Tatjana Wood, R.I.P.

Sorry to hear about the passing of comic book colourist Tatjana Wood, three days ago just before what would have been her 100th birthday today.  A mainstay at DC from the early 1970s to the early 2000s, a lot of her earliest work isn't documented since colouring credits weren't standard at DC until the 1980s.  Just to highlight a few key runs that are especially dear to my heart:

She coloured almost all of the original run of THE QUESTION by Denys Cowan and Dennis O'Neil, a run I've written about before.  She was a key part of what made that one of my favourite comics of all time, really bringing a distinct look to the physical action in the urban landscape.

She's probably most associated with SWAMP THING, having coloured something close to 200 stories of the character through many creative collaborations. Always excellent work, often called upon to deliver some really experimental work, especially through the Bissette/Totleben/Veitch years, which are full of effects I'm pretty sure had never been done in mainstream American comics before.

She was the colourist for most of the last few years of SGT. ROCK stories with writer/creator Robert Kanigher, editor Joe Kubert and a host of artists (in the cast of this page, Dan Spiegle).  Might be almost as much of those as Swamp Thing, a lot were uncredited. 

One of her last regular assignments before retiring was most of Walter Simonson's run on ORION from 2000 to 2002.  A classic run, with some bold clear colouring matching the epic and bombastic nature of the storytelling being brought to the Kirby creations.

Some other noteworthy points from her body of work are WONDER WOMAN (with George Perez) CAMELOT 3000 (with Brian Bolland) and ANIMAL MAN (with Chas Troug, Steve Dillon, Steve Pugh and others).

You can also find a nice sampling of Wood's coloured pages on-line, which can be fascinating:

A couple of cautions, these colour guides were definitely made with tools and dyes not meant to hold their look for four decades. Also, the guides are just one part of some larger conversations, one between Wood and the colour separator, meant to convey what the mechanical procedure would be to get the effect she wants, and another between Wood and the printer, using her experience to know how what she puts on the page will translate to how the inks they use will look on the paper they use.  It's all the more impressive that colourists like her knew how to get the look they needed being so far removed from the final result.