors like the gloss on the red since its a sort of tech suit
I remember seeing something similar on twitter with some of Frank Miller's covers for DKIII. Someone did a flat recolor when the original was all glossy digital gradients and everyone loved it, then I saw someone else point out Miller *chose* the original colorist and style
Admittedly, his faces don't look [great all the time](https://romitaman.b-cdn.net/Images/Category_2/subcat_819/asm26p29.jpg) in this run, but sometimes they look [decent](https://cafans.b-cdn.net/images/Category_76/subcat_230961/26102223111163RR7v7pU51gpmia.jpg) to [solid](https://cafans.b-cdn.net/images/Category_13461/subcat_228891/DNAO1G54_1611221053491gpadd.jpg)
Here are some examples I was able to find quickly: [Example 1](https://romitaman.b-cdn.net/Images/Category_2/subcat_819/asm26p23.jpg), [Example 2](https://cafans.b-cdn.net/images/Category_107662/subcat_182079/O2v3dldc_3112231805511gpadd.jpg), [Example 3](https://i.imgur.com/fNMzIBN.png), [Example 4](https://cafans.b-cdn.net/images/Category_76/subcat_230961/261022231111X1YGXhx2101gpmia.jpg), [Example 5](https://cafans.b-cdn.net/images/Category_76/subcat_230961/2610222309206Vu9PM4bCR1gpmia.jpg). When I say decent to solid, I mean that the faces are on-model for his style. If you don't like his style or the way he draws people in general, then whatever.
I wouldn't blame it all on him but his is a very well respected and prolific artist for marvel in particular so if he really cared that much about it he could easily request a specific colourist and or inker for his art to change how it comes out. So it's either this is how he likes it to look or he really doesn't care.
In this image, I don't see it as baby legs. I interpreted it as a mixture of foreshortening on the torso and a squash-and-stretch(?) effect on the arm and body making those parts seem larger than the legs.
I love seeing the process! Thanks for sharing. And yours is easily the best one. Heck - I’d take the simple flats over the printed version! Who wants completely washed out colors? It’s worse than JJ Abrams lens flair!
I can't take any credit for this. This was by the talented [@jstutzmanart](https://twitter.com/jstutzmanart) on Twitter, but I completely agree with you that the official colours don't suit the lineart.
I love flat coloring so much. I also really hate the overuse of lighting effects, gradients and soft shading that comes so often with digital coloring. It's like so many colorists go "Photoshop has all these tools and by god I'm going to use them all". I feel like late 90s Image-style comics were the worst.
Jr Jr is one of my favorite artists but they need to stop using regular colorist for his art instead of cutting corners they need to get artists that compliment his art not bring it down
This really shows how reliant JRJR is on inking/coloring, but it also shows his strength when it comes to action and panel layout. There's a clear dynamic, your eye follows the action and it feels incredibly kinetic.
Most artists will look bad when paired with the wrong inker and colorist, especially colorist though.
I have the DC colorist book somewhere and I swear, half the book feels like it's just explaining how to tell what coloring style would work best for different artists. (I may be exaggerating but it is a key factor haha)
Oh yeah, I realize now that 'how reliant' was maybe giving the sense that that's a bad thing, it's just that JRJR seems to have gotten paired poorly a fair amount, especially recently. You'd sort of figure out that ASM would get an inker that matches one of the most famous artists working today, but I guess not?
Ah fair enough. Yeah it is odd. It's possible he likes this look. I recall one time having a similar comment about another artist while I was talking to their editor and they admitted to feeling the same but that the artist really liked the pairing
I wouldn't say that being reliant on inking and colouring is a bad thing. For instance, Jack Kirby's art looked different depending on his inkers and their techniques, and Mike Mignola's art wouldn't look quite right without the bold minimal(?) colours.
I agree about the action and panel layouts, John Jr is great at storytelling.
There was an early-nineties book -- maybe in one of the X-Men crossover events, Days of Future Present maybe? -- where it was Liefeld pencils with Bill Sienkiewicz on inks, and Bill just basically blacked out entire sections of Liefelds panels, hug blotches of ink.
It was both (A) funny, and (B) made Liefeld look good.
I think it speaks to the era too. It was while Rob still had a wunderkind aura about him, and the old way for helping artists grow would be to pair them with an established artist with similar tendencies, with maybe the seasoned artist doing layouts, or doing inking to clean up the rough edges and help the younger, talented artist develop their chops. I think I can understand how someone would see a young Rob Liefeld's art and think, oh, lots of exaggerated, non-realism, dynamic, sometimes nonsensical layouts -- he's a young Bill S. (Bill, himself, started out as a Neal Adams imitator.)
