Let's get some love for black & white comics

byelacey 2020-02-29 12:07:24 UTC #1

I personally don't think the presence of colour makes a story better or worse, but I know black & white/grey scale comics don't get as much love as comics in full colour, so I wanna see yours! I wanna see ones you like reading! And I wanna know why you make them that way or why you enjoy reading them.

Personally, for me, grey scale fits the mood of my comic. I sometimes include a single colour (always hot red-pink!) to really make things pop. For a dramatic comic about vampires, it works. (It also saves a ton of time, haha)

Ah, and a shameless "read my webcomic" plug:

AilyneGouveia 2020-02-29 12:23:37 UTC #2

When i saw the title i thought "That's for me !" XD

I do mine in grey scale for the same reason as you : the mood.
It's a mafia crime/noir story and takes place betwen the 20s and 30s. Grey is just too perfect for the mood.
I add red whenever it's needed to pop out some scenes (i let you guess wich ones )

The art isn't perfect, but i putt a lot of heart in the story and the characters to compensate that (And i feel like my art style is getting better with time \o/)

I also like a lot this one from @rmdooley, the story is great and the grey scale just perfectly fit to it !

PaulDevers 2020-02-29 12:32:54 UTC #3

Oh, hey, this sounds up my alley! My main comics are in black and white!
I do so generally for time purposes, but also because I really really really love hard-blacks in shading. Hopefully gonna learn to do it more and better down the road, but I'm so excited to draw this comic at all!

Otherwise when it comes to black and white comics, I'm loving this one by @jdlareva, Zombie Wife!

i seem to have a thing for comics about dead people hmmmm

Iris-Grimoire 2020-02-29 13:03:26 UTC #4

I've got three recommendations that are still active and I like a lot!. There's absolutely space for BW comics and not just the standard BL, though I think a lot of works end up falling for the easy mistake of not worrying about values and the division between plans; you need to be even more mindful of them when you can't just rely on color and (usually) full shading. And, of course, they're slightly faster to produce, which with webcomics is a blessing.
Copper Eyes is a bit of a special case because color slowly is being introduced, but right now it still mostly counts as such.

byelacey 2020-02-29 14:24:44 UTC #5

banquet and LE are faves for sure! here’s another rec, currently on hiatus but it’s beautiful and the story is great!

snowy 2020-02-29 14:34:47 UTC #6

Some of my faves are up already, but these people deserve more love and adoration

There is also my thing (new story starting next week)

Beatrush 2020-02-29 15:34:46 UTC #7

I fall into this category as well so here is my comic (FYI my comic is banned on the iOS app for some reason so you will have to read it on the website instead)

jmhenry 2020-02-29 16:33:44 UTC #8

While it was fun to learn and work on the old version of LOSTLAND in color, I really feel like B/W is the way to go with it's current incarnation. Plus B&W gets the special ability of making those moments when you do fully color a page have an even stronger impact!

TenguHarley 2020-02-29 16:55:45 UTC #9

Yes, there's definitely a need for more love on black and white comics xvx

Here's mine, its more of a greyscale shounen manga style since I work with tones/textures. It's a fantasy drama series that involves some body horror. There is some humor in there which tells you I have read too many shounen manga that involve that a h a but its only when appropriate lol

I started it back in 2017 and posted the full prologue along with chapter 1 a bit later.. so that was the time I was learning how to use clip so art is kind of wonky and I tried my best to retain quality since I had to shrink the original large as heck files XD;;

Here are some other stories I've read, tbh I'm pretty happy with black and white because I love how people work with values and inking(inks are my big time aesthetic) Though color does bring vibrancy and life to the characters, black and white/greyscale can do just the same v

indagold 2020-02-29 18:58:11 UTC #10

I actually did a black and white comic 2 years ago, yesterday was its second anniversary!

There was also a comic I found recently I really like:

i'm not into rom coms but it really grew on me.

joannekwan 2020-02-29 19:22:31 UTC #11

For Heavy Horns in particular, I stick with black, white, and 4 shades of gray simply for time efficiency. And with color being a non-element, I'm able to focus more on the actual drawings. Which is important since this series employs slightly more realistic proportions and I have to get them looking just right.

For Erie Waters, I wanted to challenge myself to do a true black and white comic without any grays for depth. It was an exercise in composition and contrast.

Here's my short zine. And I focused on black and white here because 1. I wanted to print it for cheap and 2. I wanted the very specific aesthetic I had envisioned for it (where all large areas of black are 'filled' in by hand drawing individual lines)

As for my own reading habits, I don't care if it's in black and white or full color, it just has to appeal to me overall.

rajillustration 2020-02-29 19:55:23 UTC #12

Oh yeah, I love the simplicity of Black and White, and while I really don't care when choosing a comic to read, I usually gravitate towards comics that are black and white or at least have a very stylistic and simple color palates. We ain't making full length feature films after all, and Black and White gives met the opportunity to not only make way more pages, but also focus more on the story than hiding behind my rendering and getting carpal tunnel.

DokiDokiTsuna 2020-02-29 20:23:58 UTC #13

One of my favorite webcomics is black and white, and I just barely even remembered that fact...the absence or presence of color is really not that important to me.

I don't understand why it's such a huge deal, tbh. There are plenty of B&W pro comics in both Western and Eastern media...I mean, stuff like W.I.T.C.H. is great but where do people get off expecting everyone to do that??

PixelEnchanter 2020-03-01 02:44:26 UTC #14

Oh hey! My comic is black and white!

elisabatla 2020-03-01 04:00:15 UTC #15

Here is my comic in black and white

Spanish version

monotone_ink 2020-03-01 10:43:56 UTC #16

@indagold I just read through your 'Castle by the Beach' comic--I loved it bro. Well-written and easy to read, with a really interesting premise! I'll need time to digest what was truly going on with little Yuna, but this is definitely something that will stick with me!

Regarding the thread, practically all of my works are black and white:

catmcpaw 2020-03-01 11:03:42 UTC #17

My comics are in black and white. A new episode in a few minutes

rmdooley 2020-03-01 21:38:46 UTC #18

Ah, thanks @AilyneGouveia ! Thanks for dropping my little comic a line!

A lot of the comics I would recommend are already on this list so I will double down and add a second cheer for:

Memento Mori - mafia/noir action with compelling characters of questionable morals

Keith and Jeremy's Mystical Mysteries - fun detective adventure with supernatural seasoning

AND a new one

The Pale - supernatural mystery western thriller. If you're not reading this, what are you doing with your life!?

KrispyKremeBits 2020-03-02 01:56:24 UTC #19

My comic is black and white, though I hope to utilize shades of gray when I get a better work schedule.

Snooze_R_tist 2020-03-02 02:50:23 UTC #20

Hehe my comic is BW as well.
Here ~