{{Infobox comics creator , name = Lynn Varley , image = , imagesize = , caption = , birth_name = , birth_date = , birth_place =

Michigan Michigan () is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the List of U.S. states and ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

, death_date = , death_place = , nationality = American , write = , pencil = , ink = , color = y , alias = , notable works = '' Ronin''
''

The Dark Knight Returns ''The Dark Knight Returns'' (alternatively titled ''Batman: The Dark Knight Returns'') is a 1986 four-issue comic book miniseries starring Batman, written by Frank Miller, illustrated by Miller and Klaus Janson, with color by Lynn Varley, and ...

''
''

Elektra Lives Again ''Elektra Lives Again'' is a 1990 graphic novel by Frank Miller and Lynn Varley, published through American company Marvel Comics' imprint Epic Comics. It is a spin-off from Miller's run on ''Daredevil'' and tells the story of the apparent retu ...

''
''

300 __NOTOC__ Year 300 (CCC) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Constantius and Valerius (or, less frequently, year 1053 ''Ab ...

'' , awards =

Eisner Award The Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, commonly shortened to the Eisner Awards, are prizes given for creative achievement in American comic books, sometimes referred to as the comics industry's equivalent of the Academy Awards. They are named in ...

, 1999

Harvey Award The Harvey Awards are given for achievement in comic books. Named for writer-artist Harvey Kurtzman, the Harvey Awards were founded by Gary Groth in 1988, president of the publisher Fantagraphics, to be the successor to the Kirby Awards that we ...

, 1999
''

Comics Buyer's Guide ''Comics Buyer's Guide'' (''CBG''; ), established in 1971, was the longest-running English-language periodical reporting on the American comic book industry. It awarded its annual Comics Buyer's Guide Fan Awards from 1983 to circa 2010. The public ...

'' Award, 1986, 1999, 2000 , website = , spouse = {{marriage,

Frank Miller Frank Miller (born January 27, 1957) is an American comic book writer, penciller and inker, novelist, screenwriter, film director, and producer known for his comic book stories and graphic novels such as his run on ''Daredevil'' and subsequen ...

, 1986, 2005, end=divorce Lynn Varley is an American

comic book A comic book, also called comicbook, comic magazine or (in the United Kingdom and Ireland) simply comic, is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panel (comics), panels that represent individual scenes. ...

colorist 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 i ...

, notable for her collaborations with her then-husband,

writer/artist

Biography

Varley grew up in

Livonia, Michigan Livonia is a city in Wayne County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 95,535 at the 2020 census, which ranked it as Michigan's ninth most-populated municipality. Livonia is a part of Metro Detroit and is located about west of th ...

."Comic book artist and writer Frank Miller,"
''Fresh Air'' (November 14, 2002): "Frank Miller: 'The whole thing actually comes by way of Lynn Varley and her brothers. . . . It was a way that they spoke in their neighborhood in Livonia, Michigan. It's simply a reverse way of speaking in patterns.'" Moving to New York City, she found work at

Neal Adams Neal Adams (June 15, 1941 – April 28, 2022) was an American comic book artist. He was the co-founder of the graphic design studio Continuity Associates, and was a Creator ownership, creators-rights advocate who helped secure a pension and re ...

' Continuity Associates.Bayer, Josh
"'ALL Of Making Comics Is Pleasurable To Me': An Interview with Trevor Von Eeden,"
''The Comics Journal'' (JUL 08, 2019). She debuted as a comic book colorist on ''

Batman Batman is a superhero appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. The character was created by artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger, and debuted in the 27th issue of the comic book '' Detective Comics'' on March 30, 1939 ...

'' Annual # 8 (1982), written by Mike W. Barr and penciled by her then partner Trevor Von Eeden. Around the same time, she became professionally involved with Upstart Associates, a shared studio space on West 29th Street formed by Walter Simonson,

Howard Chaykin Howard Victor Chaykin (; born October 7, 1950) is an American comic book artist and writer. Chaykin's influences include his one-time employer and mentor, Gil Kane, and the mid-20th century illustrators Robert Fawcett and Al Parker. Early lif ...

, Val Mayerik, and

Jim Starlin James P. Starlin (born October 9, 1949) is an American comics artist and writer. Beginning his career in the early 1970s, he is best known for space opera stories, for revamping the Marvel Comics characters Captain Marvel and Adam Warlock, a ...