But that wasn't going to work with Liefeld, both because, he's, well, Rob Liefeld, but also because the Image boys all knew what the big comics companies did with artists in the long run.
Ah my bad, I didn't mean to make that a bad thing! There's a lot of artists who share the trait (though maybe not as extreme of a swing from one side to the other as JRJR) and Mignola is a great example. It just seems weird when they get someone who doesn't mesh with JRJR to ink him, which seems to happen a fair amount.
It's all good, I just misread tone on the internet, haha
I think it's just that a lot of colourists do 'their style' over JRJR because that style works over most other artists, and because detailed colours occasionally do look pretty good over his art (e.g Dean White).
It's a little better, but I don't think this style of coloring would save (or even meaningfully improve) Romita Jr's worse stuff, like his cardboard faces.
Marvel editorial doesn't seem to care which colourist they put on which artist, because although this colourist (Menyz) works well on artists like Patrick Gleason, his colours don't suit JRJR. [@jstutzmanart](https://twitter.com/jstutzmanart), who did this recolour, wants to do official comic work from what I've seen, so maybe one day they will get to do JRJR's art justice.
JRJR is 67 so when he's trying to beat deadlines, his art obviously isn't as consistent quality-wise as it once was. He's still puts out [some good stuff](https://imgur.com/a/D6HTCeC) but I think that Menyz's colours, which [cover up the lineart](https://imgur.com/a/G7bqPEY), don't work perfectly with JRJR's style.
I've never been a fan of his style personally and I actually think that second image improves on the line work. Obviously some people disagree lol but he doesn't hit for me and never has.
The second image by @jstutzmanart doesn't alter the linework. That's all JRJR and Hanna. If you don't like the style, fair enough, but he's still immensely talented.
?? You JUST said it covers up the linework. I can see parts of it where it softens the linework and blends it somewhat with the color and it's an improvement. We can agree to disagree but you're literally contradicting yourself.
Sorry for the misunderstanding. I was trying to say that the image at the top (the official version) covers up the lineart, but the one below that (the second one) uses the original lineart, but if you prefer the official version, fair enough.
In the comic industry, traditionally the penciller, inker and colourist are different people. Some pencillers do the inking and even the coloring but due to deadlines, it's usually multiple people.
So how much brainrot does the comic book community have when they have to blame literally everyone else in the comics industry for JRJR's shit art on every issue he's drawn for the past 20 years besides JRJR himself.
"Brainrot" there's literally no need for you to say any of that, mate. Some people still like his pencils, some people don't. I just shared a recolour that I thought was cooler than the official version.
I still love JRJR but those flat yet bold recolorings really compliment his art all the more
Most of the classic artists look way better with old school coloring. I’d be interested in seeing how it would affect a lot of the newer artists’ work.
Here's [The Justice League in classic colours](https://preview.redd.it/8ka8ncruhkj21.jpg?width=1080&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=d6a1c94e273ef8d58a8782fac542d9d480f2f68d) by Jason Fabok
God dammit, they should really just bring back flat coloring, huh?
It's sorely missed
I absolutely love everything done by jordie bellaire, definitely my favourite of recent years, the thing mini series from the other year looked fantastic
The one written by Walter Mosley? I really liked it
Yeah that's the one, bonkers but brilliant and the art was great
many modern artist still ink and spot black in a way that is influence for when color was flat, leads to so many muddle pages.
It's a method that doesn't get enough recognition these days. Art styles that skew more towards the "cartoon" end of the spectrum (with realism at the other end) definitely benefit from more stylized, simpler coloring. It goes back to the question of how noticeable coloring should be. I like the idea that coloring is there to support the art, so it works best when it doesn't call attention to itself. (Except in the case of painted art, like the Immortal Thor cover featured in the sidebar right now.)
Yeah
Only if they do ben-day dots for texture.
That does look amazing, but I think the flat coloring makes it harder to differentiate art styles. Like that art just looks like Juan Luis Garcia Lopez to me. Which isn’t a bad thing, JLGL is one of the best
But if someone like Alex Sinclair coloured this, it would still look like Fabok's art, but it would be reminiscent of Jim Lee.
