Hi Anya,

Thank you so much for replying again and giving your answer so much thought and consideration! Your comments on volume really helped me to articulate my analysis of ‘Black Hole’, and you definitely made me consider colour and composition from a different angle after considering your strips in relation to Kurtzman‘s ‘Dying City’ in the above link.

My dissertation has now been finished and handed in so I’m really grateful for the insight you gave me into the comics medium from an artist’s perspective as it has made me appreciate all the work that goes into the creation of comics a lot more! Also, my essay ended up focusing on ‘Black Hole’ by Charles Burns and ‘Gaylord Phoenix’ by Edie Fake, the latter I would not have come across if you had not suggested it, so your help really was crucial to shaping my finished essay!

So yeah, just a really big thank you!

Hello again! I was wondering if you had any thoughts on the power of colour in comics, your work features a lot of very bright bold colouring to the point that it becomes a major aspect of your signature style, what do you think the effects of colour bring to comics as opposed to black and white / monochrome comics?

Commicstudent do you have any idea how much I love you?! Your questions are so awesome, and I am so impressed with your dedication to investigating all aspects of the medium. Also, I often find this stuff hard to articulate but I think writing about it helps me understand my own work better.

To answer your question: My go-to guys (and gals, since I think it was mostly women working as colorists in the pre-code era, most notably Marie Severin) for color inspiration are the colorists from classic EC horror and war comics. They used lots of non-local color and their aim was more to create drama than to represent things as they are.

Here’s an example:

http://raggedclaws.com/tag/fantagraphics/page/3/

I use black-spotting in my work, but I don’t use it to create volume with light and shadow the way that living gods like the Hernandez brothers or Charles burns do. Their work doesn’t need color because all the volume is there in the blacks. I’m more influenced by “funnies” artists like Milt Gross and John Stanley in that respect. I use wackier, more basic lines to create movement, and then the color helps provide depth-it hopefully helps the reader to understand the space a little better. My goal is to make the work easy to read and eye-popping.

Here’s some beautiful John Stanley for you:

http://www.cartoonbrew.com/comics/john-stanley-20563.html

Okay we’ll I’d better get back to work but PLEASE keep up the fantastic work and hit me up whenever you like