Interview with Comics Inker and Colorist, K
Hello! Corinne here. Hope you've been enjoying Issue 4 of Electric Squeak so far! I'm excited to share this interview with fellow comics maker and very dear friend of mine, K! We talk about their comics journey, their experience as a comics professional, and the all-important yet sometimes elusive work/life balance!
The artist, K
Can you please introduce yourself and what you do in the comics industry?
My name is K, I’m the colorist and inker for Mischief Night, a self-published indie comic series written by Jean Louise O’Sullivan and Cosimo Mariano. I also illustrate and draw my own comics.
Can you tell us a little bit about your comics journey? Where did you start, have you always been interested in drawing comics, what steps did you take to get to where you are now?
I started with reading comics! I was a big fan of Garfield, Calvin and Hobbes, and other newspaper comic strips as a kid. As I got into middle school, I got into narrative comics in the form of manga, which also inspired me to start drawing. I kept being in and around various creative pursuits, but not necessarily doing comics — I dabbled in illustrations and watercolors, went to college for film, worked as a graphic designer while in school in New York, and moved to Los Angeles to take on more of an marketing art/artist coordination role after graduation.
Shortly before the pandemic, I took a comic-making class run by SILA (the Society of Illustrators Los Angeles) where you make a 10-page mini-comic over the course of the few months of the class. That was my formal introduction to comics, and where I got interested. That, and all the artist friends I met in Los Angeles, which has a really vibrant culture of creatives. My pandemic lockdown activity was drawing. I worked a lot on my art and brought it up to a level where I felt I could both create my own work, and get reasonable interest if I were to hire my skills out to others. And now here I am!
How did you land your current gig as a colorist/inker? Was there anything in particular that really helped you?
It was a pretty fortuitous thing, but it did come from me making it known that I was an artist. Self-promotion is deeply uncomfortable for me, but just for fun I started showing my stuff around to my coworkers at my day job. One of them knew one of the Mischief Night writers was looking to fill a colorist/inker role for a project since the previous one dropped out, so he connected us since he knew I was an artist.
Then it was pretty standard, I sent in some work samples to see if I would be a good fit — mostly portrait and quasi-character design work, which is my focus, and some environmental pieces. Clearly the writers liked it, so I was hired on! Later, they actually told me they liked the diversity in body types in the samples I sent in, which is why they chose me. It was awesome to get that feedback.
excerpt from Mischief Night, Issue 4, written by Jean Louise O'Sullivan and Cosimo Mariano, inks and color by K
I know you currently also hold a full-time job that can be pretty demanding, which is not uncommon for many folks in comics, and that you also work on your own comics. Do you have any advice on how to balance your schedule to allow time for your comic work, both freelance and personal?
First, I will acknowledge firstly that I have a day job that is respectful of my work-life balance and supportive of my hobbies, which actually leaves me the time to draw. So that’s a big help, they’re lovely.
But as for making time — I do have designated time in the week that is non-negotiable drawing time, but I build a fun ritual around drawing to encourage me to want to do it. My personal rule is that TV time is drawing time, drawing time is TV time. If I feel the urge to put Netflix or a sports game on, I will almost always also be drawing, and if I feel the urge to draw, I’ll always throw something fun to passively listen to/watch in the background. That way, it’s not so much of a chore, and if I ever want to take a little break I can focus on something else for a bit that doesn’t take me away from the task at hand entirely … and also I can still be interesting at parties when people start talking about shows and movies.
I treat paid work with the same seriousness as I treat my day job. It takes priority before any fun activities (and even personal art), just like if it were to conflict with a meeting at my very corporate day job. I also create timelines for myself in communications with clients by telling them, “I will finish this in two weeks,” which means now I have to finish whatever I promised them in two weeks. I think I take these deadlines more seriously than my clients do sometimes, but sometimes you just need that external forcing function.
If I don’t have paid work, I’ll work on my own stuff during drawing time. I’m pretty disciplined with getting my freelance work done, but I try not to put too much pressure on myself with my personal work. I’m honestly not that productive, I’m not putting out polished pieces all the time. In my free time I mostly draw fanart, or jump between the pile of unfinished pieces I have in Procreate and pick away at them, ink one a little, color another a little, work out a sketch for a new piece. That all still counts as drawing to me, it’s more about making sure I’m in the habit of moving my hands and using my art brain.
