Product Description: America's leading comic book publisher brings its superstar creators and classic characters to the fourth in an authoritative series of books on how to create comics. Acclaimed comic book illustrator Mark Chiarello and award-winning letterer Todd Klein demonstrate dozens of surefire strategies, practical techniques, and professional secrets for dynamic comic book coloring and lettering. They use DC's world-famous characters to demonstrate an array of techniques, covering such topics as the pros and cons of lettering by hand or by computer, creating balloons and fonts, logo designs, working with color, and creating special effects. The animated step-by-step instructions are informative, stimulating, and clear enough for even beginners to follow. In addition, every technique shown in this guide conforms to up-to-date industry standards. The perfect how-to on everything coloring and lettering, this one-stop sourcebook is packed with a wealth of tested techniques, practical advice, and professional secrets for the aspiring comic artist.
Should be titled DC Comics Guide to Color Theory 101 There is no truth in advertising here: This book will NOT show you how to color for comics. It will not tell you how to color ANYTHING. It will only vaguely explain the theory of color, the concept of "Computers" used for modern coloring but will show you NOTHING about technique. It's like a round-a-bout way of saying "Here's what comics look like, do THAT" without ever telling you HOW to actually DO anything. I was sorely disappointed with the content here. The lettering sections are competent I suppose, although my disbelief with the coloring "content" made it hard for me to concentrate.
Concise, clear, megahelpful This book has proved valuable to me, both in my comic-book work and my teaching. I rate it just as highly as the other two excellent DC books on penciling and inking by Klaus Janson. This one is a marvel of economy, giving the reader a grounding in two fairly technical (and not widely appreciated) areas of comic-book production in the briefest form imaginable.
Most of it is a how-to, but there is some spot-on coaching on matters esthetic and expressive.
As for the how-to aspect, when I wanted to find out how, for example, to letter in Illustrator, Klein's section walked me through it, right down to making the balloon pointers pointed.
Chiarello's well-illustrated section walks you briskly through the four or so main styles of coloring gives a bit of guidance as to why you might choose each, and tells you how to do them.
(As a side note to colorists, I'm not sure Chiarello's method of backing up the blacks is necessary: I believe Photoshop does this automatically, to a degree that's determined by one's color settings.)
Good for Beginners This is a great guide for those who would like to get into coloring or lettering comics, but have no idea where to start. In this volume, you'll learn a little about the theory of coloring comics--how to use color to create a dynamic mood without making the art look clutter. Dozens of full color examples are provided to show the contrast between good color jobs and bad color jobs. Also it provides info on how to create your own fonts for use in lettering. It also provides information on which tools would be useful for computer coloring and lettering. Most of this is done on computers these days, so the appropriate software is recommended. If you already have an idea of which tools you would like to use, it may be better to go ahead a get a guide on the specific software you are going to use if you would like more on the side of technique. If you're just getting started in the field of comics coloring, this is a great volume to begin with.
great book This book gives you a insight on how the pro's are coloring and how you should get started also. The artwork and examples are great for comic D.C. comic fans.
industry standard It's a good and informative book, but be aware that the authors assume you already know how to use the equipment needed (including ink, pens, computers, software, etc).
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