A blue pencil, also known as a checking pencil, is a two-color pencil traditionally used by an editor to correct a written copy. [1] The blue end is typically Prussian blue, and the red end is typically a warm vermilion red. [1] [2] They are most often half red and half blue, but some are 70% red and 30% blue. [3] An editor-in-chief would use a blue colored pencil to make proofreading marks and final notes on manuscripts before sending it to be typeset and published. [4] [5] The pencils and their blue excisions became associated with the editing process and editorial oversight. [6] [7]
Of course it takes skill to be a poet! But an editor? A pair of shears, a blue pencil, and a paste-pot!
Since the introduction of desktop publishing, editing is typically done on computer files and without literal blue pencils. [9] [10] [11] They continue to be used in the Japanese newspaper industry and elementary schools in parts of Europe. [1] [12] A different type of non-photo blue pencil is used by some comics artists for different purposes. [13]
Neither the exact date that blue pencils were introduced nor the details of how they became an editing standard are certain. [14] Blue checking pencils were sold in the United States during the nineteenth century. Eberhard Faber offered a range of two-color pencils by 1873. [15] [14] Multinational manufacturer AW Faber sold wood and mechanical blue pencils in the late 1800s. [16] By 1888, "blue pencil" was being used as a synonym for "edit" or "censor". [17] During World War II, bi-color pencils were used to mark troop positions on maps. [18] [3]
Blue pencils became associated with editorial control and with censorship. Under the Estado Novo in Portugal the "blue pencil" became a metaphor as editors would use blue pencils to censor out portions of works rather than banning the entire text. [19] In parts of Africa, the "blue pencil" became a metaphor for the censorship and banning of entire books. [20]
In parts of Europe, blue pencils are used in elementary schools. [12] [21] In Hungary, children are taught the difference between uppercase and lowercase by writing the cases in different colors. [21] In Germany, they are used to write separate syllables and numerical digits in alternating colors. [3] In Italian classrooms, they are used to mark separate types of errors. [3]
The blue pencils for schoolchildren are sold as "copying pencils" or "post pencils". [22] [12] [21] In early twentieth-century Germany, blue pencils were used to mark postal routes. [21] Checking pencils have been called "post pencils" as early as 1909 in Europe. [12]
In the production of comic books, blue pencils have a different but overlapping usage. American comic books are typically illustrated by multiple specialists. The penciller does the initial drawing, the inker brushes black ink over the pencil art, and the colorist adds colors to photocopies or digital scans of the inked art. Some pencillers have worked with non-photo blue pencils. [23] [24] These cyan colored pencils leave marks that orthochromatic film for offset lithography does not capture, [25] and digital scanners can filter that out. [24]
Editors used the same cyan pencils to add notes to art before publishing, like editors in the broader publishing industry. [25] Original pencil art for comics was initially treated "as a means to an end rather than as an object of intrinsic value" but has come to be viewed as valuable pieces of art. [26] The un-inked pencil drawings provide a more detailed representation of the original illustrators' work and have blue-pencil notes that sometimes go beyond technical issues to address ideas discussed in the creative process but never used in finished comic books. [26] [23]
For similar reasons, some illustrators use red pencils that can be filtered out with xerography or digital scanners. Comic book artist Rob Guillory used checking pencils to illustrate Chew and Farmhand. [13] [24] [27]
The blue pencil doctrine is a legal concept in common law countries where a court finds that portions of a contract are void or unenforceable, but other portions are enforceable. It derives its name from the court's ability to edit a written contract, similar to how an editor-in-chief would edit a manuscript. [28]
The blue pencil rule allows the legally valid enforceable provisions of the contract to stand despite the nullification of the legally void unenforceable provisions. However, the revised version must represent the original meaning. The rule may not be invoked, for example, to delete the word "not" and thereby change a negative to a positive. [28]
Vertigo Comics was an imprint of American comic book publisher DC Comics started by editor Karen Berger in 1993. Vertigo's purpose was to publish comics with adult content, such as nudity, drug use, profanity, and graphic violence, that did not fit the restrictions of DC's main line, thus allowing more creative freedom. Its titles consisted of company-owned comics set in the DC Universe, such as The Sandman and Hellblazer, and creator-owned works, such as Preacher, Y: The Last Man and Fables.