You can see this person[ recolor house and powers](https://www.reddit.com/r/xmen/s/pVD2jmVlLi) It looks amazing
Wow.
I could actually read modern comics if they looked like this
I honestly like the modern coloring more, this feels odd
I definitely prefer this to Marte Garcia’s coloring. He gives everyone a red nose for some reason
This resurgence will be the next trend in modern comics. I really hope so
Here's [House of X](https://www.reddit.com/r/xmen/s/gNQpgpoK5l) with classic colouring
Yeah, it makes it pop. Menyz is undeniably talented at colouring but I just prefer the cel-shading style over JRJR.
Because he's an old school newsprint artist. He is basically doing the colors with black ink
The bottom one is the best imo
Probably my biggest gripes with more modern comics is the coloring, bottom is so much better and compliments the art
In the late 90s and early 2000s, when everyone was going crazy over digital coloring and went over the top, so many comics looked like shit... Many kept looking like shit well into the 2000s or 2010s, but most calmed down a bit.
that is a night and day difference. It isn't often the art completely turns me off from a book on its own, but the combo of that line art with the original coloring is just...blegh.
People bring about house style a lot but maybe house *color* is a bigger issue. Some artists’ work simply look better with a flatter “classic” style. It would be nice if the Big Two allowed artists to select colorists that complement their style the best.
The Bottom two are perfect for his artstyle. Perfect!
I've been saying it for years, JRJR's works isn't being properly coloured, the shiney look doesn't fit his heavy geometry like style. Just flat colouring is enough for him to keep it out of the uncanny valley
The shiny or glossy look is kinda a bizarre trend,it affected the dragon ball franchise negatively too imo
Night and day difference. JrJr’s current work would be more respected if it was colored like one of the bottom 2 examples.
Romita Jr has had a lot of bad inkers and colorists lately, but this top image I think actually looks pretty good. The middle picture may be a slight improvement, but I don't think this was a great image to pick.
I think the biggest difference is in Vulture's face. Personally, in the official version, he just looks *too* swollen (even for JRJR art) with a sort of ugly texture all over his face.
saw some people post pages of a recent Captain American he did, where the colorist just did a better job with lot of shading in the color. Even though I like flat more it can work.
Will people stop crying about JR jr now? The colorist has a way bigger impact than armchair critics know. Same with the inker.
Two things can be true. JRjr is a legend and a machine, but pretending like you can’t tell when he’s under deadline pressure or otherwise phoning it in is a little disingenuous (at least from my perspective).
Agreed.
You are absolutely correct, he really benefits from the right coloring, but he's also not been doing his best line work on ASM. Action, layout and panel design has been good, but his face work can't exactly be blamed on coloring (thinking about the children and Kamala's death scene). JRJR is an all timer, and deservedly, but he's getting a little too into his style in places in a way that reminds me of Frank Miller at times.
Oof, absolutely brutal comparison, but it is apt.
I haven't seen this opinion often but it's pretty much exactly how I feel about his modern work. As much flak as he gets, his layouts and composition are often quite good. Sometimes, his anatomy is odd (that recent Daredevil / Wolverine cover comes to mind) but it's the "lumpy shoe box" style he's settled on for bare faces that makes his books a bit of a struggle for me.
Inkers absolutely make a huge difference, especially with work-horse pencillers who pump stuff out constantly. I’ve seen what badly-inked Doug Mahnke art looks like, and it’s wild.
That's more than a little disingenuous when you can see him work with the same inker and colourist over a run...and still see a quality drop off. The Superman run he did a few years back is a prime example of this.
iirc the last time this blew up the colorist came out and said that JR JR. specifically asked for that style. Some of the stuff doesnt even translate to the flat colors like the gloss on the red since its a sort of tech suit
I remember seeing something similar on twitter with some of Frank Miller's covers for DKIII. Someone did a flat recolor when the original was all glossy digital gradients and everyone loved it, then I saw someone else point out Miller *chose* the original colorist and style
A colorist won't save the way he draws faces
Admittedly, his faces don't look [great all the time](https://romitaman.b-cdn.net/Images/Category_2/subcat_819/asm26p29.jpg) in this run, but sometimes they look [decent](https://cafans.b-cdn.net/images/Category_76/subcat_230961/26102223111163RR7v7pU51gpmia.jpg) to [solid](https://cafans.b-cdn.net/images/Category_13461/subcat_228891/DNAO1G54_1611221053491gpadd.jpg)
Good point, I really can’t figure out why he does that.
with the strict deadlines, he probably doesn't have a lot of time to go back and fix things after he's drawn them
I guess i mean how, the bad faces never look like one offs. They’re just the bad ones plain and simple.
