Full Color Madness!

Hi again, it’s me, Corey Breen, columnist here at Master Digital Color!

I am a Senior Pre-Press Artist at DC Comics and also a freelance artist running my own Illustration & Cartooning company called CjB Productions.  I have been writing this Print Perfect Column now for one year.  you can also follow me on my very own blog at http://cjbpro.blogspot.com/

Way back in October 2009, I posted my process for creating a fully penciled double-page spread featuring over 60 Green Lantern Characters.  I also talked a little about how my good friend and fellow co-worker over at DC Comics, Mike Sellers inked the piece.  If you would like to read that column before jumping into this one, please do so here:

http://masterdigitalcolor.com/2009/10/green-lanterns-unite/

Now, finally, after all this time, right before the BIG convention season starts, I wanted to unveil the brilliant colored piece in all it’s glory, by none other then the masters themselves, Master Digital Color’s very own Brian Miller and HiFi Studios!  No, it did not take this long to color the piece, although if I had done it, it would have.  Because Mike and Brian also work full time, it took about 3 months to complete the inks and colors, as they both worked on them little by little on the side.  I was floored when I finally got an email from Brian around Christmas time showing me the finished spread in brilliant 4-color.  My mouth fell open and I felt so proud and happy all at the same time.  I can’t thank Brian and his team of comic colorists at HiFi enough for coloring this piece for me.

It took so long to finally post the colors because I was hoping to have it included in a weeks worth of DC Comics (at the time, Blackest Night was just rolling out), as I tried to include it in my very own DC Nation back page.  I pitched it to some editors upstairs from me, along with a column about Pre-Press and how much a pleasure it is to work for a department for a company whose characters I love and follow and draw myself!  I wanted to have the image right there for all to see that ship week in my very own DC Nation page, but ran into a bunch of red tape.  Just because I work here, does not make getting things done any easier, when I want to contribute things other then my regular Pre-Press job.

I was hoping it would be easy to just pitch my text for the page along with the colored piece, and they would say, “oh that’s very cool, Corey, we would love to print it, great job!”  But alas, it was not meant to be.  They had other DC Nation pages lined up, and were worried that it would not make sense to throw in a column about Pre-Press at that moment.  Also, they were worried it wouldn’t make sense to promote Green Lantern Corps since Blackest Night was going on, and that wasn’t their focus.  But mainly, it came down to the fact that they did not commission the piece from me at all.  Since it was just a “fan” piece, it was not something they hired me to do as a “work for hire”.  Since they did not commission the piece from me, they had a couple of legal issues with the fact that they would be printing a piece of mine that they did not have any rights to.  I argued my case as to why that should even matter, but they did not want to risk running the piece without any legal standing.  Now, I am not a lawyer or anything by any means, I just wanted to show the comic reading world this amazing spread on a DC advert page.  So I went to DC’s legal department, and explained what I wanted to do, and they wrote me up a waiver of rights form just to be able to print it.  It basically said that I am allowing DC to print my “fan” drawing.  I still thought it was bogus, but still thought it would be worth it to sign off on it to do the column.

Well, more time had passed, and even with the waiver, the editor did not want to run the column.  I then tried to try and get it on the DC Nation Blog website, but ran into the same editorial blockade.  I was very sad they did not want to run it, even though I gave my permission for them too at first, but then thought of how I promised to unveil it right here on Master Digital Color’s website first anyway, and now I get to keep that promise!  So now, in all it’s AWESOMENESS, and a BIG thanks to Brian Miller, HiFi Studios, and Mike Sellers, here is the finished Green Lantern Corps Spread Pin-Up!  I hope you all enjoy it!  Please feel free to use it as your desktop, and pass it along to as many people you would like, because it was like, Brian and I’s gift to you, the fans.  I hope you learned a lot from my column about how I drew it, and I hope Mike and Brian can comment a little bit on how they went about inking and coloring the piece!  Be sure to let them and me know what you think!

It’s stunning what Brian was able to do with the colors and I feel so lucky to call him and Mike Sellers my friends and colleagues!  They have made me a better artist, but more importantly, a better person for knowing them and learning from them.  Brian is one of, if not THE leading men in this field, and I am so proud to have him work over my drawing.  I never thought I would have ever gotten a chance such as this, but team HiFi came through in spades, and I am so grateful.  Well, I’ve stalled enough, so with out further ado, here it is!

Green Lantern Corps © DC Comics

Pencils by Corey Breen

Inks by Mike Sellers

Colors by Brian Miller & HiFi Studios

As a reminder, as well, be sure to follow me everywhere on the web!

Twitter- http://twitter.com/CjB_Productions

Facebook- http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#!/pages/CjB-Productions/370054395510?ref=ts

Blog- http://cjbpro.blogspot.com/

Website- http://cjbpro.com/

Thanks everyone, and have a GREAT start to the convention season!

Until next time,

Corey Breen

PS- I will not be attending SDCC this week, I will be trying to get comic books out the door and into your stores, LOL.  But, I will be attending and have my very own table at NYCC in October!  I can’t wait to meet everyone there, and I will have plenty of posters of this Green Lantern Spread available to purchase!

PPS- Below is what would have been my DC Nation Column in full!

Hi, Corey Breen in Pre-Press here!

I, along with my crew in the Pre-Press Department at DC Comics, handle all the production work on all the periodicals that DC produces on a weekly basis.  We handle all the art corrections, color corrections, and lettering corrections on each and every book we produce.  Our main objective is to work with the editors, proofreaders, and production coordinators to change anything they need changed in each and every comic.  We follow every book from its inception to a finished comic book that you see in stores.

If you think that sounds like a really cool job, then you are absolutely correct – it is!  All of the Pre-Press artists in our bullpen take a lot of pride in our work and do our best to help all our books look the very best they can, with no errors.  We work diligently to catch any and all errors, working closely with the editors to make sure all our comics receive equal importance and care.  One of the reasons we love doing what we do here in Pre-Press is because we are such fans of the material.

To us, it’s not just a job that we do like any old 9-5.  We work in this industry because we too love comics, just as much as any normal fan-boy that reads them.  We look forward to receiving our comics every Wednesday, just as much as you do.  We follow all the stories; having daily discussions about the story-lines and the art.  We have favorite writers, artists, and even letterers and colorists.  We all work very hard on comics, so that we too can enjoy them when they are printed.  Being on the inside is not only a joy, but also a bonus.  We get the pleasure of seeing artwork before everyone else does, and get the opportunity to work closely with the freelance talent, making sure all their artwork is going to be reproduced at the highest quality.  I can’t even begin to tell you how cool it is to get new artwork in our inbox all day long!  That is one of the coolest aspects that we enjoy as fans!

Being such big fans, we love to create and draw our own material from time to time.  We love doing fan art, just as much as the next artist, and I wanted to share one such piece that I did.  I am a huge fan of Green Lantern right now (who isn’t), and decided to try my hand at drawing a double page spread of as many Green Lantern Corps members as I could.  I get so excited seeing the double page spreads Ivan Reis and Patrick Gleason turn in and thought it would be nice for fans of the Nation to see some similar artwork from a dedicated Pre-Press artist at DC Comics.

The piece was inked by fellow Pre-Press artist, Michael Sellers, and colored by regular DC Comics colorist Brian Miller at HiFi Designs.

I hope you like it.

Take Care,

Corey Breen
Senior Pre-Press Artist, DC Comics