What's more effective, black and white comics or colored comics?

[apocryphagraphics]

There's no question that color comics are far more popular. However B&W comics can be very powerful when done well like Sin City or The Walking Dead. Of course color can add intense beauty and emotion to the artwork, but strong color can often be used to mask mediocre or even outright poor art at times. When you do Black and White your art is out there and I think the courage to do that is pretty cool too. Plus it's indie... you know, like art films!

[infectedbloodcomics]

I love this! Yep, you're helping me understand why I like B&W, now.

[ashriott]

I don't mind reading either black & white or coloured. I do black & white since my style is more anime/manga, it's also what I find works best for my comic and storytelling style anyways. It's very clever how manga can create such intense and emotional scenes from simply using black & white. This is definitely something I'm striving for! xD

Vertical format comics seem to work great with colour since everything's usually so beautifully drawn. With the right colours, it's great for portraying scenery, interesting effects and atmosphere... which makes it a lot of fun reading them I personally feel comics that read like books(page by page format) gets a bit clustered when everything is in colour(though this depends how the colours are being used).

On the other hand, I'm not a big fan of black & white when everything's too grey. The lack of negative space with solid black and white makes it hard to tell things apart.

[joannekwan]

It's a case by case scenario for me. I think most people will give a comic a shot regardless of its color or lack thereof, as long as the art and story as a whole is appealing to them. Though there was one instance where I tried reading a comic and the colors were so horrible I felt nauseous.

I have two series here on Tap, one color, one b&w with grays. The more serious one being in b&w. Since I'm not as comfortable doing straight black with negative space, I use four shades of gray to help "color" some of the objects/scenery in each panel. But then other people are terrific at doing straight black with negative space, great examples include @cheeznh's Dead Man's Party and Keon Tan's Grayscale. It really comes down to what you're comfortable with doing, and there's no harm in practicing either.

[bmacbride]

@bob_artist's Demon of the Underground is another great example of a monochrome comic. Personally, I'm not swayed too much by whether a comic is in color or not... in fact, sometimes I'm really turned off if it's too bright and busy. Comics that look like candyland on acid are a bit hard on my eyes and my attention span haha.

[Lkn]

I'm so used to manga so for me, it's Black and White.

[AnnaLandin]

To grab attention, colour is better. For someone just casually browsing, coloured comics will naturally make them look, while they might skim over black and white. I've noticed it's the same at cons - people pick up a comic and flip through it, and if it's in black and white, they nearly always put it down again, because they equate colour with being worth more money.

I do my comic in full colour - partly because it grabs attention, partly because it looks nice, and partly because certain elements in my comic require colour to be readable.

I have, however, done comics in black and white - and it's a challenge! You have to plan your layouts and compositions better to avoid confusion for the readers. I did my comics in 100% strict black and white, with no grey tones, which meant I had to work hard so that my panels didn't turn into a mess of lines. Be aware of how and where to place your heavy black areas, where to cross-hatch and where to leave things blank; be aware of linewidth, both in variation (to avoid looking stiff) and in atmospheric perspective - stuff that is further away will have thinner lines, while stuff that is closer to the reader will have thicker lines, etc.

Here's an excerpt of what my black and white comics look(ed) like: these panels don't have a background (and are also, like, 5 years old by now >.<) - but they're a pretty good example of how I used a combination of cross-hatched details and solid blacks to make details stand out.

I inked these with a brushpen on paper, but there's no reason you can't employ the same technique if inking digitally.

[igneriss]

As a reader, I like both. They just give a different feeling to the comic. Some coloured comics are really mesmerising, you're right here, but some b&w pages can be as well : D As long as colours/lack of colours is well used, it doesn't really matter~

As an artist, I draw my series in black and white. I have always been drawing comics like that, manga influence : D Though I'm planning on doing coloured serie in the future.

[Pandastrophic]

I do prefer colored comics however it all comes down to story and art style for me, if the story and art is good I wouldn't mind if it were colored or B/W.

I personally using both B/W and colored, B/W back when I worked on my old webcomic about 4 years ago, now I'm re-making the comic with color. I really love working with colors so when I used to make that old webcomic in B/W I kinda got bored and back then due to my super slow coloring style making the comic colored wasn't an option. I had to do a lot of experimentation to find a fast and good coloring style for my current comic, I didn't want to take ages on a single page.

I think you should first see what matches your comic and style more, B/W, grey scale, screen-tones, colored. Do some experimenting and draw some sample pages, see how long each process takes, time management is a huge thing when it comes to making comics so put that into consideration when deciding.

[mg78]

i dont care. i like colored like B/W or tones. i care about quality, not about the medium.

imho color comix attract more people than B/W or tones, because it's in our nature to watch something "naturale" and because a color comix look like own MORE quality and work (and most of the time, it's true)
plus, imho color comix are more forgive in errors.

but there is also also "another side of the coin": color comix arent easy work to do. not every style can fit a traditional color. or again, a comix would need some right athmosphere... sp in the end, it's very tricky and complicated.

