Welcome to the Multiversity Year in Review for 2022! We’ve got over 25 categories to get through, so make sure you’re checking out all of the articles by using our 2022 Year in Review tag.
Color artists are responsible for color (obviously), but also so much more than that. They add texture to a comic, and visual effects. Color can direct the eye, helping guide the reader to the most important parts of the story, while also setting the pace. Our colorist award is named after Dave Stewart, because he was the best for so long. He’s not the only great in comic book coloring though, so here are our favorite groovy colorists who helped make 2022 comics fabulous. Dave Stewart is not eligible for his own award.
3. Mike Spicer
What do “Stillwater,” “The Swamp Thing” and “Do a Powerbomb!” all share besides being excellent books from 2022? That’s right. Mike Spicer on colors. And you know, part of why they are so good is because of those very colors.
If you were to line up pages from those three series next to each other, they would all share a general look and feel to them. A grunginess that enhances the dark and dirty themes and events of the respective series. The colors aren’t muted, they’re actually quite vibrant, but they’re not showy either. They blend with the inking, giving them a more seamless feel and grounding them.
Yet they remain visually distinct. “Do a Powerbomb!” with frequent collaborator Daniel Warren Johnson,is a heightened series about pro-wrestling death matches with a brutal emotional core amped to the extreme and the colors reflect that, with an expansive palette of blues that pop, yellows that shine, and reds that disgust. “The Swamp Thing” is a heady series with lots of landscapes and plants and the dirt beneath our feet and so the colors are more earthy and rustic, leaning harder into a painterly feel that compliments Mike Perkins’ heavy inks and Ram V’s ethereal narration. “Stillwater” is more pastelle than the others but not overly so, evoking the never ending lives of the residents and their stagnation along with the beauty and darkness of a small New England town.
I could go on. Or, maybe I couldn’t. Mike Spicer doesn’t color all that many books every year, and that is true for this as well. It makes him easy to overlook but he shouldn’t be. He’s not flashy but each book he works on is all the better for it. – Elias Rosner
2. Matt Wilson
Here we are again, celebrating the color work of Matt Wilson. He’s one of those guys who does celebrated work in creator-owned comics, but then he’s also doing the colors for a hundred other books from every single publisher. And while 2022 wasn’t Wilson’s for prolific year ever (I don’t actually have those stats to run) he was attached to some very good looking Marvel books. He’s a mainstay of the “X-Men” line, still one of the most exciting series in comics. He’s also tied very closely to Chip Zdarsky and Marco Checchetto’s run on “Daredevil,” another series that has remained gorgeous and gripping for years.
When you remember that Wilson also colored another legendary “Daredevil” run, the 2013 series by Waid and Samnee, it makes you appreciate the scope of this guy’s career. His name may not pop up in every single comic I opened this year, but Wilson is a guarantee of quality. If his colors are in the book, you can bet it’s going to be pretty to look at. -Jaina Hill
1. Jordie Bellaire
Jordie Bellaire has been a staple of Multiversity’s Best Colorist list since we started it in 2015 and it should come as no surprise. Color artists have a wildly important job, often playing a massive role in controlling the tone of a series or atmosphere of a scene. Bellaire is a rare talent, both instantly recognizable and incredibly adaptable. Her style is distinctive while still perfectly complementing the pencils and the writing alike. Her work as a colorist is mostly confined to Marvel these days but even in the context of more traditional superhero fare, her range is apparent.
Continued belowTake her work on “Secret Invasion,” for instance. The series takes a thriller/espionage approach to this Skrull plot. To make things more grounded, she colors characters relatively realistically, giving a rough texture to all of them. The environments, meanwhile, are given near-realistic lighting but there’s an eerie, almost unnatural feeling that permeates the comic due to subtle but effective use of shadows. Then the big moments get flashes of intense colors in the background as potential energy turns kinetic.
Then there’s the “History of the Black Panthers” backup stories in “Wakanda,” where the more simplistic, clean art style demands brighter, more clearly expressive colors. Or you could take a look at “Captain Marvel.” There, she does excellent work at showing the series’ combination of classic superhero action and grounded, mature emotions. Colors are bold but subdued. One issue might feature bright, explosive action (literally, in the case of dragon attacks) and a talk about the idea of mercy; Bellaire finds a way to use colors entirely consistently throughout an issue while meeting the diverse needs of said issue.
And of course, there’s her work on Al Ewing’s “Ant-Man,” a heady, complex sci-fi superherhero romp. It’s there that Bellaire really got to flex her muscles in 2022. The first issue is a Hank Pym-centered throwback to the ‘60s, where she beautifully emulates the comics style of the time while still bringing a certain modern sensibility. The second follows Eric O’Grady, doing similar emulation of the cartoonish coloring style of the 2000s while the third sees the more simplistic coloring of the 2010s. The final issue sees all of these come together and a more bright, futuristic style of coloring as we meet the Ant-Man of the future. In the span of four issues, we see Bellaire show mastery over a range of approaches to coloring all while maintaining her own distinct style.
So, while the quantity of her output has lessened a bit, Jordie Bellaire remains one of the most impactful, impressive color artists in comics books. Her fifth appearance at the top of this list and eighth overall is extremely well-earned. – Quinn Tassin
