I inked this. I'm sometimes a professional inker

There’s a character in the Kevin Smith film CHASING AMY who inks comics for a living, and his friends call him a professional tracer. He complains that he’s not, but convinces no one, and the movie was a minor box office hit, so it left that defining moment in America’s brain.

Banky Edwards during a moment of self-loathing

When it first started up in the 90s, the inkers at Image Comics, were working with prima donna pencilers who insisted their work be reproduced as faithfully as possible and forced their inkers to actually BE “tracers”. This further convinced a generation of comic fans that inkers were barely trained monkeys with a sweatshop tool in their unskilled paw.

un-inked pencils by Erik Larsen. The inker better not get "creative".

And of course, there’s always just running the pencils through a photoshop filter. Screw the inker, who needs ‘em? They’re only messing up my work.

But the inker is the essential last hand on the drawing. He or she is the one that makes the artwork lively, or bold, or personable, or slick, or capricious. They are the singer of the song. The human hand. The Deus Ex Machina: The creator emerges from the machine.

Consider your favorite comic book or graphic novel: A CONTRACT WITH GOD, MAUS, WATCHMEN, BATMAN YEAR ONE, RED HULK POUNDS HIS ENEMIES TO DEATH, BLANKETS, SIN CITY, V FOR VENDETTA, or Name Your Own Favorite…

pictured above: Knowing what you're doing.

Every one of these magnificent examples of the form has a distinct and memorable kind of line work. It’s built into the character of each story, inseparable to the experience, and to treat this essential skill with little more than a backhand slap is to misunderstand what makes comics the appealing form of media that they are.

Ty Templeton inks Tom Artis on Tailgunner Jo.

-via Ty Templeton's ArtLand Blog