Live Chat Here Monday, June 20th With JayJay

Discuss the VALIANT comics, characters, and collecting.
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Ladakh
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Re: Live Chat Here Monday, June 20th **LIVE NOW** With JayJa

Post by Ladakh »

How did you become a digital colorist?

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Re: Live Chat Here Monday, June 20th From 8-10 EST With Jay

Post by JayJayJackson »

JayJayJackson wrote:
greg wrote:When you used Doc Martin watercolors to do the coloring for VALIANT, was that something that had been done in the industry before? If not, did it catch on anywhere else before digital took over?
The Dr Martin watercolors were the standard for people to color color guides with at both Marvel and DC, thought they had many more demanding uses. The particular ones we used were formulated for camera reproduction and were designed to give true color repro when separated. About the time we started VALIANT laser separations were becoming affordable and we made a deal with a separation house out in Long Island to do our scans at a bulk price. Touching up the negative was not included and since I had experience in the printing industry I used to touch up the raw negatives before we sent them to the printer, sometimes extensively.
Those particular watercolor dyes were more transparent than regular colored inks and paints so they could be used to color over black lines and not obscure them.

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Re: Live Chat Here Monday, June 20th **LIVE NOW** With JayJa

Post by Ladakh »

Tom Smith is one of a near-extinct class of hand colorists these days...

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Re: Live Chat Here Monday, June 20th **LIVE NOW** With JayJa

Post by JayJayJackson »

Knob Row wrote:How did you become a digital colorist?
At VALIANT we were experimenting with trying to do coloring on the computer. We bought an Apple II ci and photoshop but we had no one to figure out how to do it. I feel very confident that I could have figured it out but Jim refused to let me. Wisely, I suppose. I have a tendency to become obsessive when faced with a problem.

It took until Broadway Comics before Jim relented and allowed me to pursue digital coloring. I took a 3 day Photoshop class and within a year I was testing at an intermediate to advanced level. I worked on computer coloring every night, sometimes late into the night and I'd get yelled at for being late to work. ...obsessive.
Last edited by JayJayJackson on Mon Jun 20, 2016 7:20:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Live Chat Here Monday, June 20th **LIVE NOW** With JayJa

Post by vikingspawn »

Do you know/remember what kind of writing work Jim did for Continuity Comics in the late 80s with Neal Adams?

Any idea what it would take for the Broadway Comics properties to come back? Would it still need Lorne Michaels to bring it back?

How far did the "Spire" comic get to almost be completed?

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Re: Live Chat Here Monday, June 20th **LIVE NOW** With JayJa

Post by greg »

You've been asked questions about VALIANT for almost 25 years, I'm sure. What can I say, we're insatiable fans. :D

But what is one (or more) things about VALIANT that you never get asked, even though you'd like to say something about it?

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Re: Live Chat Here Monday, June 20th **LIVE NOW** With JayJa

Post by Ladakh »

I feel like digital is a step down- when you have FILL buttons to fill up areas with color. Or am I wrong and it's a lot harder than that? Computer coloring never sat well with me, I am old-fashioned.

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Re: Live Chat Here Monday, June 20th **LIVE NOW** With JayJa

Post by JayJayJackson »

vikingspawn wrote:Do you know/remember what kind of writing work Jim did for Continuity Comics in the late 80s with Neal Adams?

Any idea what it would take for the Broadway Comics properties to come back? Would it still need Lorne Michaels to bring it back?

How far did the "Spire" comic get to almost be completed?
Jim wrote a couple of issue of a several issue series for Neal back then. I forget the name. It was greek/Roman myth-based modern day superheroes.

All of the Broadway properties were sold by Broadway Video to Classic media, which has been sold to Dreamworks and now has been sucked up by another conglomerate...Sony or something? Not sure. I have a friend who has tracked it.

I was writing the Spire graphic novel and I think I was about a third of the way through the script.

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Re: Live Chat Here Monday, June 20th **LIVE NOW** With JayJa

Post by JayJayJackson »

Knob Row wrote:I feel like digital is a step down- when you have FILL buttons to fill up areas with color. Or am I wrong and it's a lot harder than that? Computer coloring never sat well with me, I am old-fashioned.
Uh, yeah. A lot harder than that. No fills at all, actually. All very hard hand outlining and painting with digital brushes. I'm a slow colorist so it all takes me a lot longer than some. I use digital painting techniques that are similar to the way I used to paint with watercolor. Most people use comic book coloring techniques which are quite different.

I guess many people think everything is easier with computers, and in some ways it is, but mostly not the way people think. Just as a writer can't push the "write" button and write a script a colorist can't push the "fill" button and color a page.

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Re: Live Chat Here Monday, June 20th **LIVE NOW** With JayJa

Post by vikingspawn »

Did anything ever come out of "Phobos" or ICON?

What stopped the plans for "Daring Comics" from Chuck Rozanski at Mile High Comics?

