Smile, Crocodile! #10

Go check out MIA AND FRIENDS!!

MY DEBUT GRAPHIC NOVEL AS A COLORIST IS OUT NOW!!!

Mia and Friends is published by First Second Books, written by Karlin Gray, illustrated by Micheline Hess, and colored by Jayme Brodie (that last one’s me!)

I began working on Mia and Friends as a colorist a little before I signed for my own graphic novel, and it feels surreal to finally have something out on shelves. For those that don’t know what it means to be a colorist on a graphic novel project, my job was putting color any and everywhere that there’s art/ inks. There are technically elements I drew or added such as details in backgrounds, but they were for the purpose of complimenting aspects of the illustrator’s work and making scenes more lively.

Making a graphic novel is a ton of work- this particular one is over 100 pages, so often roles are split. On some comic projects there can be a separate author, layout artist (makes the sketches), illustrator, colorist, and letterer (anything with text/words), or even an artist who specializes in environments to handle backgrounds. Oftentimes letterers are sourced in house by publishers, meaning they letter as a full time job.

Splitting roles within a team can often help people focus on their strong suits. There are also tons of situations where someone will take on the entirety of a project by themselves (like my own graphic novel!) though this isn’t desirable for everyone. Ideally doing our favorite parts of the comics process can keep us cartoonists able to make even more great projects while getting to rest for parts we find more difficult.

Still, it was a little funny to be working on two sports heavy projects at once. When so much of a story takes place outside during the day on a field, there’s going to be a lot of green and a lot of repeated sunny palettes. Plus, one of the first things I did was experiment with how to make zoomed out crowd shots relatively simple to color, while still visually interesting. For instance, when coloring big scenes I often muted colors for elements further into the background by lowering contrast. To combat the green from overtaking the book, I tried to add oranges and reds when I could to vary the tones.

Snippet from First Second’s Mia and Friends featuring players from the 1991 women’s world cup: Tracy Leone, Linda Hamilton, and Mia Hamm

Aside from elements like backgrounds, this book had a lot of unique challenges as a colorist, mainly that all the “characters” were real people. For every name listed in the script and every jersey number the palette needed to be both relative to the actual person and consistent throughout the book. If a character switched jersey numbers or happened to have a different hairstyle, it was my job to distinguish them as themselves on and off the field. This ended up being a bit tough at times, but I’m really proud to say I was able to accomplish that.

As I’d mentioned, my own book has a lot of similar scenes on fields- though it’s field hockey rather than soccer. Working on this project with Karlin and Micheline really aided my own process later on when considering how to lay things out and eventually color my own book. I really look forward to coloring more books in the future and am so so proud of the work all of us did!

Go grab yourself a copy of MIA AND FRIENDS today at your local bookshop!

-Jayme