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Few are the major characters that artist Ian Sokoliwski has not had his hands on.
Figuratively speaking, of course.
During his time with Digital Chameleon, he worked with some of the biggest characters in comics, including just about every major character at Marvel and DC. He is a credited colorist (or as he would say, colourist) on Dark Horse Comics' stellar Conan the Barbarian reprints. He has worked on an assortment of independent books, including Shadowflame, Kolchak: the Frankenstein Agenda, Grimm Fairy Tales, and Ripperman: Fair Warning, is a credited inker on the forthcoming Lotus by Zeroes2Heroes, and is the top-to-bottom creator - writing, art, inks, colors - of creator-owned comics BattleWitch and Selig: The Second Coming. He also colors the commissioned artwork of legends like Bob Layton and Paul Smith and creates and sells his own vivid, imaginative art. But don't take our word for it, just look at his homepage to see what he brings to the artistic table.
A jack of all trades? It's starting to look that way. The future may very well hold good things for Ian Sokoliwski.
 recently had a chance to corner Ian and pick his brain on the art of coloring comic books, developing his creator-owned projects, Iron Man, and the future of comics.
: Alright, Ian, though you've got a lot more going on than just colors (we'll get to that later), you're primarily known as a comic book (and other media) colorist. Some people might have the misconception that as a colorist, your role is pretty much limited to making sure Superman's cape is red. It's more than that, though, isn't it?
 Sokoliwski: Superman's cape is red?
Oops.
The colourist's primary role is to help tell the story, just as much as the rest of the team. We help define mood, separate characters, and get the story flowing on the page, drawing the reader's eye from the first panel to the last. It's all about enhancing the artwork and the storytelling.
: To what extent does that mean studying all that color theory stuff? “Cool” colors and “warm” colors and how all these things impact a person's frame of mind? It's all mumbo jumbo to me.
Sokoliwski: It's very important to keep in mind some of the ideas about colour theory - the basic idea that backgrounds are cooler and lighter, while foregrounds are warmer and darker. Without at least some nod to that and other ideas of colour theory, panels (and entire pages) can easily end up just jumbled collections of brightly-coloured images, with no pattern, nothing linking them together to help tell a story.
: You've got a wider range of options than colorists of the past. The newsprint of old limited the options available to colorists, and comic artists in general, but not anymore. The last 15 years have seen a dramatic change in not only the paper but in the technology you use to create a finished product. Would you say that makes your role in the creation of a comic more important than in the past?
Sokoliwski: Definitely. The options in helping to create mood, depth, and emotional responses in the audience make my job more integral to the process than it has been before.
It's not all about being flashy - one of the best uses of this new technology in comic books is in the creation of subtlety. It may be the single most under-utilized use for computer colouring (and better-quality paper that can support it), but I think it is vital for a good colourist to know how to not so much make the characters pop out of the page, but how to better help draw the audience into the page.
: But when Photoshop gives you hundreds of special effects and filter options, isn't it hard to resist giving into the temptation to use them all?
Sokoliwski: It sure is - which is why, in the mid and late '90s anyway, so many books had a very over-coloured feel to them.
It's like the over-use of splash pages in a comic book. If every page is a splash page, then there are no pages that are splash pages.
If every panel is doused with special effects that overwhelm the artwork, then there are actually no panels with special effects. There is no change of mood to the story, thus there cannot be anything special about anything either.
: You've had the opportunity to color some landmark work by one of the great artists of the last 30 years, namely Barry Windsor-Smith's work for Dark Horse's Chronicles of Conan reprints. How'd you land that gig?
Sokoliwski: Well, this goes back to my involvement in the separation studio Digital Chameleon. The last major project we worked on there before the studio closed was Volume One of the Chronicles. That volume was coloured by a core group at the studio and, after it folded, we were given the opportunity to continue on with Volume Three. I guess the editor just liked what we were doing.
: It's pretty unlikely BWS could have predicted the kind of detail you're now able to bring to the table with modern colors. Are there any unique challenges inherent in coloring stories first drawn more than 35 years ago?
