Black and white or colour

Which format do you prefer your comics to be in. Personally I prefer colour, especially in the style of the 1970 Jon Pertwee comics which used a lot of dark red and pink tones. I prefer the older coloring style over the modern one too. Just think it looks more classy.

Depends on the comic and the type of colouring... Generally i prefer black and white in a "Commando" style (the stories in Real Heroes would have been so much better that way), but painted colour has grown on me after seeing some TV21 stories... i suppose the colourful Gerry Anderson universe lent itself to colour, though... some things don't.

Black-and-white has it's own charm, and will never die out completely. As a kid in the 60s, b/w telly was all there was, and it was a marvel at the time.....we all looked forwards to colour TV which was a great improvement, however I still appreciate good b/w cinematography in the best 1930s films, and in comics it can still stand out if skilfully handled.

I agree with Mikes' assessment that TV21 in the 60s was years ahead of it's time visually in terms of colour: also, a lot of the nursery comics of the era had storybook-like coloring technique, that was miles ahead of what DCT or ODHAMS were doing.

Curiously, I find that a lot of the colour American comics actually look (to me) much better when reprinted in black & white. Maybe I'm just odd...

tony ingram wrote:Curiously, I find that a lot of the colour American comics actually look (to me) much better when reprinted in black & white. Maybe I'm just odd...

I think there is a lot to be said for that, actually, but it depends on the artist. I'm thinking of someone like Gene Colan, who's stuff looks great, better in fact, in black and white...

I was thinking principally of Colan myself-his Dracula stuff in particular looks as though it was made for black and white, but you can probably say the same for most of his work.

MR X wrote:Black-and-white has it's own charm, and will never die out completely. As a kid in the 60s, b/w telly was all there was, and it was a marvel at the time.....we all looked forwards to colour TV which was a great improvement, however I still appreciate good b/w cinematography in the best 1930s films, and in comics it can still stand out if skilfully handled.

But is comparing b&w tv to b&w comic books really an apple-to-apples comparison? With b&w tv you get a lot variations on the grays, while b&w comic books usually have a heavier reliance on the black and the white (though there were some grays as well).

I want to read color comics only.

When I've read a B&W comic, it feels incomplete and less satisfying.

But black and white can be used to great effect, IMO. You get stark contrasts, heavy shadows and fine detail. I wouldn't want From Hell or John Hicklenton's work on Nemesis the Warlock to be in colour.

karatattoo wrote:I want to read color comics only.

When I've read a B&W comic, it feels incomplete and less satisfying.

I can't understand that. If a comic was intended to be in black & white, it can't be made  incomplete because of a lack of colour.

Lucy McGough wrote:But black and white can be used to great effect, IMO. You get stark contrasts, heavy shadows and fine detail. I wouldn't want From Hell or John Hicklenton's work on Nemesis the Warlock to be in colour.

I think the addition of colour actually spoiled V for Vendetta, in the reprints.

Fortunately I haven't seen those.

Lucy McGough wrote:But black and white can be used to great effect, IMO. You get stark contrasts, heavy shadows and fine detail. I wouldn't want From Hell or John Hicklenton's work on Nemesis the Warlock to be in colour.

Actually, here in the states we got Nemesis with artwork by Kevin O'Neill and later Bryan Talbot in color / colour.

tony ingram wrote:

karatattoo wrote:I want to read color comics only.

When I've read a B&W comic, it feels incomplete and less satisfying.

I can't understand that. If a comic was intended to be in black & whitte, it can't be made  incomplete because of a lack of colour.

What's "black & whitte"?
Is that another weird British spelling thing?

Ah, the good old Eagle/Quality reprint books! Yes, you did indeed get those strips in colour, but it frequently wasn't very good colour. Sometimes, the colour choices used on the Quality titles were eccentric, to say the least. I seem to remember Fink Angel, who originally had pink skin in 2000 AD, inexplicably becoming bright green, and Hammerstein of the ABC Warriors with a blue face...very odd.

MajorHoy wrote:

tony ingram wrote:

karatattoo wrote:I want to read color comics only.

When I've read a B&W comic, it feels incomplete and less satisfying.

I can't understand that. If a comic was intended to be in black & whitte, it can't be made  incomplete because of a lack of colour.

