Here's a couple of images comparing the old colour with the new cleaned up line and colour. Plus the new page 12 from issue 1.
Thursday, 22 March 2012
Flex Mentallo
Well the Flex Mentallo collection is finally imminent. I recoloured the whole thing in close collaboration with Frank Quitely. He managed to unearth a lot of original pages, around a quarter of the whole book, which, although the production costs weren't in DC's budget, were scanned and used for as many pages as possible.
Here's a couple of images comparing the old colour with the new cleaned up line and colour. Plus the new page 12 from issue 1.
Here's a couple of images comparing the old colour with the new cleaned up line and colour. Plus the new page 12 from issue 1.
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Just got the new edition today, and I’ve been poring over the differences. I’ve got to say that all comic recolourings I’ve seen kind of suck — but yours is the proud exception. Your choices definitely enhance the work, really bringing Frank’s page designs out, and grounding his environments. Great job! Thank you!
ReplyDeleteLooks excellent, I've been looking forward to this for a while and this makes me more enthusiastic - I was planning on waiting until Xmas but now I'm not so sure...
ReplyDeleteWhy do you hate color
ReplyDeleteThanks, David, I know some people seem to think it's too radical a change but you can't please everyone.
ReplyDeleteSantiagoRM, I'm not sure I quite understand the question. Is colour just bright over-saturated hues or does it include dull greys and browns?
---Peter
I've read more of the book now. Having praised you, I feel obligated to point out that many of the black people in the book now appear to be white, which is [insert your own word here].
ReplyDeleteOh that is unfortunate, not on purpose. I know there's one person who was white and is now black, which hardly balances things. My bad obviously. Which bits do you mean?
Delete---Peter
A lot of minor background characters have lost their skin colour, right from the first splash page, which is unfortunate, because background diversity of all kinds is important to the story that's being told.
ReplyDeleteThe prominent examples I've noticed: the big-haired trans character in the toilets in #2, Powder-Pink Teen Ultra-Girl in the Knight Club in #3, and Mandoo the Mysterious in #4. Not a character per se, but striking, the interracial entangling of legs from the first panel inside the Knight Club has been toned down. And two not-black but not-white characters, Walter-Ego in #3 and the gentleman ape superhero in #4, have been given white skin.
Not all of these have been strictly made white, some of them clearly have a different tone than the default, but you need to really look closely to notice that. (Also, its now hard to tell what skin colour some characters have, due to lighting.)
Actually David you're right, none of the things you mention are intentional from any other perspective than an aesthetic one or I've just slipped up. Some of the figures that were coloured "black" in the original are clearly not "black" when you see the black and white linework. And there are some that I've coloured "black" that are white in the original eg the woman at the back in the first issue splash, she recurs on the last panel on the following page. I can't recall why I did the trans character in the toilets more "white", probably as I wanted that scene to be devoid of a lot of strong colour so the halucinations appear even more vivid, bit of a judgement call though. The teen girl in issue 3 I remember I didn't want her to look like the envy she shows is maybe racially based and that why she was changed, and the gentlemen ape stands out more visually if he's lighter. The sam idea with Mandoo too, if you look around the table there's four characters in reddish costumes, Mandoo being one of them, this was deliberate to "frame" the action in a balanced way--- I also tried to distribute the colours evenly around the seated superheroes so not stand out too much apart from those talking. Some had to be cetain colour schemes others didn't so that took precedent, then I altered Mandoo's skin so it didn't merge too much with his costume, but I think the skin colour suggests some sort of maybe origin in the asian sub continent which would befit a mystic.Walter- Ego I thought would look funnier as a normal bloke dressed up with an aerial stuck in his head.
DeleteMaybe I'm being too defensive but I did think about it!
Thanks for the detailed reply!
Delete