A Sunday Comic Strip Production Color guide, showcasing a Phantom comic strip illustrated by Graham Nolan, is currently available for auction on the USA-based Heritage Auctions website.

The Phantom comic strip seen at auction, which was printed in the comics section of a Sunday newspaper on the 7th of May 2006, features a segment of the story titled ‘The Fire Peak Tribe’. This installment was written by Tony DePaul and illustrated by Graham Nolan.

The Sunday Comic Strip Production Color guide gives us an interesting look at how newspaper comic strips were prepared prior to going to print in our newspaper. The description provided by Heritage Auctions notifies us that this color comic strip was created by photocopying the original black and white linework art illustrated by Graham Nolan onto Bristol board, before being hand-colored with watercolors. A tissue page was overlayed over the art copy notifying the colorist on what color to apply to different sections of the comic strip.

The images found in the auction showcasing the Phantom comic strip are displayed below.

As can be seen above, the tissue page contains numbers in hand written black pen indicating where to apply the correct watercolor to the illustration found underneath it. Although the illustrations by Graham Nolan as found in the auction are a copy from the original, the watercolors applied by the colorist are original.

The auction features a second Sunday Comic Strip Production Color guide, which includes illustrations by Graham Nolan from the 2002 published comic strip Rex Morgan M.D. series, employing the same watercolor application technique.

Graham Nolan contributed to the Phantom Sunday comic strips from the year 2000 until 2007, illustrating a total of thirteen stories.

The auction is currently live on the Heritage Auctions website which can be found HERE

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