This is the original hand-colored color art (or color guide) to the cover for Green Lantern: Mosaic #5, which was published in October of 1992 by DC Comics. The cover is on a very long sheet measuring 11" by 17". The bottom 4" of the sheet is blank, and was folded over. The cover features an awesome image of GL vs. GL, with Hal Jordan shooting an energy spike right through John Stewart's head!!! Above Hal is the caption "Mind War!". There is a plastic acetate overlay piece attached on top, which has printer color codes written on it. The overlay is taped on and can be lifted up (or removed completely if you prefer). The picture shows the page with the acetate lifted up. The colors on the original artwork are much nicer and brighter than they look on the published comic cover, and are also nicer than what is shown in the scan, since the greens didn't scan as well.

Color guides have been one of the key parts of producing a comic for a large part of comic book history. Color guides were colored by hand by the colorist, who did the coloring on a resized copy of the original black and white penciled and inked page. In addition to the coloring, many pages also have the colorists' line note instructions written in, along with color codes intended to show the printer where specific colors or shades should go. The standard CG page generally measures approximately 8 1/2" by 11", and most Modern Age DC and Marvel colorguide pages from the 1980's, 1990's, and up to the present are of this size. Some older colorguides from the 1960's or 1970's, and even up to the early 1980's, may be smaller in size, so you may see pages from the Bronze Age or Silver Age that are approximately 7" x 10". Both old and newer color guides may vary somewhat from these sizes, and a cover color guide is sometimes on a larger sheet that is closer to the size of the paper used by the penciler and inker. So if the size of a particular piece is an important consideration, it is always a good idea to ask before bidding. Regardless of the size, though, every color guide page is a beautiful one-of-a-kind piece of artwork, with bright vibrant colors that almost always look far better than the printed page you see in the regular comic book. Because of the limitations of comic printing technology in the past, the color that was reproduced in a printed comic book usually did not match the great work turned out by the colorists. So seeing a color guide page in person lets you appreciate the colors as they were truly intended to look. Color guides have continued to grow in value and desirability as more and more collectors have become aware of their beauty and importance. The steady increase in both prices and interest has also come as a result of the ending of hand-colored color guides. With changes in technology, most comic book coloring is now done on computers. As hand-coloring is phased-out in favor of "painting with a computer mouse" (since this is cheaper for the comic companies), there will no longer be new color art available. So color guide art pieces like this one will only continue to grow in value as time passes. Please note: This description is written by SatchJ3 and may not be copied or reproduced without permission.

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