THE BETTER THEY DRAW, THE BETTER I COLOR: Warlock

One of the books I colored for Marvel near the end of the color guide era was Warlock. He was the alien member of the New Mutants. This series was written by Weezie Simonson, and drawn by Pascual Ferry, and inked by Don Hillsman & Mark Morales.

It was beautiful. I loved coloring that series. It was fun. Cool villains, Warlock’s wacky, ever-changing forms, and there was a great sense of humor to the comic. I was coloring a lot of books at the time, but I always gave special care to Warlock.

Years later, I heard that the artist, Pascual Ferry didn’t want me to color the book because he was worried that I had too many other books & wouldn’t do justice to Warlock.
I wish I could have reassured him that his art was so cool, I gave it a lot more care than most of those other books. I’ve never spoken with him, but I hope he was happy with the results.

In my late color guide era, Warlock was right up there with Avengers Forever, and the Hulk/Superman crossover as far as the love & care I took on his color guides.
The only way it could have been better was if I was in control of the color separations. Looking back and comparing the color guides to the final product, the guides were way better. The separations, done at Graphic Color Works in Ireland were kind of hit-and-miss. A lot of the subtlety got lost in translation.

They were trying, but their intense quotas and tight schedules really didn’t allow them to take the time to capture all my little nuances.

Here is a random sampling of my Warlock color guides.

 

 

 

 

Warlock always had interesting character designs. And I liked to use airbrush on the guides, which gave them a different feel, and could create cool moods.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I liked the hot red contrast with the cool blues on this guide.