Sokoliwski: Sure - the major hurdle to overcome is the density of panels and text on a page from that long ago.
At that time, comic pages quite simply had more stuff happen (or at least characters talking about how much more stuff was happening) in any given page. With all that happening, it is incredibly easy for the colouring to overpower the artwork.
 With today's books, the larger panels and general decompressed storytelling allows a wider scope, with much more room to play with texture and depth. If you try to, say, hand-paint a rock texture on every wall and floor in an older book, it can start crowding the artwork, lessening the impact and harming the storytelling.
: You see that heavy use of textures and filters a lot in modern comics, and it drives people who like their comics "old school" insane. They say some modern colorists use such tricks as a crutch. Do you think there is any merit to the claim?
Sokoliwski: Yep.
Computers don't make bad colourists better - it makes them worse. With limited options and no real list of textures and filters, bad colourists didn't have a lot of room to separate themselves from the good colourists.
Now, however, there are so many ways for people to rely on filters and effects instead of colour theory and storytelling, that those who don't know what they are doing become incredibly obvious to the reader. So much so that it brings up the notion of today's books being over-coloured.
It's a funny thing - good colourists make their books look better. Bad colourists make all books look worse. At least in the minds of the public.
Hopefully, however, with the increased attention being paid to the work of real quality colourists, the overall impression that the public has to much of what modern colouring is should change as well.
: I guess you could say modern techniques have made the quality colorists stand out from the crowd in part because they make the bad colorists stand out, if you know what I mean. In a weird way, one might argue that the subpar efforts of some have brought greater respect to those who approach the job with an understanding of how they impact a book, because now the truly good work is that much more noteworthy.
Sokoliwski: Hopefully that's how it will end up working. Once everyone gets over the notion of modern books being overcoloured.
: Has it ever crossed your mind that for a lot of people, that Chronicles of Conan series by Dark Horse is going to stand as the definitive collection of those Roy Thomas/Barry Windsor-Smith Conan stories for Marvel? (I know I have them all on my shelf.)
Sokoliwski: I hadn't really thought about it, I suppose. I had grown up reading those original issues back when they were released (I had an uncle who was a comic collector, and his favourite series was Conan the Barbarian, so getting to work on this series was of particular interest to me), so I just felt we were getting to restore the original stories for a new generation in a style that would bridge the style of 70's books with that of today.
: Considering how well the series has done for Dark Horse, I'd say that you guys succeeded in finding a nice balance between modern colors and 1970s art.
Sokoliwski: Thanks very much!
: You did the coloring on Zenescope's Grimm Fairy Tales #7. I noticed that Snow White is kind of ... errr, wow! I don't remember Snow White looking like THAT. Tell me a little about this gig.
Sokoliwski: Sean O'Reilly of Arcana Studios had asked me about working on that - I had done Chris Gage's Paradox series for him, and he really liked my style on it.
My primary concern with that issue was to keep Snow White herself as pale as possible. Also the studio wanted everything fairly bright, which (with her predominately pink outfit) tended to keep her skin even paler. This contrasted well with the more earthy colour scheme of the dwarves and tanned, almost California look of the Queen.
: When it comes to decisions like that, how much is you and how much comes from the penciller and/or writer? To what extent do you study the story before diving into the actual coloring process?
Sokoliwski: It varies from project to project. Sometimes, the editor/writer/artist (whomever I am working directly with) has very specific ideas as to what they want, and other times they trust me to make the book look good on my own.
I always read through the script (when available) and go through all the artwork before starting the actual colouring process. I'll make notes about what time of day each scene takes place at, specific script notes about skin and clothing colours, things like that. I want to work with the other team members as much as possible.
: I've seen several artists in recent years mention preferring to work with a specific colorist, a guy who they feel really clicks with their work. Did I just never notice this before, or are artists in general developing a better understanding of the role colorists can play as part of a team than in years past? One gets the sense that colorists are finally being recognized as an essential part of the artistic process.
