** NOTE: SCROLL DOWN TO SEE THIS STRIP IN FULL-COLOR NOW, AND MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD IN THIS THREAD AFTER YOU VIEW IT!!
Poor lil’ Gork.
Went black and white on this one. I sometimes consider going back to black and white only. what say you? Opinions? I love seeing the line work. Anyhoo – check back – you MAY see this jump to color on Thursday!
Next Episode: Monday, July 20th – sketchblog updates daily!!
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Black and white or color, it’s a great comic-strip. Wonder what’s the glitch in the Dark Queens plan?
B&W works. Obviously it’s easier for you. I don’t mind the many comics that use B&W for most pages, and switch back to color periodically.
Hey David,
First off, the comic is awesome – I’m a huge fan and love the art, character design, writing… and color. As a designer, I understand the amount of work that goes into coloring, however, I feel this is one of the established elements that makes the comic what it is. On the other hand, occasionally switching things up to B&W is not a bad thing in my opinion – I think that it works very well in today’s strip. I just think that consistently B&W comics lack some dimension and most likely audience appeal as well. Just my two cents – thanks for all the great work and regardless of what direction you take the comic in, I’ll still be a diehard fan.
I personally enjoy the comic in color, but wouldnt mind more black and white’s as well, it is very refreshing to see the line work in a black and white comic. I really enjoy LoB and hope to see plenty more for a long time to come!
I personally love the look of black and white comics over color.
Really like the placement black in this strip
Bill and Dragon in B&W, Good! Females, especially scantily drawn females in B&W, BAD! Still a fan and eagerly awaiting my book, artist edition with sketch! (Tittering like a little school girl)
I have to agree with the LoBers that vote for color.
I do think this imparticular strip tho works in B&W.
That first panel is insane. The perspective you used pulls alot of drama out of the pose. I was totally ready to step aside and let her stride right past me!! (as I drooled over her newly perked magical mammories)
Keep up the excellent work!
I have said before I like both the color and black and white, but in my opinion I think the color ones make the world seem more real. we talked about that before.But your work looks great in both. Keep up the wonderful stuff and us Utah fans will love every bit of it!!!!!!!
Love the comic. Color please……black and white, lines…you’re right but color is mucho bettero
Hi! I really love this comic it’s great. And I like how some are b&w and some are in color. I like both
If it would mean more comics per week, i’d have no problems if you switched from color to black+white
There’s a Ren & Stimpy quality about panel 2
I can go either way, B&W or color. So… umm… I’m of absolutely no help.
Color just gives it an added pop. But definitely enjoy looking at the inkwork without the color. The flowing hair, cracks in the stone, bravo.
I say stick with the color. I love black and white art, but your color choice is excellent, David. What you lose in the black and white is, I think, the sense of the world of Bill. Suddenly, it’s too much of a character piece. Don’t get me wrong, I love character pieces, but Bill is that and more. Don’t take away the more. My two cents.
I like both versions too but I prefer the strips colorized…The colors really grab my attention..
In some ways the b/w can be more challenging because the color can bring more things out. Of course color is more work.
You are doing how many strips? Three? Plus your day job and extras?
I’ll vote b/w with occasional color goodies!
Thank you SO much for this great feedback, friends! The funny thing is this: I’ve been doing comics a long time. When I do LoB in b/w, it’s sort of nostalgic to me in some way. Also, I admit that, when I draw LoB in b/w, I tend to do little things, add little details, even flick my pen slightly differently in places knowing that THAT is how it will remain, that the LINE and even the use of black areas will be the prominent set-up, and not the color that will come in and alter the presentation. Does that make sense? Also, yes. there’s the time issue. Black and white takes CONSIDERABLY less time. In this next phase of LoB, the phase of growth and stability (now that my wonderful friends have helped me out with the guest strips and allowed me to hammer several things down for the next year of LoB) I want consistency. Josh Ulrich has colored some strips, and holy smokes, knocks my socks off with his skill. Steve Ogden has helped me ink a few LoBs in the past, and holy smokes, a true pro. But… LoB is my baby… my labor of love, and I want to keep consistency that I know I can maintain realistically. This is one of the reasons for the guest strips in the past. Instead of NOT offering new LoB, the show ALWAYS goes on!!
Anyhoo… thanks for indulging me. I admit, I love sharing all this stuff with you, the LoB family (yes, if you’re reading this, then you have an extended all-expenses paid room at the Wet Gill Tavern Inn, Bill and Frank’s hometown Inn. They even use good toilet paper… not that thin and cheap stuff that rips a hole through it every time).
Keep the conversation going!!! Pro-color peeps, let your voices be heard!
And of course, there are always calls for special color strips too… and full-color print collections! Just WAIT til you see what’s coming in the next year. Folks, hop on the train now, this is gonna be a GOOD RIDE.