. Varley colored the first two issues of Chaykin's ''

American Flagg! ''American Flagg!'' is an American comic book series created by writer-artist Howard Chaykin, published by First Comics from 1983 to 1989. A science fiction series and political satire, it was set in the U.S., particularly Chicago, Illinois, in ...

later became part of Upstart. Varley provided the coloring for Miller's '' Ronin'' (1984), an experimental six-issue series from

DC Comics DC Comics, Inc. (doing business as DC) is an American comic book publisher and the flagship unit of DC Entertainment, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery. DC Comics is one of the largest and oldest American comic book companies, with their f ...

that proved that comics in unusual formats could be commercially successful; and ''

'' (1986), a four issue mini-series that went on to become an outstanding commercial and critical success. Miller also noted that Varley helped create the futuristic

slang Slang is vocabulary (words, phrases, and usage (language), linguistic usages) of an informal register, common in spoken conversation but avoided in formal writing. It also sometimes refers to the language generally exclusive to the members of p ...

that

Carrie Kelley Carrie Kelley is a superheroine from Frank Miller's graphic novels '' Batman: The Dark Knight Returns'' (1986) and its sequels '' Batman: The Dark Knight Strikes Again'' (2001-2002) and '' The Dark Knight III: The Master Race'' (2015-2017). She be ...

and other characters use. Subsequently, Varley colored other Miller books, including '' The Dark Knight Strikes Again'', ''

'', ''

Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot ''The Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot'' is a 1995 comic book written by Frank Miller, drawn by Geof Darrow and published by Dark Horse Comics. The comic book was adapted into an animated TV series of the same name. Overview After appearing in va ...

'' (with Geoff Darrow), as well as a number of covers for the U.S. editions of the ''

Lone Wolf and Cub is a Japanese manga series created by writer Kazuo Koike and artist Goseki Kojima. First published in 1970, the story was adapted into six films starring Tomisaburo Wakayama, four plays, a television series starring Kinnosuke Yorozuya, an ...

'' series. She also colored the backgrounds for the ''300'' movie (2007), produced by Miller. Varley has only worked sporadically in the comics industry since 2005.

Personal life

Varley and Miller were married from 1986Howe, Sean
"CULTURE: After His Public Downfall, *Sin City'*s Frank Miller Is Back (And Not Sorry),"
''Wired'' (August 20, 2014). to 2005.Icon: Frank Miller
{{webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120502075702/http://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/entertainment/articles/2012-04/28/frank-miller-sin-city-batman-comics-300-the-spirit , date=2012-05-02 ", GQ.com, by Johnny Davis, 27 April 2012, originally published in the February 2009 issue of British GQ
p. 2
{{webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130628043453/http://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/entertainment/articles/2012-04/28/frank-miller-sin-city-batman-comics-300-the-spirit/page/2 , date=2013-06-28 They moved from New York City to Los Angeles in the late 1980s and moved back to New York shortly before the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commerc ...

Style and technique

Varley’s coloring technique evolved to be greatly influenced by the introduction of software programs such as

Adobe Photoshop Adobe Photoshop is a raster graphics editor developed and published by Adobe Inc. for Windows and macOS. It was originally created in 1988 by Thomas and John Knoll. Since then, the software has become the industry standard not only in ras ...

. In the early 2000s, when Varley and Miller released '' The Dark Knight Strikes Again'', Varley's coloring included vibrant and nearly psychedelic coloring styles, vastly different from the subtler tones used in ''The Dark Knight Returns''. Some critics{{who, date=October 2022 argued that Varley's inexperience with the new technology negatively affected her work, and that she would have been better off using a real brush. As comics have subsequently continued to feature more vibrant color schemes, however, Varley's earlier work has also been heralded by some as ahead of its time.

Awards

Varley has received recognition in the comics industry, particularly in 1999, when she won the

, the

,1999 Will Eisner Comic Industry Award Nominees Winners
at the Comic Book Award Alamanc and the

Awards for Favorite Colorist. (She also won the CBG award in 1986 and 2000.)

Notes

{{Reflist

References

{{Refbegin * {{gcdb, type=credit, search=Lynn+Varley, title=Lynn Varley * {{comicbookdb, type=creator, id=141, title=Lynn Varley {{Refend

External links

* {{IMDb name, 2241067 {{Eisner Award for Best Coloring {{Authority control {{DEFAULTSORT:Varley, Lynn Eisner Award winners for Best Coloring Harvey Award winners for Best Colorist American female comics artists Living people American women artists Comics colorists Year of birth missing (living people)