Interview with Nathan Fairbairn

Batman Inc #7

When I started reading comic books (just a few years ago) I mostly paid attention to stories. Writers were the first names in the credits I started recognizing. But over time, my attention shifted more and more toward the art, to the point where the artist is usually a bigger determining factor in what I decide to buy than the writer. (Although, obviously, the best comics are the ones that combine great writing and great art.) As my appreciation of the art and craft of making comics deepened, I also started to realize that a big part of what defines the art that I like is the way it is coloured.

Colourists are still largely unsung heroes, not always recognized as part of the creative team. But their work has a huge impact on my enjoyment of the comics I read. I got really excited when I started to notice that some books by different artists had a distinct quality that I liked because they shared the same colourist. This was what prompted me to read the credits more carefully and make an effort to remember the names of the colourists whose work I liked.

One of those names I started noticing was Nathan Fairbairn. Recently, I was particularly impressed by his work on Swamp Thing (colouring Yanick Paquette's art) and Mystic (colouring David and Alvaro Lopez's art), two very different books with completely different tones, art styles and colour palettes, and yet both visually striking.

I wanted to find out more about Nathan's approach to colouring, so I reached out to him and he graciously agreed to answer a few questions. As it turns out Nathan is not just a talented artist, but also an eloquent writer with some very interesting things to say about his craft. Read on for the interview.

[Note about spelling: I use Canadian English spelling ("colour") for this blog, but I opted to keep Nathan's use of the US English ("color") since that's how he submitted his answers, hence the inconsistent spelling in this post.]

Irrelevant Comics: Aside from the obvious task of adding colour, how would you define the colourist's role in the production line of comics? How do colours contribute to the storytelling?

Nathan Fairbairn: A colorist has three main concerns: mood, depth, and focus. Mood is pretty simple: the palette needs to suit the tone of the story/art/genre. Depth is also pretty self-explanatory and mostly involves using lighting and atmospheric perspective to break up the planes of the art and generally add to the illusion of volume and third dimension. Focus is perhaps the most important aspect of the job. As a colorist, it's my responsibility to help the writer and artist draw the reader's eye to the crucial element in any given panel or page by playing with contrast of value, hue and saturation.

IC: In a lot of mainstream comics, the colours tend to be "invisible," in the sense that you don't really notice them unless they are strikingly bad. Is that a deliberate choice? Are colourists encouraged to stick to the "house style"? Do you ever wish colourists would make bolder choices or experiment more?

Swamp Thing #2

I actually disagree with the premise that colors are ever "invisible."

In addition to coloring comics, I also play the bass. Now, if you ask the average casual listener what they think of a bass line in any given song, you might get a shrug of the shoulders in response, but that doesn't mean the bass line is inaudible or unnecessary for the listener's enjoyment of the song. It just means that the listener is either incapable of distinguishing the bass from the other instrumentation, or that they're so focused on the melodies of the vocals that their awareness of the accompanying music is almost subconscious. This is why when you go to a live show and a band starts to play one of their hits, you often get two waves of recognition and appreciation: those who pay attention to the music respond with applause after the first notes or bars are played, and then a few moments later, those who only pay attention to the vocals start applauding when the first words are sung.

I think that it's kind of the same thing with comics and coloring. Some readers (usually those who are as interested in the craft as they are in the stories being told) are as keenly attuned to the color in a comic as they are to the pencils, inks, or lettering, and for them, it's never invisible. Like bass players, colorists can be boring, uninterested, lazy, technically incompetent, brilliant, astonishing, masterful, prosaic, formulaic, daring or just downright shitty. Like with any art form, there's a full range of practitioners.

In answer to your question about a house style, I wouldn't say there is one (except, obviously within color studios such as HiFi). I would say that there are definitely those colorists out there who have no interest whatsoever in reinventing the wheel. And usually they're right to do so. There's a time and a place, you know? You don't try to cram a funk bass line into a Bruce Springsteen song.  Similarly, if you're coloring a George Perez drawing of Captain America throwing his shield, don't get cute about it, right? Conventional stories require conventional art require conventional colors, whereas unconventional stories require unconventional art require unconventional colors.

