Let G X H be the strong product of graphs G and H. We give a short proof that chi(G X H) greater-than-or-equal-to chi(G) + 2omega(H)-2. Kneser graphs are then used to demonstrate that this lower bound is sharp. We also prove that for every n greater-than-or-equal-to 2 there is an infinite sequence of pairs of graphs G and G' such that G' is not a retract of G while G' X K(n) is a retract of G X K(n).