The famed colorist has died at the age of 99…
When I heard that Tatjana Wood — one of the greatest of all comics colorists — died at the age of 99, I was hard pressed to come up with images that exemplified her work. As the regular cover colorist for DC for most of the Bronze Age, let alone all her other storied work, even I struggled to come up with, say, 13 covers.
So, I just closed my eyes and thought to myself, what’s the first one that comes to mind? The one that hits me between the eyes?
And it’s this one, Batman #335, which coincidentally came out 45 years ago this month, on Feb. 2, 1981:
This was the final chapter of The Lazarus Affair, a four-issue epic by Marv Wolfman, Irv Novick and Frank McLaughlin, that stands as one of the best follow-ups to the original Denny O’Neil-Neal Adams Ra’s al Ghul saga from the early ’70s.
To say the cover, pencilled and inked by Jim Aparo, is excellent is a given. It’s a dangerous scene that fits the climax of the story. But Wood’s colors — the oranges, red and yellows, offsetting Ra’s and Batman’s dark outfits, make it brilliant — literally and figuratively.
But here’s the secret sauce: It’s the Batman logo itself. Wood turned down the volume — the bat is black as it often was but the “BAT MAN” is muted to a deep navy that ordinarily wouldn’t provide enough contrast. The result, however, is that it makes all the color around it appear that much brighter, that much more dramatic and powerful.
And yet there’s more. Look at the three previous covers, all drawn by Aparo. From a color perspective, they get bolder as the story progresses, until finally it all explodes with Batman #335.
I refuse to believe this was unintentional. Nothing in art is a coincidence. Given her workload, and the realities of production time, it’s hard to guess whether it was planned this way at the beginning or whether Wood improvised as she went.
Either way, it’s the work of a master.
The cover of Batman #335 took my breath away when I first saw it at the stationery shop in Highland Park, N.J., when I was on the verge of 14 years old.
Forty-five years later, it still does.
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MORE
— THE LAZARUS AFFAIR: The Best BATMAN Story Never Collected by DC — UNTIL NOW. Click here.
— BATMAN: THE LAZARUS AFFAIR to Get Collected — At Last. Click here.