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Re: Live Chat Here Monday, June 20th **LIVE NOW** With JayJa

Post by JayJayJackson »

JayJayJackson wrote:
Knob Row wrote:I feel like digital is a step down- when you have FILL buttons to fill up areas with color. Or am I wrong and it's a lot harder than that? Computer coloring never sat well with me, I am old-fashioned.
Uh, yeah. A lot harder than that. No fills at all, actually. All very hard hand outlining and painting with digital brushes. I'm a slow colorist so it all takes me a lot longer than some. I use digital painting techniques that are similar to the way I used to paint with watercolor. Most people use comic book coloring techniques which are quite different.

I guess many people think everything is easier with computers, and in some ways it is, but mostly not the way people think. Just as a writer can't push the "write" button and write a script a colorist can't push the "fill" button and color a page.
The main advantage to digital coloring is in skipping the expense and problems of separations. Digital files can be delivered faster and easier and printed more simply. The cost saving to the publishers is huge.

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Re: Live Chat Here Monday, June 20th **LIVE NOW** With JayJa

Post by Ladakh »

At this point, can you say there's more signed Rai#0's then unsigned ones?? :)

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Re: Live Chat Here Monday, June 20th **LIVE NOW** With JayJa

Post by JayJayJackson »

vikingspawn wrote:Did anything ever come out of "Phobos" or ICON?

What stopped the plans for "Daring Comics" from Chuck Rozanski at Mile High Comics?
I worked for Phobos doing website design and book covers. They were primarily a sci-fi book publisher started by a film producer named Sandra Schulberg. They seemed to want to go into multi-media (film and video games) but they mostly only made it to publishing some books, mostly anthologies.

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Re: Live Chat Here Monday, June 20th **LIVE NOW** With JayJa

Post by JayJayJackson »

vikingspawn wrote:Did anything ever come out of "Phobos" or ICON?

What stopped the plans for "Daring Comics" from Chuck Rozanski at Mile High Comics?
I did logo designs for Daring and Icon but other than that I was not involved. I had full time jobs at the time. So I'm not sure what happened.

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Re: Live Chat Here Monday, June 20th **LIVE NOW** With JayJa

Post by JayJayJackson »

Knob Row wrote:At this point, can you say there's more signed Rai#0's then unsigned ones?? :)
lol. I have no idea. But it's such a nice, open cover for signing.

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Re: Live Chat Here Monday, June 20th **LIVE NOW** With JayJa

Post by buff-beardo »

Do you know who own's the rights to the Defiant properties nowadays?
Muse Rocks! Check out “The Handler”.

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Re: Live Chat Here Monday, June 20th **LIVE NOW** With JayJa

Post by Ladakh »

Do you keep in touch with Valiant people?

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Re: Live Chat Here Monday, June 20th **LIVE NOW** With JayJa

Post by JayJayJackson »

buff-beardo wrote:Do you know who own's the rights to the Defiant properties nowadays?
Pretty sure it's the same as the Broadway properties, but I'm not 100% on that.

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Re: Live Chat Here Monday, June 20th **LIVE NOW** With JayJa

Post by vikingspawn »

How long did it take to come up with the design of the Spider-Man heart logo for the Amazing Spiderman Annual #21 cover wedding issue?

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Re: Live Chat Here Monday, June 20th **LIVE NOW** With JayJa

Post by JayJayJackson »

Knob Row wrote:Do you keep in touch with Valiant people?
Just Jim and Debbie Fix and David and Maria Lapham (mostly Maria). But I keep in touch with a lot of Marvel people. And many people from Defiant and Broadway I'm still close to as well.

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Re: Live Chat Here Monday, June 20th **LIVE NOW** With JayJa

Post by buff-beardo »

Is there a particular comic issue and/or series you are most proud of having worked on?
Muse Rocks! Check out “The Handler”.

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Re: Live Chat Here Monday, June 20th **LIVE NOW** With JayJa

Post by vikingspawn »

Was it in the works to have all the Defiant characters to get reintroduced at Broadway had it gone into year 2? With the Dark Dominion characters in the Fatale title...was Plasm/Schism a possibility to be in the Broadway universe back then?

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Re: Live Chat Here Monday, June 20th **LIVE NOW** With JayJa

Post by JayJayJackson »

vikingspawn wrote:How long did it take to come up with the design of the Spider-Man heart logo for the Amazing Spiderman Annual #21 cover wedding issue?
Ah, how I wish I could take full credit for such a great logo, but the germ of the idea came from Jim Salicrup. I remember I refined it and simplified it, but he sparked the thought.

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Re: Live Chat Here Monday, June 20th From 8-10 EST With Jay

Post by Ladakh »

JayJayJackson wrote:
Knob Row wrote:How many of you ex-Marvel guys were there at VALIANT one day one?
In the very, very beginning Jim, myself and Art Nichols were meeting in Steve Massarky's law office to work on production issues and ideas. Later, when we had our own office we added bob Layton, Laura ... blanking on her name...and a couple of other people on a freelance basis, like Jan Harpes.
When did Don Perlin get involved?

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Re: Live Chat Here Monday, June 20th **LIVE NOW** With JayJa

Post by Ladakh »

Can you tell us how Don Perlin got the moniker "Uncle Don"??? Or is that off topic?


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