Who Cares About The Colourists?

When academics, fans and historians discuss the comics industry they tend to privilege the work of writers and artists, excluding the other professionals such as inkers, colourists and letterers who are intrinsic to the production of these texts. In mainstream superhero comics this happens despite the fact that all of these professionals are usually named in exactly the same way, alongside each other in credit boxes on the first page of the story. This paper will illustrate this disparity by comparing the results of a survey of comic fans with an empirical analysis texts within the so-called 'Marvel Age', demonstrating the huge difference between the people fans think created their favourite stories, and the people who actually did. It will look for societal explanations for this problem via Cultural Memory theory and individual reasons via Fuzzy Trace Theory, before finally explaining - with a song - why this is a vital issue not just for comics studies but for society as a whole.