Recolouring: which of these do you prefer?

[Red Oak Kid]

I don't like the colors in either one. The first one is garish and ugly and Sue looks like she has some form of jaundice, while she fades into the background of the second one (appropriate for the Invisible Girl, true, but probably not what Kirby and Stone had in mind) and the gradations don't match the forms they're meant to add depth to. I think the switch to subtler background colors was a good decision, just badly executed. But I wasn't terribly adept in dealing with color in art school so it might be wise to take my opinion with a grain o' sodium chloride.

Cei-U!
I summon the Crayola 64 pack!

I pretty much agree. The original has too much red and the new one is too pastel. But when all else fails, give me the original.

[JKCarrier]

Just to be nit-picky, I don't think either one of those is the original version -- the "Mighty World of Marvel" blurb on the first pic makes me think it's probably from a British reprint.

I would like the newer version ok if it were just flat colors, without those clumsy gradients in Sue's hair and top.

[benday-dot]

Just to be nit-picky, I don't think either one of those is the original version -- the "Mighty World of Marvel" blurb on the first pic makes me think it's probably from a British reprint.

Very perceptive and correct JK.

The Kirby Museum has already raised this issue, and perhaps this is where our OP, Francis Dawson, found his images.

Here are the two images again, along with another of Sub-Mariner, coloured in similar British reprint style.

Here the Kirby Museum corrects the earlier misattribution of "Kirby original", and states as you surmise, it is from a British reprint.

The original original is from FF Annual 2 (1964), which unfortunately I do not have, as my Kirby collection only goes back to 1965 so far.

I do; however, have the Msterworks tp, and it is different again. The gradients in Sue's hair are gone, replaced with a more organic hint of yellowing, and unlike the pale face of the reputed Masterwork version shown here, Sue's skin is given a more natural pale pink/peach flesh tone. Sometime perhaps I'll scan it.

I suspect the Francis modern exhibit, and the one I linked to, is from either the Omnibus or early Masterworks; the copy I have is of the more recent (2010) tpb Masterworks, which eschews those unfortunate colour affectations characteristic of earlier MMW versions.

I would like the newer version ok if it were just flat colors, without those clumsy gradients in Sue's hair and top.[/QUOTE]

[BDiogenes]

benday-dot, you may want to edit the end of your above post, and there's nothing wrong with doing so. Also, you have very compimentery comments from me based on your writing herein in the "Stan vs, Jack" thread awaiting your attention.

[benday-dot]

benday-dot, you may want to edit the end of your above post, and there's nothing wrong with doing so. Also, you have very compimentery comments from me based on your writing herein in the "Stan vs, Jack" thread awaiting your attention.

Done, and thank you.

[Leocomix]

The second one. No contest.

[Elsa Hulkinaskirt]

By far the first one. The second one is cleaner sure, but a lot less charming.
Who would think of re-doing Marilyn Monroe's makeup ? Poo-poo-pee-doo :)

[Elsa Hulkinaskirt]

By far the first one. The second one is cleaner sure, but a lot less charming.
Who would think of re-doing Marilyn Monroe's makeup ? Poo-poo-pee-doo :)

[An Ear In The Fireplace]

The real issue for me is that colorists don't get enough respect as other comic artists. When it comes to pencils and inks, people will go to the matt for the right of those artists to be reprinted (warts and all) faithfully. When it comes to colorists and letterers, people are not so willing to stand up for these guys as artists. It sounds like some artists are more equal than others.

Granted, with colours, it's impossible to reproduce the original colours to the same degree of faithfulness as line art. In fact, I would say that even when reconstructive colorists try to reproduce the original colorist's intent with absolute fidelity, it doesn't work because the look of the letter press and the offset press printing is very different. I find this especially with fades. Fades that worked on letter press don't feel the same when translated to offset printing.

But it's not about which colorist can do the better job. For sure, today's colorist can produce work with more bells and whistles. On the other hand, art is often about working within an imposed limitation--either self-imposed or imposed by the medium--and the real achievement is how the artist solves the problem posed by that limitation.

Yes, inkers used stronger line work to compensate for the limitations of the medium. But that in turn produced an aesthetic for comics--one which I find very pleasing. And the colorist also had to serve that aesthetic. Colours are often there to support the line work, not overpower it. Whatever we may think a half century later--with our own biases--the real measure is the artistic intent of the time. We can't be second guessing every colorist from another age. As they lived back then, they understood the aesthetic of their time better than we could.

I think when you go messing with comics reproduction to make them appealing for a new age, you create a monster.

My main interest in comics reprints is to see the work reproduced with fidelity to the time in which it was reproduced. I want to see something that approximates what a mint copy fresh off the newsstand would have looked like at the time. I neither want to see faded photos that wear the signs of aging nor do I want to see revamped art on snowblinding paper. I know that it's impossible to get it just right--but I want something that comes reasonably close to the original.

[dan bailey]

I find myself wondering about the degree to which some of these considerations are lost on color-blind readers. The question occurs to me in part because, while reading the first volume of Mark Arnold's history of Cracked a few days ago, I learned that John Severin was color blind -- like, apparently, some 8 percent of the male population, though various forms are involved. (I've had friends who are, but I'm not. Given that 1-in-8 figure, odds are that several here are as well.)

[Jolly Mon]

I find myself wondering about the degree to which some of these considerations are lost on color-blind readers. The question occurs to me in part because, while reading the first volume of Mark Arnold's history of Cracked a few days ago, I learned that John Severin was color blind -- like, apparently, some 8 percent of the male population, though various forms are involved. (I've had friends who are, but I'm not. Given that 1-in-8 figure, odds are that several here are as well.)

That is quite true as I am color blind. Contrary to popular belief, rarely (if ever) does color blind mean "sees in black & white". It means that perceptions of colors, especially red & green, do not conform to what is considered "normal". Obviously, since I've been this way since birth, I have no idea what colors look like to others, but from what others have said (and those damn tests with the numbers concealed in colored dots) my perceptions are definitely off. The green light in traffic lights is a problem for someone like me because, despite the fact that most have more of bluish tinge to the green to make them show up better to the color blind, they can sometimes appear nearly white and I can have a hard time distinguishing them from street lights. So commenting on coloring can be problematic for me.

My color blindness also shaped the course of my career. I served in the US Navy, and initially I was interested in going into the nuclear power field. However, as part of the pre-enlistment physical I was confronted with a color blindness lantern test. You would look into the front of the lantern and tell the doctor what combination of red, green, & white lights the two lights were in. I did my best, but towards the end I was doing badly enough that the doctor leaned forward and actually looked into the front of the lantern to verify that the colors of the lights were what they were supposed to be. They decided that the chances of me crossing the wrong color wires in a nuclear reactor was too great, so I changed course into computer operations. Funny what a gene or two here and there can do.

[dan bailey]

Very interesting, JM, to say the least. With Severin, it came up in Arnold's book because he'd submitted a Cracked cover in which he colored E.T. green. (I don't recall, offhand, what color ET was -- green? brown? -- but I know it wasn't green.) And of course it ran that way.

[Aaron King]

With such thick lines rendered in darkest black,
I tend to like the colors that are flat.

When value/mass is used instead of line,
I like the gradient of colors fine.