Dude! it's black n white!

[mariusthered]

while browsing among all you lovely comics , I have come to notice a lot of them are in black n white. Now i'm not saying there is anything wrong with black and white in fact there are lots of really wonderful bits of art work Iv'e seen. I just don't understand why?

Lots of the comics I read and a kid were black n white ( such as 2000AD and the awesome Judge Dredd) but that was because of printing costs and the fact every color cost extra money.

with the new digital age we have a rainbow of color at our finger tips (literally with smart phones and the like) so why the sudden reawakening of the black n white comic?

[zelkats]

Because it's faster to create.

[Kura]

I used to do my comics in colour, but then had to switch the black and white because my arthritis was / is getting worse. I can't physically create a full colour comic at a decent release pace anymore. It's just too painful.

[AnnaLandin]

Yup, @zelkats is right. It's a lot faster to draw black and white, and since most of us make our webcomics in our spare time, and at our own expense, it makes sense for a lot of us to choose black and white.

... A case can also be made that many of the current creators of webcomics grew up on a steady diet of manga, and manga is mostly black and white. It's a colour-language (or lack of colour) that they're used to reading, so it's not so strange they'd choose to create it, too.

[keii4ii]

It's often -- but not always -- faster to create.

And sometimes, it's the right choice for the story. My previous comic was B&W, and if I were to do it again, I'd either do the same thing or use very limited colors (e.g. monochrome with spot colors). Definitely not in full color. It's kind of like how B&W photography is still done these days for artistic reasons.

My current comic, on the other hand, benefits greatly from the full color palette. It has a visually exciting world to show.

[Zanreo]

Well, the main reasons would be:
- Faster/easier to make (not always the case though)
- Some creators want their comic to look similar to a manga, which tend to be in greyscale/black and white.
- Some creators just prefer the look for that comics/comics in general

For me, I always make color comics even if it takes a bit more time. Making BW comics might be faster, but making them look "interesting" with that look can be the hard part (in my case, I'd probably just have plain outlines haha) I prefer how it looks with colors and think working in color is much more fun than just black and white - I'm not good at making things look interesting in just BW/grayscale.

[mg78]

im not full B&W because im with tones too... btw, imho colors are for illustrations or special pages.
i grow up with EU comics (before) and manga (later): they are all B&W. so for me its naturale think a comic as B&W.

and as said before, it quite faster.
if i have to put tones i can spend even 8h (just to give an example). if i have to color a page, i can spend more than 3 days...
plus: not all the comic become better with colors...

[igneriss]

My comic is black and white, because I grew up reading manga and it just seems natural to me. I haven't even thought of making colourful comics until I joined tapastic cx

[ifluke1]

I will not dignify my questionable art with colour !

[ToonDoctor]

It's faster. I disagree about the manga influence. It's true for many people here, but we're not all manga-inspired cartoonists.

I would not be able to produce a page a week if it was in colour. Well, I could but it would have to cut into other activities.

[mariusthered]

I can understand that. pages take along time to sort out, if I didn't use poser for my backgrounds it would take me twice as long for a page.

[infectedbloodcomics]

It's faster but it also works really well with the mood of some comics. Mine so far works best in B&W, for example, because it's gritty and dark. Not that I wouldn't shift to color: I just need to get better at it first, because adding color without knowing what exactly I'm doing would potentially turn my comic into yet another color comic (there's plenty of colorful yet bland stuff out there, if you ask me). Simply put, I don't want my comic to be yet another clone, albeit apparently clones are quite successful. Oh well

[mariusthered]

albeit apparently clones are quite successful.

lol I have a character who's a clone in my later seasons of Tales from swipe city. ( just starting season one here) I agree that every comic need something to make them stand out , it like stars we con only spot the outstanding ones because the others are just stars.

[Chopythes]

Yeah, like every one else has said, it's due to creating the work quicker.
As a traditional artist, I can make a page within 4-5 hours (digitally it takes me a LOT more time, more up to 20-30 hours).
So yeah, it's time saving, since you gotta eat too ;D

[isaiahbroussar]

Color can easily make or break art to me. I want to be able to produce my comic quickly in a way that looks good. Because I don't want to rush coloring and potentially make the overall work look bad because of it I'd rather make a product that looks good in black and white.

[Doubtcent]

Color is hard to do, especially if you want to do it consistently. I usually work in grayscale with the colors set to a different color each time. That way, even though I don't know how to colo really well, at least there's color to be seen. In a way I'm cheating, but it still takes a lot of time and effort to get it done right.

[gateofselidor]

I love working in colour too much to stop, but I don't blame anybody for choosing black and white. Even my simplest pages take around 15 hours to finish, so with a full time job, I can't produce more than one page a week at the moment.

[jessiepolfliet]

I think that for a lot of creators it is either faster or insignificant for their stories. Many manga's already have this stylistic choice, though I can imagine it is cheaper as well, but I also see a lot of black and white in the gag a day comics, but those don't always need color. I personally love color(It doesn't stop me from reading b&w comics) but that's is why I incorperate it in my comic. But whitout, pages would be done in half a day instead of half a week.

[joannekwan]

For me, doing b&w is definitely faster. But I also like it for my two series that are more serious in tone. There's a certain gravitas of grayscale and just straight black with negative space that I and hopefully other people appreciate.

[VermillionWorks]

My comic is in grayscale with bits of red (though full color pages crop up occasionally), but it basically is in freakin' color in my mind because I color in everything and shade everything. I was going for a rather noir-esque old horror movie look with my comic so the grayscale was purely a stylistic choice.

It only takes slightly less time than full color because I only have to go through shades of gray rather than sit and ponder loads of color choices.