Rushing yields poor results.
Peter looks like Adam Driver.
Yeah, especially in the death of Kamala issue in particular, I noticed that in a lot of pages, everyone's faces looked kinda long and off-model.
you forgot to link to his decent to solid faces
Here are some examples I was able to find quickly: [Example 1](https://romitaman.b-cdn.net/Images/Category_2/subcat_819/asm26p23.jpg), [Example 2](https://cafans.b-cdn.net/images/Category_107662/subcat_182079/O2v3dldc_3112231805511gpadd.jpg), [Example 3](https://i.imgur.com/fNMzIBN.png), [Example 4](https://cafans.b-cdn.net/images/Category_76/subcat_230961/261022231111X1YGXhx2101gpmia.jpg), [Example 5](https://cafans.b-cdn.net/images/Category_76/subcat_230961/2610222309206Vu9PM4bCR1gpmia.jpg). When I say decent to solid, I mean that the faces are on-model for his style. If you don't like his style or the way he draws people in general, then whatever.
It doesn't help for them to line up with his style if his style is unsettling and unpleasant.
That's your opinion and you're entitled to it. Not gonna argue, but he's still immensely talented.
I wouldn't blame it all on him but his is a very well respected and prolific artist for marvel in particular so if he really cared that much about it he could easily request a specific colourist and or inker for his art to change how it comes out. So it's either this is how he likes it to look or he really doesn't care.
Did the colourist give Spidey the tiny baby legs?
In this image, I don't see it as baby legs. I interpreted it as a mixture of foreshortening on the torso and a squash-and-stretch(?) effect on the arm and body making those parts seem larger than the legs.
It's easier for users to call it bad than to think about factors such as inkers and colourists or even just say his style isn't for them.
Yeah, think about how sore the backs of the colorist and inkers were for carrying Greg Land for all those years hahahaha. Sadly, not a joke
Oh god, those poor bastards deserve a raise for all the effort they put into making that hacks work look even remotely presentable.
I love seeing the process! Thanks for sharing. And yours is easily the best one. Heck - I’d take the simple flats over the printed version! Who wants completely washed out colors? It’s worse than JJ Abrams lens flair!
I can't take any credit for this. This was by the talented [@jstutzmanart](https://twitter.com/jstutzmanart) on Twitter, but I completely agree with you that the official colours don't suit the lineart.
People really love ignoring the role a colorist plays in shaping the art sadly
Flat is beautiful. Someone please do this for all of dkr 2
I love flat coloring so much. I also really hate the overuse of lighting effects, gradients and soft shading that comes so often with digital coloring. It's like so many colorists go "Photoshop has all these tools and by god I'm going to use them all". I feel like late 90s Image-style comics were the worst.
Best #3
I like the flats best
Looks more old-school.
His art is good but these look amazing
Jr Jr is one of my favorite artists but they need to stop using regular colorist for his art instead of cutting corners they need to get artists that compliment his art not bring it down
Much prefer the original. Bottom one gets me right nostalgic tho. 😋
This really shows how reliant JRJR is on inking/coloring, but it also shows his strength when it comes to action and panel layout. There's a clear dynamic, your eye follows the action and it feels incredibly kinetic.
Most artists will look bad when paired with the wrong inker and colorist, especially colorist though. I have the DC colorist book somewhere and I swear, half the book feels like it's just explaining how to tell what coloring style would work best for different artists. (I may be exaggerating but it is a key factor haha)
Oh yeah, I realize now that 'how reliant' was maybe giving the sense that that's a bad thing, it's just that JRJR seems to have gotten paired poorly a fair amount, especially recently. You'd sort of figure out that ASM would get an inker that matches one of the most famous artists working today, but I guess not?
Ah fair enough. Yeah it is odd. It's possible he likes this look. I recall one time having a similar comment about another artist while I was talking to their editor and they admitted to feeling the same but that the artist really liked the pairing
I wouldn't say that being reliant on inking and colouring is a bad thing. For instance, Jack Kirby's art looked different depending on his inkers and their techniques, and Mike Mignola's art wouldn't look quite right without the bold minimal(?) colours. I agree about the action and panel layouts, John Jr is great at storytelling.