What's "black & whitte"?
Is that another weird British spelling thing?

No, it's more of a typo. Anyway, we aren't the ones with the weird spelling. Are you lot allergic to the letter 'U'?

tony ingram wrote:Are you lot allergic to the letter 'U'?

It always seemed a bit showy, to me.

Mbast1 wrote:

tony ingram wrote:Are you lot allergic to the letter 'U'?

It always seemed a bit showy, to me.

I think we've just taken a Margaret Thatcher-like view when it comes to usage of that letter . . . a bit of "less is more".

tony ingram wrote:

karatattoo wrote:I want to read color comics only.

When I've read a B&W comic, it feels incomplete and less satisfying.

I can't understand that. If a comic was intended to be in black & white, it can't be made  incomplete because of a lack of colour.

Sorry Tony, but it's just the way I feel about it.

I won't read The Walking Dead as it isn't in color.

When "colorizing" old B&W movies was all the rage back in the 1980s I purchased several of them on VHS. I wish I still had them.

I have wished that old B&W TV programs, including the Hartnell/Troughton Doctor Who serials, would one day be "colorized."

karatattoo wrote:

tony ingram wrote:

karatattoo wrote:I want to read color comics only.

When I've read a B&W comic, it feels incomplete and less satisfying.

I can't understand that. If a comic was intended to be in black & white, it can't be made  incomplete because of a lack of colour.

Sorry Tony, but it's just the way I feel about it.

I won't read The Walking Dead as it isn't in color.

When "colorizing" old B&W movies was all the rage back in the 1980s I purchased several of them on VHS. I wish I still had them.

I have wished that old B&W TV programs, including the Hartnell/Troughton Doctor Who serials, would one day be "colorized."

I would absolutely hate that. That's just not how they were intended to be seen. Anyway, suppose a comic is in colour but uses a very limited palette? Suppose there's a deliberate choice to use only sepia tones, for instance? Would you not read it? Or would it be OK because it was not black & white? What about Sin City, which was mostly black & white but used red and yellow in places for emphasis?

I wouldn't mind watching colourised Doctor Who.

I don't mind a limited palette or sepia tone for the purpose of a brief flashback.

I didn't read Sin City. I looked at it when it was first published, didn't like the (mostly) lack of color, and put it back on the shelf.

You've missed out on an awful lot of good comics. You'd have been pretty much screwed if you'd grown up over here, full colour in comics was very rare until the mid 1980s and we didn't really even have colour TV until 1970.

tony ingram wrote:That's just not how they were intended to be seen.

Is that true, or was that just what was available? I'm not in to colorizing, but I doubt it was a deliberate choice very often. It does change how they "feel", I think many Noir movies would be different just for being in color, but I just think it was the medium at the time.

Mbast1 wrote:

tony ingram wrote:That's just not how they were intended to be seen.

Is that true, or was that just what was available? I'm not in to colorizing, but I doubt it was a deliberate choice very often. It does change how they "feel", I think many Noir movies would be different just for being in color, but I just think it was the medium at the time.

Color was possible back then when many noir films were made (Gone With the Wind was in color, as was a portion of The Wizard of Oz), but there may have been some issues with expense and availability of the film and equipment needed. In some other cases, b&w may have been chosen on purpose for the feel.

After color film be came widely available in the 1930s, most films were still recorded in B&W, as color film, cameras and processing were much more expensive.

Many films from the 1930s until the 1960s were recorded in B&W, not for artistic reasons, but for financial ones.

but if 10 cents doesn't work, I'll pay the ongoing price - for color...or even colour

I think inflation may have set in since then.

2000 AD used to be 18p and now it's £2.45

When it was 18p, we were moaning about how it used to be 8p.

Ah, we're British. We've always got something to moan about

Lucy McGough wrote: Ah, we're British. We've always got something to moan about

Trust me: Brits aren't the only ones who moan and whine a lot.

No, but we have raised it to an art form. We even had a popular TV show called Grumpy Old Men, when just consisted of middle aged celebrities bitching about things that annoyed them.

When it rains, we complain that it's too wet. When it's sunny, we complain that it's too hot. When there's no snow over Christmas, we complain that Christmas ain't like it used to be when I were a nipper. When it snows, we complain about transport disruptions.