Conceived, written, drawn, inked and colored entirely by BWS, Weapon X represented a quantum step forward in the development of the artist’s graphic storytelling craft. The innovative and distinctive pacing and carefully considered placement of word balloons and captions introduced a rhythmic, naturalistic style of writing which had not been seen in comics before, and which has been widely imitated since.
 

Above: The original BWS color guide for a sequence of three
panels featuring The Professor from chapter 11 of Weapon X.

These panels offer an excellent example of the complexity of Windsor-Smith's comics coloring process. Subtle shades and shapes of color are indicated by a combination of painted watercolors, alphanumeric notations of specific color blends, and black line delineations of the boundaries of colored areas. The black lines between adjacent color zones served to aid the workers doing the hand color separation step of the pre computer age printing, and were not intended to appear on the final printed work. Using techniques like this, BWS refined the coloring of comics to a new level of sophistication within the limitations of the technologically antiquated process available at the time.

(Click the art above to see the final printed version)