Boston Comic Con 2015: Interview with Laura Martin, A-Force Colorist

Laura Martin, colorist for A-Force, Ragnarök and Spawn, spoke to us at Boston Comic Con about her step-by-step system for coloring each comic to which she contributes, as well as her love of stories fronted by complicated heroes, from Sherlock Holmes to Tank Girl. For the rest of our Boston Comic Con video coverage, check out our tagged list of interviews from the show floor. Read the transcription of Laura Martin’s interview below.

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Hi, I’m Laura Martin. I’m a colorist on A-Force for Marvel and on Ragnarök for IDW and on Spawn for Image.

I would like to be able to get up at 7; I usually get up at 8:30. I hang around, eat breakfast, exercise, feed the cats, whatever, hang out. Eventually I get to check my email and get pages. I usually download it from an FTP or a website or something. I’ll get the pages in black and white; they’re scanned, usually from the editor. I’ll make sure I’ve got a script on hand, and I’ll check the email for notes from the penciler and inkers, to see if there’s anything I need to know about the artwork. Then I’ll begin working.

I open up the page in Photoshop, and I begin the process of prepping the pages for coloring. I’ll start working on developing a color scheme and determine how the colors should appear according to the story. I base everything on the storytelling, so I make my choices across the board there. As I get pages done, I make a low-res jpeg, and I email that off to my creative team, make sure everything’s good on the pages, and as the pages get done, I finish them off for print and upload them and send them on their way.

Well, I’m a huge fan of Sherlock Holmes, so anything Sherlock Holmes-related. I did do a book called Ruse at CrossGen years ago, and it was kind of a Sherlock Holmesian story, based on the same idea. So, in a sense, I have done that, but I would really like to work with the Sherlock Holmes.

I actually don’t read a whole lot of reviews. Even if they’re good reviews, I appreciate them, but I have too much going on and I’ve got to get back to work. If I get feedback from my editors, and they’re like, “Hey, something’s going on with this book,” or something, that’s fine. Generally, I just stay away from negativity as much as I can.

I love any kind of real depth and complexity to pretty much any character, so if there’s a good flawed heroine out there, who is just an awful person but has a heart of gold on the inside — Tank Girl comes to mind — I love ’em. I think they’re fantastic. There’s just so much more dimension to a character like that. You want them to save themselves; there’s a little part of you that wants to save them, too. You want to see them redeem themselves, and that’s the core of the story. I love it.

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