A Splash of Color — the incredible impact a comic book colorist had on me as a young boy growing up in southern Appalachia

I originally wrote this as a “note” on Facebook shortly after the death of DC colorist Adrienne Roy. As today is her birthday, I wanted to remember her here and tell others about her kindness, and possibly inspire others to do the same.

First, a little background.

When I was a little boy of 10 years old growing up in southern West Virginia in the seventies, like most boys in those days I loved to read comic books. But I didn’t just read them, I absorbed them…I knew the origin stories, the arch-nemeses, and the various ancillary characters that surrounded each protagonist. They were wonderful…they didn’t insult my intelligence like a lot of the dumbed-down juvenile fiction was prone to do. They were amazing and fantastic stories of people doing impossible things. And for me, they were an escape…most of my daily life felt rather uninspired at the time…nearly every adult conversation seemed to revolve around coal mines, coal trucks, pothole-filled roads, and mountains. I loved the mountains, because they were a giant, endless playground for me to play in…but they also made me feel isolated…cut off from the rest of the world.

So comic books were my escape. When I was 3 or 4, my brother Dusty had garbage bags full of them. I couldn’t yet read, but I would try to figure out the stories from the pictures. Several were literally falling apart because I would get…