One of Stan Lee’s staff in the 1960′s when they were creating, what we now call “the Marvel Age of comics” was Stan Goldberg.
Among Stan Goldberg’s jobs at Marvel was to be the head of the coloring department.
And it makes me wonder, when the likes of Kirby, Ditko and the other talented artists were creating their famous characters, did they color them in how they should look?
Or was the “how should this characters costume be colored” left up to Stan Lee and / or Stan Goldberg in particular?
And if Goldberg did in fact DECIDE the color of certain characters and costumes. Should he not be given a creative credit?
Sure a character might have a great visual and no color. But the person who decides the color of that characters costume, has in fact created something to the artistic mix.
One clear example is Goldberg’s contribution to the Hulk. The Hulk is famously Green BECAUSE of Goldberg.
I recall the Stan Lee story of how the Hulk was originally Gray. But the coloring back then of gray was inconsistent. Lee asked, what was a color the printer could handle.
The answer was Green. And just like that Stan Lee basically said to roll with it. And Green it was.
I think a colorist, is in fact a co-creator of a character. Especially if the artist / character designer, did not assign colors for their creation.
Who knows how visually different Marvel characters would look, if not for Stan Goldberg’s colors.
I think he was gifted in this field, because I look at DC Comics and the colors they used on the Kirby New Gods for example, and most of the color costume choices in my opinion are very ugly.
Read more about Stan Goldberg in the link below.