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brevoortformspring:

Tom, is there a difference between a color artist and someone credited as “colorist” and if so what is the difference? Thanks!>

This is a fine question.

First of all, it’s important to understand that all of our colorists are artists in their own right. These days, because of the technology involved and the number of options that digital coloring permits, the final look of the art is as much the responsibility of the color artist as it is of the line artist.

Now, what I’m about to say may vary a little bit from editorial office to office. But here’s how I do it.

If we have two separate creators doing the penciling and inking, they are typically credited as penciler and inker. You wouldn’t credit them as Artist and Inker, not unless you wanted to insult the inker (who is also an artist in his own right.) So in those cases, the credit I give is typically colorist, so that it’s penciler/inker/colorist

However, in instances when the same individual does the penciling and inking, it is traditional to refer to them as the artist. In those cases, I credit color artist, to signify that relative parity across disciplines. Artist/Colorist is just as insulting as Artist/Inker.

In the end, though, colorist and color artist mean about the same thing.