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Comic books tend to have three surnames on the cover naming the artist, penciller, and inker for that issue. I’ve always wondered why this is, though? It seems a bit unfair that despite comics being full colour for some time now, even the colourist doesn’t get credited on covers.

Is there a particular reason for highlighting this (usual) trio of collaborators and not the others?

Martin Bean
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  • Is not adding colour one of the inker's tasks? – Bardo Aug 30 '17 at 09:55
  • @Bardo Mostly it's not. There's a separate task of adding colour, and back in pre-historic times there even existed a position of colour separator - presumably the person who took the coloured pages and figured how to make the printing press reproduce the colours. – Gallifreyan Aug 30 '17 at 10:14
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    Because (largely) no-one buys a comic because of who did the colouring – Valorum Aug 30 '17 at 10:16
  • @Valorum Do people buy comics because of who did the inking? (Writer and penciller I can understand…) – Martin Bean Aug 30 '17 at 16:46
  • @MartinBean - The inker and the penciller often come as a matched set. You don't get one without the other which means you need to pay them both a royalty. By comparison, the colourist is often a professional who works for the comic and hence is salaried. – Valorum Aug 30 '17 at 17:20
  • @Valorum I didn’t know that (colourist’s were usually salaried). I thought all contributors (writers, artists, letterers etc) would been commissioned/contracted on a title. – Martin Bean Aug 30 '17 at 18:38
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    @MartinBean - It's different for different studios but I gather DC and Marvel both had colourists on staff until about 2014. – Valorum Aug 30 '17 at 18:39
  • @MartinBean: Yes. Dick Giordano is famous. – Martin Schröder Aug 30 '17 at 21:30
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    Considering comics are not limited to a SFF scope, I vote to close this question. I might better suited for Literature.SE – Skooba Nov 08 '18 at 16:24
  • @MartinBean - In addition to Giordano, there are other inkers who are easily recognizable on top of any artist - Vince Colletta and Bob Layton both come to mind. As the colorist has been asked to do more (there are sometimes special effects-style work done explicitly by the colorist), I think they have been getting more credit, and are more likely to be listed on the cover, at least in some cases. And there are colorists who are much sought after - Laura Martin being the first one I think of in that category. – RDFozz Nov 08 '18 at 16:28
  • Note: the recent Silver Surfer run by Dan Slott and Michael Allred seems to list Laura Allred, the colorist, on the covers. – RDFozz Nov 14 '18 at 23:03

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