Well over a year and a half ago (LoB is only a little over 2 years-old, can you believe it? Seems longer!) a stranger walked into the LoB Inn, sat down quietly, ordered a mug of chocolate milk, spurned the advances of a barwench (he’s a family man, afterall), sat and colored a black and white ink drawing I had posted to the blog of the Dark Queen and sent it to me as a fan art. I ran it. It was excellent. Then, he colored another. And another. There was a point where I was so overrun with my varied comics and artwork for clients (CBS, Star Trek Magazine, Roddenberry, Garfield, et al) that I was facing publishing LoB in black and white. Don e-mailed me and made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. “I’d be happy to color LoB if you need help.” And so he did. And we worked together on the flow of the comic’s color, his color palette broadened, it refined, he wound up coloring a plethora of strips for the first LoB collection, and here he is. A partner in this whole thing!
This is WAY overdo… I am proud to have added our very own wizard-colorist Don Kuehn into the BIO SECTION above. (Now you can see what we look like! lol) Don’s magical palette, color choices, unwavering RELIABILITY (friends, you have no idea how many strips I’ve sent to him on a SUNDAY night at 10pm saying “Is it too late for you to do this?” and like a true Knight of Terragard, I wake up in the morning to find a fully-colored strip awaiting in my e-mails to be brought forth among the masses.
Let me just say that I find Don to be indespensible, I am proud that he colors Legend of Bill, and let’s all applaud him for the hard work he puts into bringing Legend of bill to life in full-color that we may glimpse into the world of Bill, Frank, Gina, the Dark Queen Vasheeva, Vorik and the host of others, not with tear-stained eyes of monochrome disappointment, but with the colorful rose-colored glasses of ADVENTURE!! HUZZAH, Don, and readers of Legend of Bill! We have only begun to COMIC!!
- David
P.S. I also want to note some other GREAT colorists and friends who have also contributed to coloring Legend of Bill in the past as well… Josh Ulrich, of “Newman” (who also colored the cover to the Legend of Bill comic book, issue 1) (You have GOT to check out his comic), as well as Jeff Seybert, my long-time friend as well… Not to mention the LoB comic book and guest strip writing assists of the great Steve Ogden of Moontown and the LoB comic book art assists of Eldon Cowgur of Astray 3, and the plethora of guest strips and artwork from so many webcomic friends and fans!! (NOTE: The guest strips will be in a new section coming to the new site – SOON!) Thank you, guys, for all of your HELP in bringing LoB to life for us all!!
Let me add a few HUZZAH!s to that, Don. I have been fair-well impressed by your Jedi color tricks.
I personally think you’ve helped define the ‘feel‘ of LoB. The earthy tones & palette make it seem like a legend of yore, calling forward through the parchment ages of Telling.
And, for example, I am enthralled by the beauty of panels such as the portrait of Gypsy in today’s installment. I mean, David, that is a fantastic drawing of her, but the coloring makes me want to clip it out of my monitor and place it into a locket!
Thank You !!
Major Kudos to Don. Way to go, man!
I cannot thank both of you enough for the synergy that results when you work together on this epic. You’re like Gilbert and Sullivan, Simon and Garfunkel, Sonny and Cher, Milne and Shepard, Hitler and Mussolini… wait…
@David: Somehow, you just don’t appear as I’d expect you to appear from your writing and comic drawing. You look much more at home in the abstract art world. No accounting for my prejudices, I guess.
@Don: Somehow, you look almost exactly the way I’d expect you’d look.
And both of you are so accomplished in your lives that I feel rather like Bill does in the presence of Kruul. Well done.
David – Again, thank you for letting me color and to continue coloring the strip and for your kind words. I really enjoy it and interacting with all of the LoB fans! It doesn’t seem like it was all that long ago that I colored the Dark Queen sketch and sent it to you.
I remember when I colored that first strip. I’d colored the low res version from the website and had sent it in and didn’t even really expect a reply, perhaps a mention in a day or two. I don’t think that it was even 10 minutes, and I got a reply from David saying that it was awesome (The strip where Frank gets clobbered by Ganyon’s Magic 8 Ball – August 27th, 2009). So I thought that was pretty cool, but then I get another email a few minutes later, asking if I want to color the next two strips as well. So, I say sure, and David sends them to me.
Up until this point, all of the coloring that I had done had been from pictures that were posted on the web (low res). The first time I opened up a strip, I was kind of shocked at it’s size. Each strip is roughly 1300×4300 pixels for printing, and then is resized for the web to be easily viewed. After I sent in the two, David asked me if I wanted to color the strip regularly, and the rest as they say is history.
Over the last 11 months, I’ve colored the strips for the web, a fair chunk of the ones in the first edition of LoB and even the 2 page LoB for the Literacy project. Along the way, I’ve learned quite a bit, tried several things that worked well, a few that didn’t (like gradients, right David?) and am having a great time doing something that I’ve always wanted to do. It’s unbelievably cool to hold in my hands, a comic book that I helped create.
3X, Og and Johanan – Thanks again. 3X – LoB jewelry? hmmmm…..