Comics creators

A cartoonist is a visual artist who specializes in both drawing and writing cartoons (individual images) or comics (sequential images). Cartoonists differ from comics writers or comics illustrators/artists in that they produce both the literary and graphic components of the work as part of their practice.

In comics, a colorist is responsible for adding color to black-and-white line art. For most of the 20th century this was done using brushes and dyes which were then used as guides to produce the printing plates. Since the late 20th century it is most often done using digital media, with printing separations produced electronically.

thumb|Penciller creating a comic book A penciller (or penciler) is an artist who works on the creation of comic books, graphic novels, and similar visual art forms, with a focus on the initial pencil illustrations.

The inker (sometimes credited as the finisher or embellisher) is one of the two line artists in traditional American comic book production. In his seminal work Understanding Comics, cartoonist and theorist Scott McCloud categorizes the final execution of lines -- traditionally the domain of the inker -- as the "Surface" stage of the six-step creative process, noting that this is the aspect of the work most immediately apparent to the viewer.