IC: Part of a colourist's work is very technical. For example, you need a good knowledge of anatomy and lighting when adding texture and shadows to a character's face. But there's also an element of design to the work, in terms of how the colours match on the page and giving the book a distinct look and feel. How important is design for you?

Any art form requires a considerable amount of technical knowledge and coloring is no different. Without that foundation, no amount of raw talent is going to sustain you or your career. Which works out nicely for me, since I don't actually consider myself super talented artistically. I just work hard and think about what I'm doing a lot. I always have a reason for why I'm doing what I'm doing. You point to any color on a page and I can articulate to you why I chose it. There's very little that is free or spontaneous about my work. It's all very deliberate.

Hawkeye & Mockingbird #1

As for design, it's extremely important to my work. When approaching the colors of a single page, it is important that the reader's eye moves around within a panel and then on to the next in the way that I want, and knowledge of basic principles of design and composition is key to achieving this. Obviously, it's best if the penciller also has this in mind right from the outset, and I can just enhance the design that's already there, rather than try to impose a design through color that doesn't already exist. Furthermore, the initial and overall color design of an entire project is an incredibly important phase of my work. The look and feel of my work is clearly going to be directed by the line art on the page, but I also want to suit my color work to the story being told, which is why my work with the same collaborators often varies from book to book. If you look at my work just with Yanick Paquette, you'll see how my palette and overall rendering style changes depending on the project. Batman Inc is a bright and saturated pop art world, whereas Weapon X is duller and grittier, slightly washed out at times even, and Swamp Thing is vibrant, but dark, if that makes sense. Better yet, if you look at my work with David and Alvaro Lopez on Hawkeye & Mockingbird and on Mystic, the difference between the overall look of the books is massive. David didn't really draw Mystic much differently than he did H&M, but I decided I wanted to color the whole mini like it were a Disney movie. It took a bit of convincing, but the team all had great faith in me and I think I was able to pull it off  almost exactly as I'd hoped.

IC: I was really impressed by your recent work on Swamp Thing and Mystic. Not only do both books look gorgeous, but they're also very different styles and colour palettes. Can you talk a little bit about how you approached each project? Did you discuss the colours with the artists or writers or editors, or were your choices mostly based on your own response to the art?

I rarely discuss the colour design of a book or the specific page-to-page, panel-to-panel color choices with the writer before I get to work. I'm not opposed to it; it just rarely happens. Sometimes there is a specific note in the script to the colorist and sometimes the editor has some ideas for me before I get started, and occasionally the artist has some requests/preferences that he makes known up front, but usually my choices are just a careful response to what's written in the script and drawn on the page. If I have any concerns, I ask the team, but generally I just go for it. Comics are usually done on such a tight schedule there's really no time to color by committee.

IC: Without providing an in-depth tutorial, can you give us a quick step-by-step breakdown of your technique?

All of my work is done in Photoshop. The first step is always to drop in the flat colors on a layer beneath the line art. I spend a fair amount of time on this step, making sure that all my choices are right. This is where the real thinking is done, when all the design and storytelling issues are figured out. After that comes the lighting and rendering of the scene and figures, followed last by whatever special effects are required on top of the lines and color (glows and explosions and the like). Oh, and sometimes there's a layer for color holds, which is when you go in and actually color the inks themselves, as I did on Mystic. You've got to know your tools, obviously, but there's really not much technical knowledge required. I could teach you everything you need to know about Photoshop to do my job in a day. Someone once asked me at a con how I colored a particular page in such a way that it was clear he knew a lot about Photoshop and next to nothing about art. I had my laptop with me, so I opened up the file and showed it to him. It was very satisfying to see his face as he realized there were only 3 layers: the colors, the lines above that, and a layer with a few glows above that. In other words, no fancy tricks: I just colored the bloody thing.