Bryan Talbot is a British comics artist and writer, best known as the creator of The Adventures of Luther Arkwright and its sequel Heart of Empire, as well as the Grandville series of books. He collaborated with his wife, Mary M. Talbot to produce Dotter of Her Father's Eyes, which won the 2012 Costa biography award.
A penciller is an artist who works on the creation of comic books, graphic novels, and similar visual art forms, with a focus on the initial pencil illustrations, usually in collaboration with other artists, who provide inks, colors and lettering in the book, under the supervision of an editor.
The inker is one of the two line artists in traditional comic book production.
Richard Joseph Giordano was an American comics artist and editor whose career included introducing Charlton Comics' "Action Heroes" stable of superheroes and serving as executive editor of DC Comics.
Vincent Patrick Deighan, better known by the pen name Frank Quitely, is a Scottish comic book artist. He is best known for his frequent collaborations with Grant Morrison on titles such as New X-Men, We3, All-Star Superman, and Batman and Robin, as well as his work with Mark Millar on The Authority and Jupiter's Legacy.
Boleslav William Felix Robert Sienkiewicz is an American artist known for his work in comic books—particularly for Marvel Comics' New Mutants, Moon Knight, and Elektra: Assassin. He is the co-creator of the character David Haller / Legion, the basis for the FX television series Legion.
Joseph Kubert was a Polish-born American comic book artist, art teacher, and founder of The Kubert School. He is best known for his work on the DC Comics characters Sgt. Rock and Hawkman. He is also known for working on his own creations, such as Tor, Son of Sinbad, and the Viking Prince, and, with writer Robin Moore, the comic strip Tales of the Green Beret.
Marie Severin was an American comics artist and colorist best known for her work for Marvel Comics and the 1950s' EC Comics. She is an inductee of the Will Eisner Comics Hall of Fame and the Harvey Awards Hall of Fame.
Michael Avon Oeming is an American comic book creator, both as an artist and writer.
Óscar Jiménez is a Spanish comic book artist, penciller and inker.
Allen L. Milgrom is an American comic book writer, penciller, inker and editor, primarily for Marvel Comics. He is known for his 10-year run as editor of Marvel Fanfare; his long involvement as writer, penciler, and inker on Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man; his four-year tenure as West Coast Avengers penciller; and his long stint as the inker of X-Factor. He often inks Jim Starlin's work. Milgrom is the co-creator of DC superhero Firestorm.
Deathmate is a six-part comic book crossover between Valiant Comics and Image Comics published in 1993–94. The series is remembered for its negative impact on comic book retailers and the industry as a whole due to its late, over-ordered but poorly-selling books.
Antony de Zuñiga who worked primarily under the name Tony DeZuniga, was a Filipino comics artist and illustrator best known for his works for DC Comics. He co-created the fictional characters Jonah Hex and Black Orchid.
Non-photo blue is a common tool in the graphic design and print industry, being a particular shade of blue that cannot be detected by graphic arts camera film. This allows layout editors to write notes to the printer on the print flat which will not show in the final form. It also allows artists to lay down sketch lines without the need to erase after inking.
Charles Eber "Chic" Stone was an American comic book artist best known as one of Jack Kirby's Silver Age inkers, including his landmark run of Fantastic Four.
Paul Neary was a British comic book artist, writer and editor.
Christian Cooper is an American science writer and editor, and also a comics writer and editor. He is based in New York City. In 2023, Random House published Cooper's memoir, Better Living Through Birding: Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World.
Paul Ryan was an American comic artist. Ryan worked extensively for Marvel Comics and DC Comics on a number of super-hero comic book titles. He is best known for his 1991 to 1996 run as penciler on Fantastic Four, which represents his longest association with an individual comic book series. From 2005 until his death in 2016, Ryan penciled and inked the daily newspaper comic strip The Phantom for King Features Syndicate.
Jack Katz is an American comic book artist and writer, painter and art teacher known for his graphic novel The First Kingdom, a 24-issue epic he began during the era of underground comix.