The Invisible Artists Behind Your Favorite Comics
Open any issue of The Wicked + The Divine, the critically acclaimed modern-fantasy series from Image Comics, and the first thing you see is spectacle and sound. Jamie McKelvie’s art breathes life into the stories of 12 gods reincarnated as pop stars: When one deity puts on a rock show, crackling energy explodes across the page, like music at the loudest and most impressive concert you’ve ever been to. The snap of a god’s fingers can make a cigarette flair into life—or cause a head to explode. Kieron Gillen’s dialogue flashes out across the panels, some witty, some heartfelt, some magical. It’s all brilliant work by two creators at the top of their game. But without the additional contributions of talents like the colorist Matthew Wilson and the letterer Clayton Cowles, it would all fall flat.
Though they rarely get the acclaim of superstar artists and writers, colorists and letterers are the secret sauce behind most comic-book storytelling. Colorists are the cinematographers of graphic narrative, laying hues over art to control mood and style; letterers are the sound designers, crafting fonts, effects, and speech balloons to bring noise to a silent medium. Both often operate behind the scenes. But as