IC: Where did you learn the craft and technique of colouring? Anybody can pick up a pen or pencil and start drawing at home but colouring is mostly done by computer. How does an aspiring colourist start to learn the basics?

Mystic #1

Well, get your hands on Photoshop, obviously. There are free trial versions, and cheaper editions for students available. Then buy some books, such as Color Theory, by Jose Parammon, and the DC Guide to Coloring and Lettering, by Mark Chiarello. Get your hands on some line art online and start practicing every minute you can. Take life drawing classes and design classes if possible. Pay attention to color design on the page, canvas and screen whenever you see it. Take up traditional painting. And for God's sake, get impartial feedback. Go to cons and get your samples in front of professionals.  Put your work on art forums and really listen to what people are saying. Check out gutterzombie.com, a forum specifically for colorists. It was an invaluable resource in my own studies. Above all, just do the work and enjoy the process.

Oh, and if you want to color comics, then color comics. I'm amazed by the number of wannabe colorists I encounter who don't have a single page of sequential art in their portfolio, just page after page after page of pinups and covers. I don't keep count, but I'd guess I've colored 2,000 or more pages of sequential art in my career and maybe 60 or so pinups and covers. The job is telling stories, not making pretty pictures.

IC: Colourists rarely enjoy the same kind of name recognition that writers or artists do. How important do you think Marvel's policy of including the colourist's name on the cover is? Does it bother you that not all companies do the same thing? Where do you think that reluctance comes from?

It's great that Marvel gives colorists the credit that they are due and a share in the incentives/royalties program that writers, pencilers and inkers participate in.  They've been doing so ever since I started working for them in 2007, and frankly I never gave it much thought. It just seemed obvious to me to include the colorist as part of the creative team. So when I started working for DC recently, yeah, I was pretty disappointed to find that they don't consider colorists to be members of the creative team, but rather the production team, and so give the colorist neither cover credit nor royalties. From what I understand, it's an institutional holdover from the very early days of the company when comics coloring was pretty rudimentary, restricted to a basic palette of like 27 colors, and no one cared if the sky was yellow, the road green and the buildings pink, as long as the Flash was red. Back then, it honestly didn't matter who colored a book -- it would always look much the same (i.e. terrible). Pencilers and inkers were the show; colorists were just the stagehands. Nowadays, the colorist has a profound influence on the finished product, in many cases moreso than do inkers, and should be recognized accordingly. It drives me nuts when a book or series is nominated for an Eisner and the entire creative team, including the colorist, isn't included. Dave McCaig, for example, despite being the sole colorist on several Eisner-award-winning books, such as American Vampire and The Other Side, is somehow not an Eisner Award winner. It's a scandal.

IC: When you started your career in comics, was your goal always to work as a colourist, or did you first want to be an illustrator? If the latter, then is that still something you aspire to, or did you discover that colouring was your true calling?

I have some fairly lofty ambitions in the comics medium. In addition to my training in art, I studied English Lit and Creative Writing at university and worked as a journalist, editor, and English teacher before becoming a full-time freelance colorist, so it may not be surprising to hear that I want to write comics as well as draw and color them. Heck, I'm even interested in the art of lettering. In music, I have a lot of respect for a guy like Dave Grohl, who started out his career as a drummer -- a role player -- on someone else's project and today is a respected and successful singer/songwriter/guitarist/frontman of his own band who is also considered a dream collaborator as a drummer on other musicians' projects. In 10 years, I hope to be producing my own graphic novels, writing an ongoing series or two for other artists, and coloring the occasional project by artists I admire.

Nathan Fairbairn's website is here. You can also follow him on Twitter.

Books I read: Action Comics, Animal Man, Huntress, Swamp Thing

Yes, I do plan on spending some time this month reviewing some of the non-DC/Marvel comics on my pull list. But that doesn't mean I stop covering the New 52. Here are some quick thoughts on the new issues I read this week.

