How important is colour?

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armlessphelan
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How important is colour?

Post by armlessphelan »

When folks talk about comic sales rising, they usually ignore that most of the growth is in manga. Which is black and white, thus making it cheap to print and can be priced competitively. Would it be a bad idea for Valiant and other American comic companies to experiment with printing B&W trades or omnibuses? I know Image does it with Savage Dragon (and I remember Spawn doing it for one collection), but I don't know what the sales on that look like.
Manga, comics, who cares? They're pretty much the same thing.

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magnus20009
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Re: How important is colour?

Post by magnus20009 »

And yet one of the most successful B&W comics in North America, Usagi Yojimbo went to color last year and they are going to be rereleasing the prior 35 years of comics in color TPBs and Omnibus (and yes this means 35 years worth of material needs to be colored for the first time).

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Re: How important is colour?

Post by jmatt »

Not sure how to answer the question, but I know that I've seen Cary Nord Valiant issues without color and thought they actually looked better. That being said, I'm not ready to give up on colored books.... at least not in an ongoing fashion.

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Re: How important is colour?

Post by dornwolf »

I've gone from reading comics to being heavily into manga the lack of colour isn't that bad. However if having colour is what is holding comics to an expensive price point dropping it for black and white had better massively increase page count.

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Chiclo
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Re: How important is colour?

Post by Chiclo »

Black and white comics - specifically in the floppy monthly format - don’t sell all that well. There was the black and white explosion in the 80s but selling black and white comics are a little like selling metrics to Americans. I doubt the main Superman or X-Men titles will ever be printed in black and white but there have been occasional mini-series printed in b&w, often advertised as an artsy kind of thing. I do have some large tpbs reprinting lots of gold or silver age titles like Superman that are printed in b&w but I think that was an economic decision.

Many of my favorite all time comics were published at some time in black and white, Nexus, Dreadstar, Grendel. I like some black and white comics but some black and white comics are absolute garbage.

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magnusr
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Re: How important is colour?

Post by magnusr »

When I was young, the swedish Batman comic tried to skip colors to save money. After a while they had to give up that experiment.

On the other hand, Bliss in France printed a black and white Bloodshot omnibus and the result was great.

/Magnus

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Re: How important is colour?

Post by Blood of Heroes »

Chiclo wrote: Wed Apr 14, 2021 8:17:11 am but selling black and white comics are a little like selling metrics to Americans.
Image

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Re: How important is colour?

Post by Chiclo »

Blood of Heroes wrote: Wed Apr 14, 2021 11:34:13 am
Chiclo wrote: Wed Apr 14, 2021 8:17:11 am but selling black and white comics are a little like selling metrics to Americans.
Image
That is almost a litre per metre.

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Re: How important is colour?

Post by TheFerg714 »

armlessphelan wrote: Tue Apr 13, 2021 4:30:15 pm When folks talk about comic sales rising, they usually ignore that most of the growth is in manga. Which is black and white, thus making it cheap to print and can be priced competitively. Would it be a bad idea for Valiant and other American comic companies to experiment with printing B&W trades or omnibuses? I know Image does it with Savage Dragon (and I remember Spawn doing it for one collection), but I don't know what the sales on that look like.
Color is extremely important to me, and is a major reason why I can't get into manga. As for the market, as a whole, I think colorless, digest format would be a great idea for any publisher to pursue.

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Re: How important is colour?

Post by mateo107 »

Marvel and DC used to do a lot of cheap black & white reprints but color printing has become so much more affordable the last few decades that they abandoned that in favor of full color volumes. Unless it was an artists edition with just the original art, converting already colored comics to black and white would be extra work.

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Re: How important is colour?

Post by Dallow Spicer1 »

I think it depends on the genre. Crime books work well in b/w (eg Stray Bullets, Armed and Dangerous). I think if Shadowman was more Vertigo style and serious then b/w could work well. Ninjak is another book which might translate well into b/w if done well.

Acclaim 2.0 is going in the opposite direction though, more child like art and stories which definitely would require colour to appear to that audience.

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Re: How important is colour?

Post by Sunlight on Snow »

As a concept it would be cool if all Deadside related stories were just b&w.

I always liked those inked previews, e.g. Cafu's inked pages for Rapture (that take place in the Deadside). They're beautiful!

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Re: How important is colour?

Post by GammaJosh »

Sunlight on Snow wrote: Thu Apr 15, 2021 5:14:41 am As a concept it would be cool if all Deadside related stories were just b&w.
Ooh, that would be cool!


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