Colorists See the Light: Paul Mounts
Paul Mounts is the colorist for Marvel’s The Ultimates, Black Bull’s Just a Pilgrim, Image Comics’ Tellos, and Vertigo’s SCI-Spy. (Check out two covers for Just a Pilgrim: Garden of Eden. He has been an artist in comics for over fifteen years, and currently heads up his own studio, Bongotone. ) His cover for The Ultimates 2 is the basis of this update’s cover image.
DT: What motivated you to get into coloring? What motivates you to keep doing it?
PM: After spending three years drawing and coloring storyboards and animatics for television commercials, I needed a change. I saw what the advertising world does to people — art directors at age 40 looking 65 and drinking at 9:30 in the morning-and was really bored spending entire days drawing dog food, cereal flakes, and deliriously happy people eating Big Macs. I’d always loved comics, and at that time there were a few publishers in here in Chicago (First, Now and Comico) that I could pencil, ink letter and color for. Then one day an old high school friend who was drawing for Marvel (Tom Morgan) was working on a series that they need higher-end coloring on, and showed the editor (Howard Mackie) some of my storyboard work. I helped Marvel get setup with a local service bureau to make the blue-lines form the original art (since at that point the only higher -end coloring that they had done was either on the original art or on greyline stats). After that series got published, I was suddenly known as a colorist, so that’s the work that kept coming my way. It’s paid my bills for quite a few years now, and when you’ve got a wife, kids and mortgage, that’s motivation.
Beyond that, however, I think that I can bring something to the books I work on that is unique, and that feels good. And I still pencil and ink sometimes — I’ll have a pinup in Just A Pilgrim: Garden of Eden #4.
DT: What are the skills you needed to learn to do the job well? How did you go about learning them?
PM: The time I did storyboards was boot camp. You can learn more in 6 weeks at a good studio than you can in 6 years of art school. You learn to concentrate on the basics, the storytelling. You learn how to lead the eye through a scene, and how to trick the viewer into seeing exactly what you want him to see. How lighting affects mood, and the importance of the basic contrasts: Light against dark (the most important!), warm against cool, saturated against unsaturated. When I was freelancing for Continuity Associates, Neal Adams once gave me an afternoon crash course in the importance of these three contrasts that’s stayed with me in all the years since. The important skills are in threes — the three contrasts, the three levels of importance when approaching a scene, and the three things you need to have/be to succeed. The skills are: 1) Tell the story (the most important); 2) set the mood (important, but subordinate if it obscures the storytelling); 3) render it up pretty (relatively unimportant, often unnecessary). You need at least two of the three things to succeed: 1) be on time; 2) be really good at what you do; 3) be a really nice/easy person to work with.
DT: Could you take us through the evolution of coloring a little bit from your perspective? How have the tools and the processes changed?
PM: When I started, fully-painted blueline color was just getting going (middle 1980’s). We went all digital in the fall of 1994, and it was perfect timing, as right when we got computers the blueline work started drying up overnight. Which was fine; after airbrushing Dr. Martin dyes and gouache for so many years, I was sneezing rainbow colors from inhaling all the fumes. (And, yes, I had a large industrial air cleaner/filter attached across the top of my drawing board, but that can only catch so much . . .)
We never used the vector-based coloring software that Steve Oliff developed; I’ve been Mac and Photoshop since day one. Viva le Mac! The operating system for those with superior taste and intellect. Death to the PC traitors!! (I’m kidding! No flames, please!).
DT: When you first start on a page, what are the first things that go through your mind? What are the initial creative choices you make to set the direction for the finished page?
PM: I guess I answered part of this in the last question. The first and most important thing-what’s the point of the cover/page? What’s the story it’s trying to tell? What was the penciller/inker trying to accomplish? And how can I amplify that? On the Ultimates 2 cover, it was, at its heart and for all its detail, a relatively simple scene showing the power and mood of Iron Man; basically, to create a sense of wonder in a superhero that’s been seen hundreds of times before in various incarnations. The background had to fall back, both to pop Iron Man forward and to create a sense of darkened-lab drama. The drama on the figure comes from the various lights playing off of the armor. (See a side by side comparison of the line-art and colored versions.)
DT: What do you think comics readers should look for when they look at a page, in terms of coloring, in order to fully appreciate the work?
PM: I like well-chosen simple color rather than overly rendered art that makes no sense and confuses the eye. I also appreciate a colorist that’s not scared of color. There’s a growing trend to use really grey, monochromatic schemes in an attempt to be “mature,” but if comes off as dismal if not handled correctly. The grey scenes have much more punch if contrasted with colorful scenes. Uninterrupted unsaturated colors are as harsh and diluting to the eye as uninterrupted bright color.
