ON MATTERS OF (RE)COLOR

PART ONE: COMMON SENSE
I love Marvel's current collected editions department. Really, I do. They put out quality books with top-notch production values and graphic design work. I'm proud to have their products on my bookcase. So when I go off on my rant here, just remember that I'm railing on one relatively minor aspect of something that I otherwise love pretty much unconditionally.

Left: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #238, 1983
Right: SPIDER-MAN: ORIGIN OF THE HOBGOBLIN TPB, 2011

However: There's one practice in Marvel's collected editions which drives me up the wall, and that's their tireless, relentless dedication to making sure that any coloring mistakes present in the original comics carry over to the reprints. I'm not exaggerating when I say that I seriously can't think of a word to desribe how preposterous this notion is. If, in 1976, a colorist gave Wolverine a yellow arm rather than the correct flesh tone, why on Earth would you want to preserve that error? It's sheer idiocy to do so. The asinine notion that everything must be preserved, warts and all, is something only the most die-hard anal retentive fan would insist upon, and which any editor in their right mind should push against.

Strangely, this practice only seems to apply to coloring mistakes, too. I know that Marvel has corrected missing word balloons and fixed out-of-order pages in some of their collected editions. To me, a coloring mistake is just as egregious as either of those other issues, and should be just as readily fixed. To do otherwise makes the finished product look sloppy.

But then, sometimes I wonder if I'm not quite of the same mindset as much of the fandom. I lurk at the MarvelMasterworks.com message boards on a daily basis, and the majority of what I see there are fans who want every issue reproduced as faithfully as possible, right down to the last glove that was accidentally colored as a bare hand. These aren't archive editions, folks. They're mass-market paperbacks and hardcovers for any Joe-off-the-street to look at in their local Barnes & Noble. And guess what: when that guy sees a mistake in a book which is in no place identified as an archive, it reflects poorly on Marvel.

Yes, it can be argued that all comic trades and hardcovers are niche products, but if your goal is to bring new readers in, don't you want your books to look professionally edited and assembled? I'm not calling for George Lucas level re-jiggering of every issue, here -- but fixing production mistakes which were not part of the original creators' intent should be the goal in any collected edition. It's what any reasonably sane reader would expect, and what any reasonably competent editor should do.

PART TWO: MODERN STYLE RE-COLORING
That said, I would be perfectly happy if everything was re-colored in modern style. Not from scratch, mind you, but using computer separations, gradients, etc., with the original colors as a guideline, would make the books look better and more appealing to myself and to that afore-mentioned casual reader. When the Marvel Masterworks line first launched, they did just that. And though the modern Masterworks are far superior in almost every way, I greatly prefer the coloring in the original editions from the late eighties and early nineties.

A couple years ago, Marvel released the THOR BY WALTER SIMONSON OMNIBUS, which, with Simonson's input, was completely re-colored by Steve Oliff, with breathtaking results. Heck, I'm even a fan of the re-colored NICK FURY, AGENT OF S.H.I.E.L.D. trade from 2000, reprinting Jim Steranko's original run, which seems to be universally loathed by fans for its re-coloring at the hands of a European publisher. To me it looks beautifully lush, and I greatly prefer it over the S.H.I.E.L.D. BY STERANKO trade that Marvel just released last month.

If all classic reprints were re-colored well (not overdone) in a modern style, I'd be all for it. I suspect the casual fans out there would be, too. It's only the hardcore archivists in the fanbase who would complain, and Marvel shouldn't even be catering to them in the first place. But at the very least, correcting color mistakes should be an editorial no-brainer, should it not?

In closing, a handful of examples where I think modern coloring enhances and improves upon the original product:

Left: S.H.I.E.L.D. TPB, 2013, re-colored faithfully from the original sixties comics.
Right: NICK FURY TPB, 2000, re-colored in a modern style.
Am I nuts for vastly preferring the subdued but still exciting hues on the right over the garish colors in the original??

Left: UNCANNY X-MEN MASTERWORKS vol. 3 hardcover, second edition, 2004, re-colored faithfully from the original seventies comics.
Right: UNCANNY X-MEN MASTERWORKS vol. 3 hardcover, first edition, 1993, re-colored in a modern style.
To me, the one on the left works well enough -- it's hard to knock Glynis Oliver -- but the one on the right adds a mood and atmosphere totally lacking in the original.
(Though I fully admit that changing a day scene to night goes against my preference of maintaining the original creative vision.)

Left: THOR VISIONARIES: WALTER SIMONSON vol. 1 TPB, 2000, re-colored faithfully from the original eighties comics.
Right: THOR BY WALTER SIMONSON OMNIBUS, 2011, re-colored in a modern style.
Can anyone truly argue that the one on the right is not vastly superior?

But again, I'm not proposing blind modern coloring across the board. The colorist needs to be skilled at their craft. Here's one last sample, showing modern colors done wrong:

Left: SPIDER-MAN: ORIGIN OF THE HOBGOBLIN TPB, 2011, re-colored faithfully from the original eighties comics.
Right: SPIDER ISLAND: EMERGENCE OF EVIL one-shot, 2011, re-colored in a modern style.
The colorist has totally overpowered the artwork, knocking out blacks and turning the whole thing into a drab, muddy mess. If you're going to invest in modern color, Marvel, at least get someone who knows what the heck they're doing.