Dude! it's black n white!

[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.

[Menbung]

All the artists that I love do black and white and that's what I wanted to create.

I like to see the artist's line work, it's easier to do that with B&W comics. Color comics tend to hide or get in the way of the line work =( .

I still cringe when I see that digitally colored edition of Akira..... gives me nightmares to see master Otomo's line work destroyed D:

[serenitysquirrel]

I'm skipping color in mine because not only is time a factor, but I also want to concentrate on learning OTHER factors, such as paneling and eye flow, contrast.

Color is pretty, but it's easy to use it to cover up mistakes. I need to learn the rest first before dealing with color.

[mariusthered]

well that seems like a good plan to follow, one thing about art you never stop learning ,and sometimes you even forget things and have to relearn them down the line.

[monotone_ink]

I do black and white because it's MUCH quicker than coloured. I also draw a lot of inspiration from manga, so that could be another factor.

@Zanreo Hmm, I agree that it can be harder to make grey scale pages look more interesting, but that's a challenge that I enjoy pursuing. I know that a lot of artists out there have managed to make really interesting stuff without any colour. Here are some examples that I just love:

[mariusthered]

these are wonderful, I could never o such nice work with just ink, I have never liked inking , to be honest I find it boring and cannot wait to get to the colour stage.

[jmhenry]

Like everyone else has already said, B/W is faster, cheaper to print (if you ever want to head down that road), and really, some comics work better in B/W. That said, I think artists should be wary of becoming elitist or overly-sentimental when it comes to their particular style.

As someone who's only recently switched from b/w to color, I don't feel like I've "lost integrity as a comic artist" for doing it, but I'm also not treating it like "the new wave of the comic-ing future". I see it as learning a new skill(and in my case a well- needed change of pace), and an artist can only benefit from branching out like that.

Color is pretty, but it's easy to use it to cover up mistakes. I need to learn the rest first before dealing with color.

True. I feel it also works both ways. Back before I started working in color I used to use the fact that it was B/W to skip out on adding small details in some panels. It's something I now can't do in color because it's easier to notice. Both styles have their own sort of cheat mode in a way.

[TristanJensen]

Because its easier to draw... and I kind of enjoy how line art looks more than color for some reason

[mariusthered]

very good points, there are lots of steps I would like to skip out on, sadly due to the way I make my comic.

[jessiekings]

Most people have said it but I do create black and white comics, and yes its much much easier to create, and faster, which when I am uploading a page every 2 days is what I want.

Also many many things can go wrong when you are colouring, if your colouring style doesn't match your comics tone you just lost a lot of work on that page.