To celebrate the release of Secret Invasion #4 this week, Matt and I bring you a dialogue with SI colorist Laura Martin. Check out the VIDEO, with an introduction, transcript, and special features below!
It's no secret that it was Bendis' writing that sucked me back into comics. I was feasting on a steady diet of Ultimate Spider-man and Powers. I didn't care who drew what as long as the right writer's name was at the top of the credits.
Then I saw the cover of Astonishing X-Men #2. I don't think I'd ever seen anything like it. With a splash of blue and dash of red, I fell in love with comic art. I fell in love with the good guy/bad girl dynamic of Scott and Emma. It blew my mind. And without those primary colors, I doubt I would have ever noticed. It would have just been two people playing peek-a-boo.
Another similarly unsuspecting story of mine: My gateway to the DC Universe was Wildstorm. John Cassaday on Astonishing led to Planetary and Bryan Hitch on the Ultimates brought me to the Authority. Because the Wildstorm books were colored by Laura Depuy and the Marvel books were colored by Laura Martin, I never made the connection beyond the pencilers. Make no mistake about it. Laura Depuy was Laura Martin's maiden name before she got married in 2001. Yep, all those beautiful colors that you've been digging for the last ten years, all her.
Laura Martin is currently the digital color artist of Secret Invasion and Thor, and the upcoming mini series the Stand. She's also the newest member of Atlanta's Gaigin Studios, along with Cully Hamner, Brian Stelfreeze, and Karl Story. Myself, Matt, and Xylon got to sit down with her at HeroesCon on Sunday, June 22nd and chat about her coloring procress and her role in the overall work. Throughout the weekend she worked her colorista magic on dozens of penciled and inked sketches my other artists. It's what she does.
Matt White: My first question is, as a colorist, how much interaction do you have with the rest of the creative team?
Laura Martin: I try to have as much as possible. We send pages back and forth. As soon as I finish a page, I send it immediately to the penciler to check in and see what he thinks of it, and the inker, if there's an inker involved. Mark Morales sees all the stuff for Thor and Secret Invasion. I get the scripts before I start the issues so I've got that interaction with the writer. I really want this to be a collaborative effort, so I really make the effort to stay in touch with everybody as we go along.
Stephen Mayer: You obviously do the colors, but do you also do flats? What's the actual coloring process?
LM: Usually I get the scans from Marvel or DC, they send them directly to me. The first step is the flats, which is just laying the basic colors. It kind of looks like an old school comic book or Sunday funny. Just the basic colors to separate the shapes. Nine times out of ten I actually send that out and pay somebody to do that part for me because it is incredibly boring and puts me to sleep. While I'm waiting for pages to come back from my flatters I'll be working on other pages. That's usually the first step. Then, what I'll do is, once I get the pages back from my flatters, I'll fill in the colors that I want on the page, and that will help me set up the color scheme so I know what I'm doing for that scene. If it's a nightime scene I'll make them darker colors, or indoors, or a fiery red scene, or whatever, I'll put in the colors that I want to choose, sort of the base colors I'll start with. Usually I'll start with the most important thing on the page and begin rendering there because I want that to be where the eye is drawn. And then I'll work out from there and finish all the panels as I go.
SM: You worked on Astonishing X-Men with John Cassaday, the Ultimates with Bryan Hitch, you're working on Thor now with Oliver Coipel. Nothing against them, but none of those books are necessarily known for coming out on time.
LM: Right.
SM: Now Secret Invasion, especially for the first four issues, is like clockwork on the first week of the month.
LM: Yup, yup.
SM: How has that changed your process?
LM: Well, it's stressed me out [laughs]. No, I mean, it's all a deadline. It all comes down to a deadline, and if an editor gives me a deadline, I try my darndest to hit it. If I'm waiting on pages, that's all I can do. I really strive to do what I can to get the book out on time. Granted, I may receive and ink on Thursday and have to turn it around by Friday on that last page, but that's the nature of the business. If that's what I have to do, that's what I gotta do. It is interesting doing a monthly book, I've gotta say, and Secret Invasion is exhausting, I won't lie to you. It's a very, very busy book and it takes a lot more time than my other books. So when I finish a book, I'm exhausted, and sure enough there are pages waiting for me for the next issue. It's an interesting process. I don't get any downtime, I'll put it that way [laughs].
SM: It looks amazing! We spoke a bit earlier about how your colors made the first issue of the book explode when I opened it. They just help so much on all the books.
LM: Thank you.
SM: Color has been something that people have been speculating on, especially eye color, in Secret Invasion. Without going into too much detail, I don't want to get you in trouble or anything, are their specific instructions from Bendis as far as eye color or anything like that goes?
LM: On occasion. Let me think if there's anything specific [ponders]. Nothing I can talk about [laughs].
SM: I understand. I think Mark Morales was getting into a little territory...
LM: Where it was a little hazy, yeah. Since I'm not sure what's been discussed already, I'm pretty much gonna [lip-sealing motion]. I don't even know. I only read the scripts as they come in, so I don't even know what's going on in issues 5-8. I have no clue. And I like it that way, cause I like to be surprised, too. I like to see the story unfold on its own pace as well.
SM: You're obviously getting to color almost everyone in the Marvel Universe so far. Is there anybody at Marvel or DC or anywhere that you'd like to work on that you haven't yet?
LM: Oh gosh. You know, the funny thing is years and years and years ago I was at Wildstorm and I actually really enjoyed working on Stormwatch and the Authority, and now that they've brought all those characters back, Warren Ellis killed them all and now they're all back, of course, and I'm like "I want to work on those guys again." [laughs] I'll admit it. That's about it. I'm lucky enough to have had my hands on pretty much everything, and it's fun, so I can't really complain.
Xylon Otterburn: You're a part of such a big process, especially the big event of the year with Secret Invasion. Do you tend to be more modest about how much of an effect you have on the whole universe?
LM: Yeah, pretty much. What I do is enhance the penciler's vision. I want to take what the penciler and the writer have given me and round it out. I don't necessarily need to voice my own opinion onto the book. I choose the colors, certainly, but it's all part of the main plan. I'm just a cog in the wheel. That's the way I see it
SM: Thank you very much for talking with us and congratulations on your Harvey nomination.
LM: Thank you. I appreciate it.
Laura Martin is the Eisner award-winning digital color artist of Secret Invasion, Thor, and the upcoming Stand mini series. Her past credits include Astonishing X-Men, the Ultimates vol. 1 and 2, Planetary, the Authority, Negation, and Stormwatch. Check her out at her website, Colorista.net.