Action Comics #2
Written by Grant Morrison; pencils by Rags Morales and Brent Anderson; inks by Rick Bryant and Brent Anderson; colours by Brad Anderson; DC 

One of my biggest concerns with DC's relaunch is that their commitment to shipping all the books on time will lead to more unsolicited fill-in artists. I hate unsolicited fill-in artists with the passion of a thousand suns. I understand that artists need a break from time to time. But I think how much work an artist can handle should be planned into the schedule. Either alternate between two art teams, or plan for guest artists between story arcs. It's simply not acceptable to announce a book with one creative team and then ship it with a different (and most of the time inferior) creative team.

Consistency of art is really important to me. I have a feeling that I'm in the minority, but whatever. As a consumer, I'm just not willing to keep supporting books that constantly disappoint me in that department. I've learned my lesson from DC in recent months, and one of the conditions I set for myself when I decided to try out some of these New 52 issues was that the moment an unsolicited fill-in artist would appear in a book, that book would get dropped from my pull list.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, Action Comics made it through one-and-a-half issue before Rags Morales needed some help. The art in the second issue is wildly inconsistent. I'm assuming that the pages not drawn by Morales are the ones that feature Lois Lane. That would certainly explain why she looks like a completely different character in every panel she appears in.

The patch-up art job is already enough for me to stop buying this book. But there's another reason. This book costs $3.99. If I remember correctly, the justification for the extra dollar on some of the New 52 books (despite DC's much publicized "holding the line" campaign pre-September and their promises to stick to $2.99 till the end of the year) was that it's a longer than the standard 20 pages we get in other books. Well, I counted the story pages in this issue and there are 20. The rest are bonus material, ads and a preview for some Batman graphic novel. So where's my extra dollar going? Hint: It's not "bonus" material if I have to pay extra for it.

All this ranting and I haven't even talked about the content yet. Is this a terrible comic? No. It's an average comic book that I already wasn't that stoked on after the first issue, but I figured I would give it a chance. I did. And now it's over. I will not be buying issue #3.

Animal Man #2
Written by Jeff Lemire; art by Travel Foreman; colours by Lovern Kindzierski; DC

I didn't enjoy this issue quite as much as I enjoyed the first one. I think it's because of the way Maxine feels more like a plot device than a character. I find it a little bit of a cop out that Buddy doesn't really have to do any work to figure out what is going on. All he has to do is listen to his daughter explain everything to him and guide him to this magical world nobody knew existed just 24 hours earlier. It's just awfully convenient that Maxine has all the answers.

In spite of that, I did enjoy the issue. I still think the art is visually striking and original. I think those who weren't sold on the art in the first issue will probably have even more problems with it in this one, but I actually find it refreshing to have a comic that is so stylistically different from anything else that DC puts out each month. It's about as far away from a conventional "house style" as you can get.

Still a strong title and in no real danger of getting bumped off my pull list for the foreseeable future.

Huntress #1
Written by Paul Levitz; pencils by Marcus To; inks by John Dell; colours by Andrew Dalhouse; DC

This is the first of a six-issue mini-series. The first thing that struck me about it is how unfortunate it is that DC hired Guillem March to do the covers instead of letting Marcus To handle them. The difference between the tacky mess of a cover and the gorgeous, classy art inside is almost shocking as you open the book. Marcus To was fantastic on Red Robin and here he continues to impress me with his clean lines and layouts. The only criticism I have of the art is that there isn't much to differentiate the women's faces from one another, but that's a very common problem in comics. In any case, it's not really a big enough deal to take anything away from my enjoyment of this first issue.

Paul Levitz has a good handle on the character. This was a good, introduction to what seems like it's going to be a pretty straightforward (but potentially very satisfying) story. Helena's character doesn't seem to be affected by the relaunch at all (from what I can tell), so if you're a fan of the character you won't be disappointed.

Solid first issue. I'm onboard.

Swamp Thing #2
Written by Scott Snyder; art by Yanick Paquette; colours by Nathan Fairbairn; DC

The first issue was good, but this second issue is even better. Paquette's art (helped by Fairbairn's detailed colours) is blowing my mind.