DT: What’s the work process like? What stages does the piece move through?
PM: We either get scans on disc or from an ftp site, or the original art is sent to us for scanning. My assistants resize and format the scans and lay in flat color. Then I take the pages and rework the palette and render them up.
DT: What’s your work environment like? How many books are you working on at a given time?
PM: Like any good artist, my studio is generally an ungodly mass of clutter, from toys, plots and comic reference to old coffee cups and food wrappers. (Because all the best food is wrapped for you sanitized consumptive pleasure!)
In the studio this week: SCI Spy 3, Just a Pilgrim: Garden of Eden 2, Ultimates 3, the cover for Ultimates 6, the cover for Just a Pilgrim 4, the covers for SCI Spy 5 and 6, X-Factor 1, a Dragon Tales children’s book, a Superman Playstation magazine cover, thirteen Superman Gameboy screens, a 10 page Rogue/Wolverine story for Unlimited X-Men, promo artwork for Garth Ennis, Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmitotti’s Pro, the next Tellos book, and lettering on a pitch for a new comic by Todd Dezago and Craig Rousseau. Whew . . . lucky I only sleep about 4 hours a night! But I have two assistants, Ken Wolak and Jeff Engert, that keep things moving through the pipeline.
DT: That workload sounds insane. How do you keep it up? In an ideal world, would you do that many books at once?
PM: That sounds a bit ridiculous, I know. But they’re not all getting done start-to-finish in one week, obviously. Some jobs are coming in, some are going out, but it’s all in various stages of completion during this week. One of the tricks of the freelance life for any artist is juggling projects and budgeting time — just as valuable a skill as the artistic ability.
Admittedly, you caught us at a busy time. I really have been going round the clock lately and just not sleeping. If you go to the ComicColor web site, you’ll see that I’m not the only one. Scheduling can be tough, and everything can get backed up if even one penciller/inker is late with pages, or if something hits you unexpectedly (covers that need to be done immediately for solicitation, etc.).
In an ideal world, I’d be a reclusive billionaire.
DT: What do you need from your collaborators in order for you to do your job to the best of your ability?
PM: We all need to learn that sleep is for chumps.
I like to stay in contact with the pencillers on the books I color. I talk with Bryan Hitch regularly on Ultimates (even though he gives me an unbelievably free hand to do what I want). I also need the plot of the book I’m coloring. Which sounds really basic, but I’ve seen some colorists do entire runs on books without once looking at a plot.
I also need time. If I get the line art the day before a book goes to press, there’s no way I can do my best work. The letterers and the colorists are the end of the line, and any time lost by the writer, the penciller or the inker has to be made up by us.
DT: How well do you think the comics industry recognizes and fulfills those needs?
PM: It’s not always (never?) perfect, but I’ve had very good luck generally, working with artists and editors who really are trying their best. It’s very rare that I’ve run into someone who unabashedly abuses the system.
DT: How much time do you need to do your best work, from start to finish?
PM: Even after all these years, I have no idea how to answer this. Every project is different. It’s an artists’ maxim that if we have three weeks to do a job, it’ll take three weeks. If we’re told we have four days, we’ll do it in four days. The project will expand to fill the time allotted to it. That, combined with my rather anal-retentive and control-freak personality is probably why I’ll never be enough of an efficiency expert to run a big factory-type studio.
DT: What work by other colorists do you particularly enjoy?
PM: Well, obviously the others that you’ve interviewed here, plus Lee Loughridge, Guy Major, Richard Isanove, Matt Hollingsworth, Liquid. That’s off the top of my head; as soon as this is out of my hands I’m sure I’ll be kicking myself for forgetting about 10 others I should have mentioned. Also artists who color their own work, like Michael Golden and Dave Johnson, and Japanese and European artists like Yoshitaka Amano, Moebius, Bilal, and Daniel Torres. Also, movies (City of Lost Children, Citizen Kane and Double Indemnity (black and white, but the tonal storytelling –wow!) and any of the cinematography of Jack Cardiff) and comic strips (the Sundays of George Herriman and Bill Watterson), and most importantly, real life.
About Dave Thomer
Born and raised in Philadelphia. Studied philosophy at Fordham University in the Bronx, where I made many great friends and met my wonderful wife. We moved back to Philadelphia, where I studied philosophy some more and became a teacher. Online and off, I'm looking for ways that we can be better citizens and build stronger communities.