Sokoliwski: I think many more artists are coming to appreciate how a good colourist can enhance their work, and that it is in their best interests to work with a colourist so they can both play to each other's strengths.
: Okay, so you do more than just color. In addition to Battlewitch, you're also a credited inker on Lotus, by Zeroes2Heroes. Now, Lotus isn't a comic you stroll into your local comic shop to buy, right?
Sokoliwski: Lotus will be available as a regular comic book at some point. I'm not quite sure when Z2H is having their big launch of their first batch of books, but Lotus will be in that launch. If I'm not mistaken, there may be news about this at the 2007 San Diego Comic Con.
: So soon enough, "Ian Sokoliwski, Inker." Is expanding your credits to places like inking (and beyond) something you've always wanted to do, or did you kind of fall into this?
Sokoliwski: Actually, I began doing inking within a few weeks of working at Digital Chameleon, something that I had no idea would be happening. After one or two projects, I ended up being the head inker there, and remained so for a few years.
I love all aspects of comic book creation, and have gotten to try my hand at almost all of them at one time or another.
 : Let's talk about a project that's all Ian. You have a webcomic available at IMWAN.com called BattleWitch. Story, art, writing, it's all you, right?
Sokoliwski: You bet! That's my baby!
: It's got to be pretty exciting to get a work entirely of your own creation out there.
Sokoliwski: It's awesome - everything in that story is handled by me, and it feels great to see and get feedback on. Of course, if anything fails in it, I can't just blame the other team members for it not working either!
: The first chapter of BattleWitch is pretty crazy. Starships, demons, space soldiers, and, of course, the BattleWitch herself. How long had this idea been tossing around your head?
Sokoliwski: I first began playing with the ideas behind this book back in early 2001, and had even done an eight-page submission for Heavy Metal magazine. Events came along at that time to scuttle my being able to do anything more with it for a while at that time, but in August of 2006 I revisited it and decided to do a more PG-rated take on the story.
: Your original concept was pushing it further when it came to violence and the like? How big a shift in tone are we talking about here?
Sokoliwski: Well, the tone was pretty much the same - it is more that there was more nudity and harsh language in it. The core concepts didn't change, however.
One rather large visual change is the design of the giant robots that the Battlewitch's pilot - in the current version, it looks like some sort of American/Japanese hybrid of mecha design. In the original version, it was much squatter, with the pilot sitting in a transparent dome. This was, of course, to show off the fact that she was naked inside the robot. Playing to the target audience of the magazine, and all of that!
: Hah! Yeah, I suppose you can't pitch to Heavy Metal without some TnA. Were you specifically thinking of a Heavy Metal pitch when you began to develop BattleWitch, or did the ideas you had for the story point lean in that direction from the start?
Sokoliwski: I've been a fan of Heavy Metal since the late eighties, and have always wanted to have something in that magazine. So, yeah, the concept of BattleWitch coincided with a desire to create something for that magazine.
: So what the heck is a BattleWitch, anyway?
Sokoliwski: Well, without getting into much spoiler territory, the BattleWitches are warriors who pilot these giant robots into combat with a particular species of alien, one that inhabits the warp-space that starships travel through. They are the only ones  who, between their own training and the technology inside the robots, are able to withstand the psychic assault that these aliens inflict on those they are battling.
See, anyone who tries to attack one of these aliens, just the act of picking up a weapon or pointing a gunat them, falls under a psychic assault. They suffer hallucinations that causethem to stop whatever they are doing, putting them entirely at the mercy of these warp-space aliens.
The BattleWitches themselves are more-or-less immune to this effect. Nobody entirely understands why, either, which results in them being the targets of both hysteria and reverence wherever they go.
All the BattleWitches are women. The second chapter will actually feature a character who had been part of the first experiments in the nanotechnology that creates BattleWitches. This person, an aging male ex-soldier, talks about how, even at its best, the technology was only ever partially effective in the male 'Witch's.
