We look at the vital role of the more-precise-than-ever art of comics coloring, shining a spotlight in particular on the work of Elizabeth Breitweiser and featuring special guests Neal Adams, Steve Epting, and Walt Simonson.
NOTE: audio gain as well as clarity are less than ideal in some places (totaling under a minute). We've done our best in post to make this episode as listenable as possible at a consistent volume level.
Brought to you by
- IDW: a new TPB from Katie Cook's run on My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic just hit the stands, alongside the collected edition of Eric Shanower and Gabriel Rodriguez's Little Nemo: Return to Slumberland.
Neal Adams' Superman vs Muhammad Ali, one of his many recolored classics
Guests (listed in order of appearance)
Neal Adams
- (twitter/comicbook db/website/store)
- Superman versus Muhammad Ali is a great first-read if you'd like a taste of Adams' (various) signature work(s).
- Neal can be found at a convention many weekends of the year. He has a thousand stories worth telling.
Spotlight Guest Elizabeth Breitweiser
- (twitter/comicbook db/tumblr)
- Breitweiser is doing color work that goes beyond taking advantage of now-standard digital tools. She draws upon her background in studio painting and the eye of a cinematographer to create something that lives in the bleed between the old and new schools. We cannot over-sell how great her finished work looks and feels like it moves.
Steve Epting
- (twitter/comicbook db/website)
- Of late, Epting has solely been working and focusing on Velvet with Elizabeth Breitweiser and writer Ed Brubaker, doing occasional variant covers on the side.
Walter ("Walt") Simonson
- (twitter/comicbook db/facebook group)
- Walt just had a new issue of his creator-owned Ragnarök hit the stands. You'll hear more about it on the next episode of Giant Size.
from The Crooked Man, by Hardman/Bechko/Breitweiser
Reading List
Elizabeth Breitweiser
- You can now pre-order The Crooked Man (teaser image above) from your local comic shop or Amazon. Colored by Elizabeth and co-written by Gabriel Hardman and Corinna Bechko (with art drawn by Hardman), it finds an ex-pat returning to San Francisco to exact revenge...in 1906, just in time for the earthquake.
- Velvet is an old-school spy action series where the desk-bound "Moneypenny" character turns out to be a formidable field agent herself, partly inspired by Modesty Blaise. It's a great showcase of both Epting and Breitweiser's considerable talents, along with writer and previous Giant Size guest Ed Brubaker's fantastic script. The second trade just recently hit stands (v1/v2).
from The Fade Out
- The Fade Out, also written by Brubaker, is drawn by Sean Phillips, and whereas still full of dark corners of people's lives in a film noir/Golden Age of Hollywood setting, Breitweiser's colors lend this its own distinct feel as compared to Velvet. The first trade came out a few months ago.
from Fatale
- Fatale, also from Brubaker+Phillips+Breitweiser, is a now-finished crime-noir-meets-Lovecraft series that you can pick up in four or five-issue TPBs or the new Deluxe Edition hardcovers, the first of which collects the first ten issues of the series.
from Outcast
- Outcast, written by Robert Kirkman and drawn by Paul Azaceta, tells the story of a guy who's been possessed by a demon his whole life. When he goes for answers, it puts the entirety of life on Earth in danger. The comic is already set for TV adaptation, so it isn't disappearing any time soon. The first trade, like all Image trades, is under $10.
- Take a look at Elizabeth's full comics bibliography at comicbook db and check out even more of her work, going back to 2008.
from the remastered, re-colored Star Slammers by Simonson
Walter Simonson
- Every last bit of his Star Slammers has been completely remastered and collected in hardcover by our friends at IDW, the patron saints of comics preservation (they didn't pay us to say that, it's how everyone who cares about this stuff feels). Star Slammers goes back to Walt's college days, and through its multiple iterations, it's a valuable foundational work in getting a broader perspective on him as a creator (aside from being a lot of fun and featuring some great early (earliest, even!) professional Simonson art.
- Walt's Thor Omnibus is out of print, but the recolored issues are all available in TPBS starting with this one and digitally too, as far as we know. They look amazing, and are a testament to what good digital "remastering" can do. Moisés is kicking himself for not grabbing a copy of the Omnibus before they went out of print. That's what Amazon Wish Lists are for, right?
from the re-colored Thor by Walt Simonson Omnibus
Additional Show Notes and Links
- The io9 article that effectively just copied and pasted some of John's tweets, which doesn't entirely represent his actual, nuanced stance on the whole topic of re-coloring.
- Steve Oliff (website/comicbook db) is cited by John right at the beginning of this episode, and Walt Simonson later on, in discussing Oliff's direct involvement in remastering and recoloring the legendary "Simonson run" of Thor. Oliff is someone else we should send an email and ask to talk with for the show.
Superman comes up in multiple conversations (and not by design) on our next episode
ON THE NEXT EPISODE OF GIANT SIZE
Our Comicpalooza 2015 Special, featuring...
- Five-time WCW Heavyweight Champion, Houston native, and now comics creator Booker T, talking about his Shaw Brothers fandom as well as his new comic G.I. Bro, based on his first wrestling character gimmick.
- Peter David, who reveals both the spark that ignited his fandom and his exasperation at the internet outrage culture that seems to run most of social media.
- We confirm that Katie Cook does indeed fuel herself with male tears when she makes Moisés choke up a bit!
- J.M. DeMatteis, who conclusively settles a huge comic geek argument once and for all!
- More from Walter Simonson!
- An excerpt of a chat with Louise Simonson in advance of this summer's full-on Creator Spotlight episode that focuses on her under-recognized, massive contribution to superhero comics.