"fuck," personal illustration by K
What differences do you find between paid comic gigs and your own work? For example, mentally, artistically, narratively, workflow-wise?
The biggest difference across all these categories is that I’m here to execute on someone else’s creative vision instead of my own. Working on my own art is pretty solipsistic, in the sense that it’s my decisions, my vision, my choices, and I find all the joy out of my finished product. So for paid work, I try to find satisfaction instead in the process of creation and collaboration, even though I might get notes and have to re-do work, and even if the creative choices and final result might not have been something I would have decided on my own. I’ve learned to find a lot of joy in this kind of teamwork, which is something I wouldn’t have expected of myself.
Artistically, since I’m working on someone else’s content, I’ll constantly be checking to see that my work aligns with the client’s vision, showing them in-progress art and running ideas I have by them, and setting up check-ins at regular intervals. I also like a comprehensive brief and having a lot of references, if applicable. I’m always asking for references. This does involve some work on the end of my clients too, but the Mischief Night team is great about giving me direction.
I think my own comics work tends more toward short-form and abstract. But this specific project I’m on is about six issues long and follows your standard three-act narrative structure, so it’s definitely more straightforward. On the other hand, it also means I’m a lot more concerned with keeping continuity, for example, remembering that a character took her jacket off three issues ago, so she shouldn’t have it on now.
And then workflow-wise, I find myself being more careful about layer management and file management than I usually would. My personal file organization system is a mess, and I can’t make sense of my own files and how I set up my layers sometimes, but I know other people will be working with the files I produce, I don’t want them to be tearing their hair out trying to sort through all that. So while I don’t meticulously label everything all the time, I do try to keep things somewhat neat and organized.
Do you find that your personal art practice influences your freelance work, or vice versa? How so?
In particular, doing freelance comics work has made me a faster and more versatile artist because of the volume of work I have to do, and because I have had to get familiar with drawing things I normally wouldn’t be drawing. There is no world where I would willingly draw a car in three point perspective, let me say that much. But I think this knowledge and confidence lets me do more in my personal work.
I like using my personal practice as an experiment lab where I try out new techniques, concepts, color palettes, brushes, you name it, because the work I do personally is so low-stakes that I don’t care if the experiment doesn’t come out the way I want it. But whatever new thing sticks definitely gets applied to all the work I do, including my freelance work.
excerpt from The Gates of Horn and Ivory, by K
excerpt from Sentenza, by K
Which do you prefer, coloring or inking?
Inking! I find it incredibly zen. Since I’m mostly following the work the penciller has already done, I can turn my brain off and get into a nice flow. Coloring is very stop/start and requires making more decisions, so it’s not as relaxing to me.
As someone who works in the final stages of the art, what best practices would you say your ideal penciller would have?
I personally love pencillers who are as detailed and prescriptive as possible. I am so tired of making decisions. I will be even more tired of making decisions when we get to the coloring stage. Please make all the decisions for me, so all I have to do is come in and follow exactly what has been laid out for me. I think some people think it’s denigrating to just think of inking as tracing, but I don’t personally mind and will happily agree to that. Also, remembering to leave room for the speech bubbles!
How much artistic freedom do you have when it comes to the color and inking? How much back and forth do you have with the writers?
Artistic freedom, to me, means the writers having enough trust in me to do what I feel is best for the narrative, and not so much necessarily the ability to go wild and experimental with the art itself, which I think is how most people might define it. This narrative doesn’t call for anything hugely experimental anyway. So in the sense that I think about it, I have a lot of artistic freedom.
We’ve had several different pencilers on this project, but I’ve been the only inker/colorist, and this is also a project where color and a sense of lighting especially is important to the narrative. So it’s given me a lot of time and space to build up trust. In the beginning, when we were just getting started, I did get a lot of notes, and we had to have regular meetings to address them, and establish the overall look and feel of the work.
