5 out of 5

Proving how up and down I am with Ronda Pattison’s coloring on these reprints, the representation of Lone Goat and Kid looks fantastic. My take on Ronda’s colors seems highly dependent on Stan’s penciling style at the time: at this point, he was opening up a bit, characters becoming a little looser, filling panels more, and this “bigger” look maps really well to Pattison’s approach of color blends, her very digital style complementing Stan’s cartoony take. It maybe also helps that many of these issues have a very laid back tone, so there’s not a lot of need for contrasts – lots of nature; greens and browns and blues, which, again, work well with Pattison’s approach.

While some of these reprints have definitely worked well for me, this is the first one where I felt like the colors weren’t necessarily just a cute addition, but rather added something to the experience, often enhancing the themes / moods of the issues.