A large part of this issue is mostly just an info dump, as (one version of) Swamp Thing explains to Alec Holland what the deal is with the Green, the Parliament of Trees, and his connection to Swamp Thing. I was a little bit worried when I found out a few months ago that Swamp Thing was coming back to the DCU and that Alec Holland would be resurrected. I don't worship Alan Moore's work, but I think some of the concepts he established in in run on Swamp Thing are really rich and fascinating, and I didn't want to see that get wiped out of continuity.

What's amazing is that Scott Snyder somehow manages to honour Moore's run while establishing a new status quo for the character. Instead of just retconning Moore's run, he adds new elements that force us to reinterpret it. I don't know how interesting it is to new readers, but I thought all the back story in this issue was great. And now I'm really excited to see where it's all going to lead.

Scott Snyder is simply amazing. There's no doubt in my mind now that he's the best writer working for DC. I am so completely sold on what he's doing here and in Batman (and in his creator-owned work) that I'm basically just going to buy anything and everything he writes from now on. You want good comics? I suggest you do the same.

Reviews: DC New 52, week 1

(no spoilers)

Action Comics #1
Written by Grant Morrison; art by Rags Morales and Rick Bryant

I wonder if this title is going to outsell Justice League #1. We've all been told last week's crap-fest by Geoff Johns and Jim Lee was the big launch of the New 52, the one that would set everything up for the rest of the line, but I have a feeling the book most people were really excited about was this one. I showed up at my LCS at noon today and they had sold out, whereas last week they still had dozens of Justice League issues lining up the walls. (Though I didn't ask how many they had ordered.)

In any case, this a much better first issue than Justice League #1. It's fast-paced, full of action and information. You get a good sense of how this world and these characters are different from the old DCU, dropping in on important supporting characters like Lex Luthor, Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen and General Lane. There are references to Clark Kent's work as a reporter and how Jimmy and Lois fit into that. It establishes that Superman has started helping people around Metropolis, that the citizens are starting to notice and to appreciate it, and while the authorities are treating him as a threat, you get a good sense of their motivations and understand why they'd be freaked out by this powerful alien among them who seems to be getting stronger every day.

The art is always way better. Rags Morales' art is clean and elegant, two terms I would never use to describe Jim Lee's scratchy mess of over-detailed and cluttered panels. Maybe some of it has to do with inker Rick Bryant or colourist Brad Anderson, but this looks just how you would expect DC's flagship title to look - professional, dynamic, clear, but also very "house-style-ish," meaning it doesn't really take any risks the way some of the other books reviewed below do. And certainly if you think about the amazing work that Frank Quitely did on All-Star Superman, this seems a bit bland in comparison.

I'm not really convinced that this is a book I'm all that excited to keep reading. I'm just happy that it's not awful, I guess. It's a good start and unless there's a significant drop in quality ahead, fans are probably going to get a good Superman story over the next few months. Oddly, in spite of some of the continuity changes, this feels more true to the spirit of the original Superman than some of the garbage we've gotten lately from JMS's "Grounded" debacle.

But will I, personally, keep reading? I haven't quite decided yet. It will probably depend on the quality of the other New 52 books I sample this month. If I end up adding a lot of them to my pull list, for budgetary reasons, I might drop this one. Especially considering the extra dollar on the price tag.

Verdict: Good, but somewhat underwhelming.

Animal Man #1
Written by Jeff Lemire; art by Travel Foreman and Dan Green

Prepare to have your mind blown.

Jeff Lemire's mainstream super-hero work at DC has been a little hit-and-miss for me. There were a lot of good ideas in his Superman run (and it looked like he was building up to something that could have really paid off with the subplot involving Psionic Lad, which was unfortunately cut short by the arrival of the New 52), but the execution never quite gelled. The pacing was awkward (in part because of the Doomsday crossover hijack, maybe) and I kind of got the impression that he was phoning it in.

With this first issue of Animal Man, I feel like I finally recognize the work of the man responsible for what is currently my favourite ongoing series, Vertigo's Sweet Tooth. The writing on this issue flows perfectly. There's not an awkward beat. The dialogue feels natural. The characters immediately come across as real people. It's obvious that Lemire not only has a good grasp of the characters but also is excited about the story he's going to tell.