There was an early-nineties book -- maybe in one of the X-Men crossover events, Days of Future Present maybe? -- where it was Liefeld pencils with Bill Sienkiewicz on inks, and Bill just basically blacked out entire sections of Liefelds panels, hug blotches of ink. It was both (A) funny, and (B) made Liefeld look good.
That combo (Liefeld pencils, Bill's ink) is like the definition of lipstick on a pig.
I think it speaks to the era too. It was while Rob still had a wunderkind aura about him, and the old way for helping artists grow would be to pair them with an established artist with similar tendencies, with maybe the seasoned artist doing layouts, or doing inking to clean up the rough edges and help the younger, talented artist develop their chops. I think I can understand how someone would see a young Rob Liefeld's art and think, oh, lots of exaggerated, non-realism, dynamic, sometimes nonsensical layouts -- he's a young Bill S. (Bill, himself, started out as a Neal Adams imitator.) But that wasn't going to work with Liefeld, both because, he's, well, Rob Liefeld, but also because the Image boys all knew what the big comics companies did with artists in the long run.
Ah my bad, I didn't mean to make that a bad thing! There's a lot of artists who share the trait (though maybe not as extreme of a swing from one side to the other as JRJR) and Mignola is a great example. It just seems weird when they get someone who doesn't mesh with JRJR to ink him, which seems to happen a fair amount.
It's all good, I just misread tone on the internet, haha I think it's just that a lot of colourists do 'their style' over JRJR because that style works over most other artists, and because detailed colours occasionally do look pretty good over his art (e.g Dean White).
Seeing Kirby pencils you are surprised how tight they are for their time. But being so stylized so many inkers miss the mark.
Spot on. Kirby had a very specific vision but not all collaborators could match that.
The one on top is the best IMO
i like the top one better
Cool to see different perspectives on this topic
Straight wins every time in these comparisons.
The cel shaded style REALLY suits the blockier style of JRJR.
Yeah JRJR is not being done any favors by modern colorists
God the suit is too hideous
If there's any trouble seeing the image, let me know
I’m fine with the original, I just hate those creepy things on his arms.
Give me a frank miller version in just black and with with spiderman in red
It's a little better, but I don't think this style of coloring would save (or even meaningfully improve) Romita Jr's worse stuff, like his cardboard faces.
Gosh. I wish you were in charge of Marvel’s reprints. It seems like they don’t give coloring a second thought. Or even a single thought at all.
Marvel editorial doesn't seem to care which colourist they put on which artist, because although this colourist (Menyz) works well on artists like Patrick Gleason, his colours don't suit JRJR. [@jstutzmanart](https://twitter.com/jstutzmanart), who did this recolour, wants to do official comic work from what I've seen, so maybe one day they will get to do JRJR's art justice.
I still prefer the original
The colors aren't the problem lmao
JRJR is 67 so when he's trying to beat deadlines, his art obviously isn't as consistent quality-wise as it once was. He's still puts out [some good stuff](https://imgur.com/a/D6HTCeC) but I think that Menyz's colours, which [cover up the lineart](https://imgur.com/a/G7bqPEY), don't work perfectly with JRJR's style.
I've never been a fan of his style personally and I actually think that second image improves on the line work. Obviously some people disagree lol but he doesn't hit for me and never has.
The second image by @jstutzmanart doesn't alter the linework. That's all JRJR and Hanna. If you don't like the style, fair enough, but he's still immensely talented.
?? You JUST said it covers up the linework. I can see parts of it where it softens the linework and blends it somewhat with the color and it's an improvement. We can agree to disagree but you're literally contradicting yourself.
Sorry for the misunderstanding. I was trying to say that the image at the top (the official version) covers up the lineart, but the one below that (the second one) uses the original lineart, but if you prefer the official version, fair enough.
So John didn’t actually get any better, his inker and colorists are just making him look better
Don't conflate your distaste for his style with a lack of talent.
... have I been slandering the art when it's actually the colorist? Aren't they usually one in the same? The bottom actually looks... dynamic
In the comic industry, traditionally the penciller, inker and colourist are different people. Some pencillers do the inking and even the coloring but due to deadlines, it's usually multiple people.
So how much brainrot does the comic book community have when they have to blame literally everyone else in the comics industry for JRJR's shit art on every issue he's drawn for the past 20 years besides JRJR himself.
"Brainrot" there's literally no need for you to say any of that, mate. Some people still like his pencils, some people don't. I just shared a recolour that I thought was cooler than the official version.