A Coloring Error?

Well, if you've read Rann-Thanagar War right now, you probably know what I mean. There's a scene involving Alan and Jade, where he touches her face and says, "You're yourself again." (Sorry, no scans today).

I mean from context, I *think* we were supposed to get that she wasn't green anymore. She was actually white and brown-haired or whatever her original appearance had been. So it's probably a colorist screw-up.

But that got me thinking, I don't know how they really go about doing the art stuff in the industry. (I'm much more interested, usually in the writing). When they give the panel to the colorist, do they give him/her a copy of the script too?

Because honestly, just from the staging of the scene, without dialogue, I wouldn't have been able to figure out that she might (or might not) have supposed to have been a different color.

For that matter, was that even the intention. And if it was, was it in the script at all or left to be inferred. Did the colorist drop the ball, or was it other circumstances, I wonder. I mean, otherwise, I really liked the work.

I wonder how much coloring a colorist has to do a day. I mean if he/she has to do many books a day, then even if they do get scripts, it'd be really hard to keep abreast of all of them.

Of course, I've no guaranteed knowledge that it is an error. (Though I can't see any other way for Alan's line to make sense.) Maybe it's not. I mean, if it were, wouldn't editors have seen it and caught it before it went to print? Or someone else? Do the writers get to see the finished work before it prints and make any last minute alterations (i.e. if they can't make Jade not green, at least change the confusing line?)

I'd like to think the editors are very good about catching those sorts of things. I'd also like to think that writers like Mr. Gibbons are given enough leeway to re-examine the "finished product" to make some last minute adjustments. After all, comics are a funny medium. Unlike a book which is 100% yours, a comic is a collaboration of art and text. Thus no writer (unless he is also pencilling, inking and coloring as well) has 100% control over the output, and as such, he/she should be very careful about how the story they want to tell is actually told. And that includes the graphic side.