And the art. Holy shit, where the hell did this Travel Foreman dude come from? I love his style and it's exactly the kind of visually stunning work that Jeff Lemire's storytelling requires. These two are a match made in heaven and I hope the book continues with this creative team for a while.

Verdict: The best New 52 book so far. Add it to your pull list right now!

Batgirl #1
Written by Gail Simone; art by Ardian Syaf and Vincente Cifuentes

If you read this blog on a semi-regular basis or follow my rants on Twitter, you know that I've been a very vocal critic of what DC decided to do with this book. As a fan of both Bryan Q. Miller's excellent take on Stephanie-Brown-as-Batgirl AND the well-established status quo of Barbara-Gordon-as-Oracle, this felt like getting stabbed in the heart... twice!

I've said what I had to say about all that. I've said it loud and I've repeated it a million times. And all those issues I've brought up before are still valid. To the point where I had made up my mind that no matter how great Gail Simone's new series turned out to be, I would not buy it and I would not read it. I felt bad about it, because I love Gail Simone's writing and I know how excited she is about this book. But I just didn't think I could do it. I didn't want to send the message to DC that I was supporting this move with my money.

As it turns out, I ended up throwing all those convictions out the window when someone asked me to participate in a podcast to review this book (among others) (and more on that later, by the way). I was happy to use that as an excuse to justify my purchase. And I'm glad that I did, because as it turns out, this is a fantastic first issue. Gail Simone's writing is pitch-perfect and I'm convinced that there is not another person alive on this planet that could have pulled this off and done the impossible: get me onboard with this move. I'm serious.

I don't want to say anything more because I don't want to spoil it for anyone. But this is a good book and I'm looking forward to the next issue. Ardian Syaf's art is very nice, too, and I have my fingers crossed that he will stay on the book at least for a full story arc. (I will not put up with unsolicited fill-in artists in DC books anymore. I've had enough.)

Verdict: Shed a tear for Oracle, then give this a try. You won't regret it.

Stormwatch #1
Written by Paul Cornell; art by Miguel Sepulveda

This was strangely disappointing. I read through the whole thing not really caring about any of it, up to the very last moment when Midnighter shows up and I got a bit of a chill at the thought of the lover story that was about to begin between him and Apollo.

In a way, I'm kind of annoyed, because that just might be enough to get me to continue buying this book, even if I'm not all that excited by any of the other characters or the premise. I can't say I'm a huge fan of Miguel Sepulveda's art either.

I don't know. Will this gay love story even pay off ultimately? I think it's worth sticking around for a few more issues to find out. Plus, Paul Cornell is usually a pretty funny writer and there were little hints of his trademark style in the dialogue. ("--and certainly the horniest!") That's an added plus.

Verdict: Meh. But I'll keep reading I want Midnighter and Apollo to have sex.

Swamp Thing #1
Written by Scott Snyder; art by Yanick Paquette

Yeah, this was pretty much everything I expected (and wanted) it to be: creepy, well written and beautifully drawn. I believe this is the best work I've ever seen by Yanick Paquette. (Although I noticed how ugly Superman's padded costume is when I saw his rendition of it. What an awful, awful design. Please do not let Jim Lee design any more costumes, ever again. Urgh!)

When I found out that Alec Holland was coming back to life at the end of Brightest Day (which I wasn't reading - I found out on the internet), I was extremely skeptical of this new direction. It just seemed like such a departure from some of the coolest aspects of Alan Moore's run (Swampy's struggle with whether or not he was once human, etc.). It wasn't until I heard Scott Snyder talk about this in an interview, about how it was his idea to begin with and how it was specifically a set-up for what he was planning to do in this series, that I got onboard with it.

With this first issue, I still don't know exactly where it's going to go, but I'm definitely intrigued and excited to find out.

Verdict: Excellent. Along with Animal Man, this is the other must-buy of the week.