MILWAUKEE — An award-winning Milwaukee comic book artist is hoping his latest comic helps make the Cream City a destination for other similar artists and animators.
For the entirety of his 15-year career in the comic book industry, Jeff Balke has been a colorist. Most comics are made with the help of four people: a writer, artist, letterer, and a colorist (sometimes there is also an inker). Balke specializes in the intricate coloring and shading of the covers, pages, and panels.
“Each panel, each page, covers, all the reds the blues, all the color that you see, that’s what I do," Balke, who owns Jeff Balke Studios, said.
He has won a national Shel Dorf Colorist of the Year award and colored two Fantastic Four covers for Marvel. Balke has also been nominated for an Eisner Comic Book Award, which is considered the highest honor in the industry.
“I actually buy the comics for the artwork. Even some of the books that I’ve worked on, I still haven’t read which is so weird.”
Now, he's taking the next step in his career. Balke is going from an award-winning colorist to, hopefully, an award-winning writer.
He helped create a series that follows a few furry friends as they go on spooky adventures. The first book was titled Stanley's Ghost and the second was Stanley and the Forgotten Forest. He designed the characters and did the coloring for the first two. In fact, the first book of the series got him the Eisner nomination.
With the third book in the series Stanley and the Haunted House, he did the coloring and wrote it too.
"It's super cool, and I hope people are going to love this book," Balke said.
It’s a big moment for Balke as he tries to turn these comics into an animated series. At the same time, he hopes he can prove there are great animators in Milwaukee and the Midwest and not just in Los Angeles.
“We just keep getting forgotten here. There’s so much wasted talent here that I want to bring out," Balke said.
Balke has a team of animators that he assembled that he believes will help make Milwaukee a force to contend with.
As for where to buy his comics, In the year 2023, of course, you can buy his comics online, but he encourages you to buy them at your local comic book store instead.
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