There will be a lot of gender issues in the storylines, a lot of examinations of gender roles from a religious angle as well - the BattleWitch program has become a religious-based one for a variety of reasons, which will lead into all sorts of interesting directions.
: I noticed that in the first chapter, that the sense of awe the soldiers had for the BattleWitch, the religious iconography. You get the sense that there is a pretty solid mythology underneath the whole thing. I mean, not only is the witch holding religious symbols and praying, but these aliens ... they're demons. What gives?
Sokoliwski: I guess everyone will have to wait until the book is finished to discover what it all means!
All I'll say right now is that most stuff I've thrown in there does have some sort of clue or foreshadowing toward the finale.
: So we sort of end on a cliffhanger. Any plans to continue the story?
Sokoliwski: Definitely. The reason that it ended where it did (at about the half-way mark of the first chapter) is that my regular comic book and commission work kept growing to the point that any sort of regular schedule on it was unfeasible (I wasn't getting paid for it, after all). So, rather than just putting out a page here and there when I could fit it in, I decided to hold off on publishing any more of the story until the rest of the first chapter was completed. That way, I could set it up to be published on a weekly schedule, with no worries as to whether there would be a following page.
I have huge ideas for this series, though. There is interest from one non-web-based publisher in picking up the series, but nothing that I can really talk about just yet...
: Ahhh, so BattleWitch may one day venture into the world of print. That's good news. We're seeing more and more creators go this route - publish digitally at first, and eventually make their way to print. As a general concept, what do you think of digital comics? A passing fad or a major part of the industry's future?
Sokoliwski: Print comics will never entirely go away, I think. However, the opportunities in the digital realm will keep attracting more and more talent, making it inevitable that webcomics will have equal footing with the print-based counterparts.
The real breakthrough will be in the realm of providing those webcomics to consumers. I think that services like Wowio are the ones most likely to really convert many readers to webcomics. In fact, I think Wowio's best chance of success is not in converting existing comic readers to webcomics, but rather in tapping the huge market of non-comic readers. If Wowio can keep making it profitable for their content-providers, while also providing their webcomics free for downloading, then we will finally see the big shift toward the web for comics.
 In fact, I already have a project available at Wowio - the first chapter of a book of mine entitled SELIG: the Second Coming is available for free download at Wowio.com.
Being free to the consumer, and all the income for the provider being generated by Wowio's advertisers, means that webcomics (and comics in general, as more and more of them become available by their owners on this service) have finally become television. And TV is rather successful.
: The television model has been a HUGE success, made even more successful with the popularity of TV on DVD. Some folks who have been in the industry for a lot of years are skeptical, though. Are we talking adapt or die here?
Sokoliwski: Well, I don't think it's an either/or situation. I think services like Wowio will become an additional viable outlet right alongside traditional print publishing. There is room for both, as many folks will always prefer the hard copy of a comic book.
: So, Selig: The Second Coming, available at Wowio. Like BattleWitch, this story has some heavy religious overtones. Demons, salvation, messiah-like figures. I'm sensing a pattern ...
Sokoliwski: I don't really know where that comes from, actually. I don't really have any religious background, but there are ideas in religion that I really love exploring. I dunno, maybe it's me just bringing an outsider's perspective to the whole thing.
: I know you do commissioned work, a corner of the comic art world many fans may not be familiar with. For the fans who may not be in the know, tell us a little about commissioned artwork and what it means to them.
Sokoliwski: Commissioned artwork is great fun to do. I've been lucky to have had a lot of different opportunities to do such work in the past few years.
There are two types of commissioned artwork that I do - completely original artwork of mine, and also my colouring the artwork of other artists.
Now, the original artwork commissions are just like any other type of artwork commissions that plenty of artists get - someone looks through my various online galleries (or sees my work in a real-world gallery, a store that carries it, or at a convention that I'm attending), and pays to have me illustrate something of (usually) a super-hero or fantasy nature. This can be anything from an 8.5"x11" pencil drawing of Iron Man to a double-page spread, pencilled and inked, with a coloured version on CD.
