Back in this blogpost, I made some points about the colorizing of old movies and TV shows. It brought the following message from my pal Glenn Hauman…
How can you write about this and not discuss recoloring old comics? Would Jack Kirby have wanted his stuff recolored the way it has been over the years?
Recoloring old comics is done a lot these days because so many are being reprinted on much better, whiter paper than was available for their first printings, and with much more sophisticated coloring tools available. In some cases, if you precisely replicate the original coloring on the whiter paper, it looks too loud and garish. That coloring wasn't designed for that paper. And the original line art wasn't designed for all the extra modeling and rendering and gradations and textures that it's now possible to add.
To me, it's a case-by-case thing. Some of the older comics look better with flatter color and the colorist is not being faithful to the work try and add in the coloring, musculature and form-shaping that the original artist(s) did not intend. But following the original color schemes may not be faithful either because you start by changing the underlying paper color and that changes everything.
In the case of Mr. Kirby, he generally liked the way his art was colored before 1970 and generally disliked the way his work was colored after 1970. There were exceptions to that but not a lot. Among the many ways in which he clashed with the management at DC Comics when he began working for them in '70 was that they thought they were doing the best coloring ever in comics and he thought they were doing the worst.
So when I was asked, as I was for some reprints, if Jack would have wanted them to follow the original colorings, my answer was no — because he didn't like the original colorings and maybe the folks who did it back then would have done different things if they knew the work would be printed on whiter paper with brighter inks. But I also think Jack would have wanted a limited use of the new tools…not a lot of figure modeling and added textures. He'd want most of it to be flat coloring but better flat coloring. I think.
By the way: Glenn Hauman is one of the folks who's helped me keep this blog up and running, assisting with tech advice and even doing some of the configuration. I'm glad he sent that question in so I have this opportunity to thank him again for his aid and assistance.