[punkarsenic]

it really does depend on the type of comic. id personally probably not want to read a comic with a manga style that was in colour, because manga is so commonly black and white so coloured manga just... looks weird...

whereas if your art is really nice, colours do all the extra, especially in scenes where lots of scenery can be seen, because people will want to look at it, and it will contribute hugely to the vibe.

you can use colour for storytelling as well, for example things that are yellow are pushed to the front and get more notice, so you can subconsciously guide a reader by putting the main character in something yellow. or you could use the disney villain green to show when a situation is sinister. that works best for fantasy comics i think.

if your comic is something more gritty and realistic and maybe a bit sad, say, i think black and white would do well. these are just examples, i dont know exactly what your comic is like so idk whether colour would help. youve also got to think abt how good you yourself are at adding colour.

[HNLEE]

I prefer color, but ofc only if it's done right.
I don't mind black and white at all either but if the story has dramatic scenes then I find it a waste to only use screen tones.
On the contrary if the story's art has a really simple / dark feel then B&W could be better. A good example of that is nakamura asumiko's work.

[epiale]

I think, as many have said, it depends a lot on the art style, mood, and specific comic, but I'll admit that, in general, I prefer color, for several reasons.

First of all it's easier on the eyes. Stark black and white, and even screen-toned comics tend to make my eyes and head hurt if I look at them for too long, which puts me off reading them unless the story or characters are GREAT.

It also conveys a lot more information, and lends itself to more subtlety in how scenes are depicted, and opens a lot of room for hinting and symbolism.

I'll also admit that black and white online tends to mean "babys first comic" or "manga nonsense" in my mind. I know that's unfair, but it's the honest truth, haha. I find bad art unappealing and no matter how you swing it comics are a visual medium. (Thats not to say I dismiss comics with "bad" art so long as it isnt physically painful to look at. Some of my favorites have generally cruddy art, but the story and characters are so amazing I ended up loving them. This is an "in general first impressions" thing : P)

[cheeznh]

Aw, thanks for the shoutout @joannekwan!

[apocryphagraphics]

With the invention of computerized coloring anyone can do color now--my three-year old does it--so I would agree that it's not fair to suggest that Black&White implies a beginner and color implies a more advanced artist. It used to require a lot of materials and technique to use color at all on a comic that saw print, but now anyone can do it who has a decent program. Obviously it still takes a lot of hard work and talent to be GREAT or even good at coloring, digital or otherwise, but these days color in and of itself is certainly no sign of advanced artistry--and Black and White is no sign of low skill.

[XanderYoung]

I've been told that color comics are more readable. I generally find that to be the case.

[Dorian_Grey]

@apocryphagraphics I agree with you 100%.

Coloring doesn't really mean a high level of skill.
Black and white could actually be more challenging in terms of line work; since you are only relying on that line work to be clear and concise and nothing else. Your line work must be top notch to read without confusion and that takes a ton of practice.
Color comics can bring life to a comic naturally since real life is in color.
I prefer black and white comics without manga screen tones.
If the screen tones are used abusively and there is too much texture, then yes i agree with @epiale it would make it look sloppy and cause headaches.
But the same could be said for some color comics I have seen, no color balances or basic conception of complimentary colors, etc. can make a color comic difficult to read and can kill information to the reader.

I enjoy both and both require a certain level of skill to do successfully, but I think it is unfair to say it is a "baby's first comic" just because it lacks color.

[allenthomas]

I guess everyone is different. Depending on the day, my mind will change as to whether or not color is better than B&W. For the most part I enjoy doing my comic in color. I will say however, that I feel as though I can see a lot more of the flaws in my artwork now in color than I was seeing in B&W. Having to color has made me slowly improve my artwork and recognize my coloring flaws, where before I only had to pick between shades of gray. This is just my experience. I know some others actually prefer there comics in B&W over color and it works so I guess its effectiveness depends on the artist and what they are going for.

[Voodin]

This is a grey area(get it?) Black/White and color both have their place and purpose, In my opinion black and white is for creating bold focal points and focusing on details, color can also be used to achieve this but takes a little more effort. Color can be used to add to the mood of a scene, or character as well separate distinctive objects.

Here's a good example, the Jojo's Bizarre Adventure manga/anime series, large amounts of the manga are in black and white but portions in color, like certain cover arts and battle have inconsistent schemes, adapting to the mood of the room, the anime took this to the extreme. One scene Jotaro would be normal blue scheme but another stand user arrives and Jotaru is purple all of the sudden!

It's really up to the story to decide whether it should be in color.

[GlanceReviver]

I think both can be great, but I actually prefer black and white comics, and I'm kind of sad that color is so much overwhelmingly more popular. I feel like black and white lets the artist simplify shape and motion more, letting the reader progress through the story at a faster clip, where as in color comics, artists tend to get bogged down into more details and background elements. While resulting in some beautiful artwork, it has a way of killing the momentum.

Plus, it's a lot of additional work that I don't feel I really need to enjoy the stories that I like. When I'm waiting for my fav artists to update, I'd much rather get 5 inked pages than a single colored one if that's the rate they work at. For comics I buy off the shelf, it doesn't matter as much.

But, yeah, definitely color is going to be better for your site stats.