My relationship with the writers has evolved since then. At this point, about four years in, we’re all on the same page. I now understand their sensibilities and expectations and what they like or don’t like, and they now fully trust me to do my thing. I do still have regular informal chats with the writers, mostly via text, because it’s convenient. I’ll run quick questions or ideas I have by them regularly. And then at major touchpoints, like big set pieces or shifts in the narrative, or the end of an issue, we’ll set up a more formal meeting to discuss.
What best practices would you say your ideal writer would have?
Leave some room for the art to carry the story! Mischief Night is a very dialogue-heavy comic, but once in a while, there’s a full-page action scene or splash page where it’s just art, no talking. I love that. And then, literally leave some room for the art. A writer who is capable of breaking up dialogue or narration into manageable chunks is great. Having to draw around huge blocks of text is tricky and limiting.
excerpt from Mischief Night, Issue 4, written by Jean Louise O'Sullivan and Cosimo Mariano, inks and color by K
What's a typical timeline for you? Let's say 1 page vs the entire book. What's the workflow look like?
The workflow is pretty standard — I’ll get a batch of usually 3 or 4 pages from the penciller, sometimes as many as 6 to 8, ink all of them, show the writers for approval, and then color all of them. How long this takes truly depends on how much free time we all have, since everyone working on this project, me included, is doing it as a side hustle. Provided I have all the pencils and nothing else major is going on in my life, I can get through 6 or 8 pages in a few weeks. It’s probably slow by industry standards, but the writers keep telling me I’m fast. We’ve done five issues in three or four years, so a little over an issue a year.
Do you have any advice with regards to contracts and making sure you're paid a fair rate?
I really get the sense that having a contract seems sort of daunting to artists, but given that I write them as part of my day job, I will tell you that a contract is 99% boilerplate language. If you find a good template online for a Scope of Work, Independent Contractor, or whatever other contract best suits your needs and takes into account the labor laws of the region/state/country you live in, you can then just swap out the details for every new job you take on. Also, in all the cases I’ve experienced, it’s the client giving me the contract to sign — so you don’t always need to know how to write one yourself, but knowing how to read one is helpful. That might be the slightly harder part, but legalese is not too hard to understand once you get the hang of it.
Payment is the daunting topic here. Practically, I think asking your client for a budget before you start or even take on the job is good, so you’re all on the same page to start with. Knowledge-share, talk to other artists to know what they’re being paid and by who, even if they’re on different jobs. And, I know this is easier said than done, but if the terms of a job are really unfair to what you think you’re worth, say no. It only encourages clients to offer unfair rates if you take these jobs.
What advice do you have for anyone who is interested in being a colorist or inker?
As you are essentially producing the finished product others will see, I think you have to have to be meticulous and attentive to detail, and also take a lot of pride in your own work, which might include being a little self-critical sometimes. It’s possible some reader out there will catch the one little line overrun or the one misfill you didn’t see, or that you thought nobody would notice and didn’t bother to fix.
Kind of related, I think that being an inker and colorist is more about perseverance and endurance, rather than any sort of artistic skill. When you’re 170 pages into 300 pages of a graphic novel, you’re going to want to give up. It’s a slog, it really is, but I think having the will to carry through, to take that last few minutes when you really want to just go to sleep to fix up the little details, is what really makes a good comic artist.
The metaphor that always comes to mind is that once I saw an old cabinet in a museum where the back was carved and finished really nicely. It was all this extra time and effort for something that was going against a wall and that the cabinetmaker, at least in their lifetime, thought nobody would see. But they respected themselves and their craft enough to make it nice anyway. That’s the energy I personally try to have for being an artist (and also in life, but I think most of my life philosophies are just my artist philosophies).
And then some practical advice: I find inking and coloring to be especially hard on my wrists, a lot more so than pencilling because of the very precise control you need to have, so make sure to take breaks!
"Second Favorite", personal illustration by K
Thank you so much for your time and thoughtful answers! I really appreciate it, and I think you have some great advice for people looking to get into comics in any capacity.
Thank you so much for talking to me! I'm always very happy to share what I know. We're all in this together!
K is a Southern California-based illustrator and comic artist. You can find more of K's work at www.chiickenk.com. You can find Mischief Night at @mischiefnightuniverse on Instagram.