The second type, however, is the most prevalent. There is a large market for comic book fans to get their favourite artists to draw something for them (a character in an original pose, a cover recreation, or some combination of the two). Many of these people will then send me a copy of that artwork to be coloured. One huge advantage about the way that I do this is that people all over the world can send me that image over the internet and I'll send them the high-resolution print-ready file the same way. No waiting around for weeks (or months) for artwork to ship, and the original artwork won't run the risk of being damaged in transit or by mis-application of paint.
: So art collectors who, say, commission a piece by Bryan Hitch or Paul Smith or any other favorite artist can tap your skills and have it fully colored without actually impacting the original piece?
Sokoliwski: That's it exactly! I have several clients who frame their original pencil or inked piece together with my coloured version, side-by-side. I have even heard of some folks having the same piece coloured by several different colourists, although this is only with clients who like variety and have a lot of extra money!
: Looking through your gallery at Comicartfans.com, you've got some great pieces of art done entirely by you, pencils, inks, colors, the whole nine yards. Do these begin as random sketches and evolve from there, or do you start them knowing full well you'll have a finished print ready for sale when all is said and done? (And yes, readers, much of the art you see at that link is for sale.)
Sokoliwski: Yes and yes.
Many of those pieces were just grown organically from something I had sketched out, not meaning to be anything that would be considered a finished piece. The picture entitled Waiting is a good example of  this. I had just been playing with the idea of a woman warrior crouching in a tree. Once the initial sketch was completed, however, I really loved how it looked, and decided to do a more polished version, one that I could turn into a print.
The picture entitled Lounging, however, was going to be a print from the moment I thought of it.
: Seems like yet another route for you to flex your creative muscles.
Sokoliwski: The prints are really good for generating attention to my work. Even if I'm at a convention, let's say, and don't sell a lot of the various prints, they do catch people's eye to come over and buy some of my original artwork.
: You mention conventions. Some pros insist they're an essential part of the job, others hate them from here to kingdom come. Where do you fall in on the subject?
Sokoliwski: I've only ever been to a handful of them, and I've never traveled very far to get to any of them. I've really enjoyed them, and I try and help with the promotion of the ones I'm involved with (such as the Manitoba Comic Con) as much as I can. It is a great way to meet fans and other professionals, helping out other artists, and even making a couple of bucks.
I do plan on attending more in the next couple of years, so I've definitely got nothing against them. I couldn't see attending them at the expense of other work that I'm committed to, however. So, if I'm too busy, I'd miss out on a few of them.
: Two words: Iron Man. Discuss.
Sokoliwski: Iron Man has been my favourite super hero for a long, long time.
 The first comic books I can recall reading were, like many others, Spider-Man, Batman, and Superman (specifically Action Comics). All of them were great, and I spent many an hour drawing those characters as well as any other ones I could find (I seem to recall being obsessed with the Hal Jordan Green Lantern uniform in Elementary school).
I had seen Iron Man in a few issues of the Avengers, and liked the character, but not so much that he really stood out. If anything, the Avenger from that period that seemed to be the most interesting was Hawkeye, but this was during the time when he had taken on the identity of Goliath (or was it Giant-Man? I forget). Hey, I was a strange kid.
But then, when I was eleven years old, I picked up my first ever Iron Man comic, issue #152, Escape from Heaven's Hand. This issue featured the first-ever appearance of the Stealth Armour.
I was completely hooked. Ever since then I have been a die-hard Shell-Head fan, and the Stealth Armour, for me, is only rivaled by the Silver Centurion armour as my favourite IM suit ever.
From a character and storytelling perspective, Tony Stark has always been the greatest super hero to me. The fact that, with nothing but his mind (and a huge bankroll, of course), he is able to hold his own with mutants, super-soldiers, gamma-irradiated monsters, and deities, made him a character that you would want to be. Here was a character you could be without having to subject yourself to radiation or toxic waste or whatever other wacky science project that was in vogue that week! If you were smart enough (and, yes, rich enough) you too could put together a suit of powered armour in your garage and take on Ulterior-Motive Man and his Theta-irradiated henchmutants.
