Steve Oliff

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Steve Oliff is a comic book artist who has worked as a colorist in the comics industry since 1978.

[edit] Biography

Steve Oliff was born on February 20, 1954. He is well-known as a comics colorist, having colored (among other projects) Bill Sienkiewicz's first Moon Knight story in the Hulk Magazine. From there he went on to color hundreds of titles in a variety of coloring formats. His company, Olyoptics, was one of the first to use computers to do color separation. Although other companies at the time were experimenting with computers, Oliff and his crew were the first to blend the color guide artist with the separator.

In 1987, the Japanese manga Akira was in preparation to be translated and published by Marvel Comics's Epic line. Oliff was chosen as the colorist, and he convinced Marvel that it was time to try computer color. The changes that began with the publication of Akira in 1988 have swept through the comics industry.

Oliff is a multiple Harvey Award winner for best colorist. In addition to coloring thousands of comic pages for all sorts of companies, he has written two comic books, Armature and Armature: Darkpark and Lightworld, and is currently writing the third in his series. The Armature character first appeared in ads in Spawn and Youngblood comics, and in a back-up story in issue 14 of The Maxx. From 2003 to the present, Armature has been a weekly comic strip in Oliff's local newspaper, the Independent Coast Observer.

In 2005, Oliff collaborated with Cheri Carlstedt on a history of his hometown, Point Arena. The Early Days of Point Arena, a pictorial history of the city and township was published by Olyoptics. He also edits the Mendocino County Historical Society newsletter.

Oliff is a former mayor of his hometown of Point Arena, California, and remains active in community events.