Updated: September 02, 2004

An original color grayline page from Lost In Space #4, which was published by Innovation in 1992. It was hand-painted by Disney colorist Scott Rockwell; the art was rendered by Michal Dutkiewicz.

Graylines were a color method mainly used in the 1980's and 1990's, but they've become all but extinct with the proliferation of computer color. A grayline page actually consists of 2 separate pages -- there is a "black plate," which is all of the black lines (including the lettering) on a transparent overlay; the other page is a special photo paper on which the lines are printed in gray. This page is the one that was then colored by hand. This method allowed colorists to get far more creative than was previously possible, since sections of the grayline page could be cut out, and airbrush color done on a separate paper could be pasted to the back of the page, making airbrush effects possible in a very small area -- something that was practically impossible to do with any other coloring method (before computer color came along, that is!).

Grayline coloring pretty much came to an end almost ten years ago -- this is one comic book coloring method that has already become a lost art -- and they graylines themselves are extremely rare!

This Lost In Space grayline is Page 22 of Issue #4; below are scans of the grayline as one piece, and as separate components, so that you can get an idea of what it all looks like! Value: $200-Up.