...well, kinda-sorta anyway.
And, let's face it, any and all of the Iron Man armour suits are just a whole lot of fun to draw! Metallic characters became my new favourite thing to doodle, and that never, ever went away.
What I had no way of knowing back in 1981, when that particular issue came out, is that, many many years later, I would end up having a professional working relationship with the co-plotter and art finisher of that very same issue!
 : So we're talking about Bob Layton here, right? Being as big an Iron Man fan as you are, that had to be pretty exciting. Tell me a little more about this.
Sokoliwski: Not only am I a big Iron Man fan, I was also a big Bob Layton fan growing up. Along with guys like Jim Steranko and John Byrne, Bob's artwork basically taught me how to draw superheroes and comic book pages.
Actually, the story of how I started working with Bob is a great example of how everything can become a contact, and you should always behave yourself in message boards and on the Internet in general, if you are serious about wanting to get work out there.
A few years ago (2004, I believe), I read a post by Joe Martino on the message board IMWAN. Joe had this comic book series, Shadowflame, that he was promoting and looking to get re-published in colour. As part of this push for publication, he was getting a few new covers done for the series. One of these covers was done by Bob.
He posted it on IMWAN, just showing off the cover and generating interest in the project. This got my attention right away. As a long-time fan, I was very interested in seeing anything new by Bob.
So, I posted a message on the same thread, saying how much I really loved the artwork on that cover. As almost an afterthought, I mentioned that, if he was still looking for a colourist for the series, that he could take a look at my work.
 Well, Joe responded right away, and I did a few test pages. We got along well, and the very first real work I did on the project was colouring that Bob Layton cover.
Joe sent a copy of the coloured cover to Bob. A week or so later, I then got an email from Bob, saying how much he liked my work, and that he was interested in having me colour a new piece for the front page of his website.
Since then, I have been doing colouring work for both Bob (on the ongoing webcomic Colony that he is writing and inking and that is penciled by industry legend Dick Giordano) and many of Bob's clients - quite often, when he does a commissioned piece of artwork for them, they will then ask me to colour it for them.
What is really funny about all of this is that, in the late 90's, I actually got to work on the regular Iron Man series. Digital Chameleon was working on the series then, and I got to colour a few pages in almost every issue that went through the studio. This ended up being amongst the top three highlights of my working at Digital, working on my favourite book of all time. The only thing that would make this perfect, I thought at the time, would be if Bob Layton was drawing this book right now.
Cut to a few years later, and I'm doing a large number of Iron Man commissions with Bob! Does it get any better than this?!!?!?!
: The comics field seems to work like that, doesn't it? The opportunity to not only do work you enjoy, but to do that work with people you admire, is front and center.
Sokoliwski: Definitely. Getting to talk to other artists that you've admired for a long time, as well as folks that are new to the field, especially when you discover that they like and admire your own work, is a pretty big high. I hope that feeling never goes away.
: I assume it's safe to say that you'd jump at an opportunity to land an ongoing gig working on Iron Man?
That is a very safe thing to say!
: To one extent or another, you've worked with just about every major Marvel and DC character during your time with Digital Chameleon, but what about an ongoing gig of any kind. You get your shot at one of the major publishers to do the job you want with the character you want. What is it?
 Sokoliwski: Well, it would depend on whether it was colouring, or penciling and inking as well.
Colouring, Iron Man would be the best gig to get. I think that I've got a solid, distinct take on the character, and I could bring a lot to the book and have huge amounts of fun with it as well.
Penciling and inking, however, and I'd have to go with Hellblazer. Or Nightwing. Dark urban-nightmare stuff. I absolutely love drawing that kind of stuff, and would never get tired of it! Plus, there is a more scratchy art style I use on some projects that I think would compliment Hellblazer in particular.
: Ian, thanks for giving us so much time.
Sokoliwski: Eric, this has been a lot of fun!
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