An Interview With ‘Children Of The Black Sun’ Colorist, Francesco Segala

In Dario Sicchio and Letizia Cadonici’s Children of the Black Sun, color may have returned to Brightvale (thanks to colorist, Francesco Segala), but the trauma of the black sun events remains. To find out more about the coloring process and how he achieved “an Ari Aster A24 horror mood,” check out this interview with Segala:

Rachel Bellwoar: When beginning a new project, how do you go about pinning down the color palette you want to use, and does it change much between issues?

Francesco Segala: Usually, when working on original material, I will discuss with other creators the overall tone for the series. For this, we wanted something slightly muted, we wanted to set up a proper mood so that when things escalate you can feel it palette wise too. You’ll see in the 4th issue!

Bellwoar: What sets Children of the Black Sun apart from other series you’ve worked on?

Segala: I’ve been working on comics with Dario and Letizia since literally I started doing self-produced comics, so it felt special getting to do something together again but for Children, and we wanted something with an Ari Aster A24 horror mood, and with those vibes we shaped everything.

Bellwoar: I really like the texture you’ve created for the videologs, and how they look fuzzy, versus the clarity of modern technology. Was it fun to play with that contrast, where these experts are struggling to get their cameras to work and ending up with poor quality image?

Segala: The video logs were supposed to feel completely different from the rest of the pages. Where these are located temporally is a mystery, so the fuzzy look helps setting up that.

Bellwoar: How did you approach coloring the children’s art in this series?

Segala: Actually, Letizia sent me those pages already colored, I worked on adding textures and muted the horror scenes a bit so that the classic blue sunny sky bright one would have looked more “basic”.

Bellwoar: As we get to see more of the characters’ homes, it’s been neat seeing how the colors used for the interiors reflect their personalities. What was it like getting to color Ivan and Ophelia’s home in the second issue?

Segala: The fun thing about having grey skinned characters is that you can really made them pop if you go with brighter colors, and after all they are children, so I thought it would have looked nice to play with that concept for their houses, like their parents wanted their life to be more colorful because of their “condition” perhaps?

Bellwoar: In issue three, Matthew and Clementine have to spend some time in the sewers. Did you always want to make yellow such a prominent color?

Segala: I do love using yellow! But for that sequence, the bright yellow of the lights used with the green-ish dirt of the sewer made the perfect horror palette. Go look for any classic horror movie poster and you’ll always see yellow, green and red. Red was needed somewhere else though.

Bellwoar: What has been your favorite part about working on this series so far?

Segala: Issue 4! You’ll get it when you see it!

Bellwoar: Thanks for agreeing to this interview, Francesco!

The first two issues of Children of the Black Sun are available now from Ablaze (with letters by Ingegni). Children of the Black Sun #3 goes on sale today, March 8th.