- D
The comic isn’t actually in B/W. so it kind of throws me off. I get distracted because the big blotches of black in the background is like a lighter black. I think I would like it better is it was truly b/w. I am a big fan of B/W. But color helps the strip pop instantly, making it easier to read.
I personally really enjoy color in comics. It seems to give them a little more life. Certain stuff looks good in black and white and other look better in color.
I enjoy LoB more in color. You seem to use very vibrant colors and going from color to black and white seems to lose something. I’m not saying it doesn’t look good in black and white, though. Just different.
Well, there IS a third choice. YOu could always do B & W with a color wash. But if it comes down to a time issue, the was may be as time intensive as doing full color. I’d say go with B & W if you want to get the strips out quicker with the occasional color just because you feel like it.
If it comes down to an issue of quantity, it’s obvious you can do B&W faster than color. Sadly, it’s a color world, and even though some people will tell you they prefer B&W, you will find that the majority actually expects color on the internet.
I went through the same thing with Croaker’s Gorge. I thought that doing B&W strips but updating more frequently would satisfy the crowd, but fewer color strips seemed to work better.
I’ve seen some excellent B&W strips that can’t seem to get more than 1 or 2K viewers a day. I can only assume lack of color was partly to blame.
I wish it weren’t this way cuz I love me some black and white. But it’s like movies. What was the last B&W hit movie?
I’m with Brock and Og on this one. I think it takes a very specific type of work to succeed in black and white. Your B&W strip looks great, but the color adds atmosphere.
You know I can sympathize with the time color takes to implement. But I think one thing that makes a comic online a success is consistency. Most successful strips offer consistency of style and never miss updates. Those end up being tall orders for anyone, especially someone as busy as you.
But I’ve seen plenty of comics fail or lose loads of steam by breaking those two rules.
I say make it color. You can sleep when yer dead!
Hi there. Impressive feedback, to be sure. Most interesting to get to know what readers think on the issue of B&W vs Colour.
Our 2 cents :
As you might’ve guessed, we’re in favour of colour. Personnal choice. Now, one thing has to be stated. Priority is compelling art and storyline. If Colour is at the detriment of the first two, then it has to be dispensed of. But compensated for.
Whenever we go get our daily dose of Astray3, we just can’t help wonder how this all would look in colour. The top-banner makes us wish to see it coloured, if not now, at least one day in the future. Ink talks to the mind, colour talks to the soul.
So yup, we’d join the Brock & Og & Tom bandwagon
Oghme is right, of course, and we a disservice both to Story Guys everywhere and Astray3 in particular in this discussion. Story first. Yes, yes, yes, Story first. I’d be bold and say Character second. And sometimes I can’t even agree with myself on that – Character first and Story second. But that’s another argument.
The fact of the matter is that without a solid and consistent presentation, it’s hard to attract and keep an audience. It’s unfortunate, but a fact, that a modern, color-addicted audience has a tendency to browse past a B&W cartoon without reading. So it doesn’t matter how strong your characters are, or how good your story is, if poor art, bad character design, unprofessional layout or lack of color pushes them away. Obviously, David, you don’t have to worry about poor art, bad design, or amateurish presentation – all above are solid. And though we’ve talked about how cool B&W would be for LoB from a pure Frazetta, Conan historical perspective, it’s not the 1970s and I’m afraid that color does indeed matter.
As for the matter of Astray3, it’s one of a very, very few strips I look at with any regularity, and it’s the strength of the art above all. Dude kicks my ass daily, and with apparent ease. That strip looks fan-damn-tastic in B&W. But it looks even better in color. And I have to wonder as I see his unique visitor numbers in the 1-2K range after having the strip up for a year: just how many more readers would he attract by adding color, even at the expense of fewer updates?
It’s not an academic issue to me – I could make Moon Town a B&W strip and do several more strips a week. It takes me more time to color than to pencil and ink combined. But honestly I think I’d lose some people, and fail to attract and keep others.
So blah blah blah. But whatever you decide, I feel consistency is almost as important. whoa. That’s WAY more than my two cents.
OK< back to it.
Wow, guys and girls. FAAAAANtastic. If this keeps up, I’ll move this to either a blog post on the sketchblog come Monday, or to the forum for further discussion. I don’t utilize the forums as I should. need to. Too busy drawing and writing! lol
Okay, excellent points all around. Og, your assessment in this last post (and previous) are great. However, I’m not so sure about readers breezing past b/w comics. Case in point, some prominent b/w webcomics out here – some of whom get HUGE traffic and loyal readership (yes, I’m a webcomics addict like the rest of you):
- Astray3 (agreed, Eldon’s work is top-notch and kick-arse, and truly gives me my fix of my addiction to French-inspired comics as does Oghme, a BEAUTIFUL amalgam of French comics sensibilities and beautiful manga influence).
- Sheldon
- Wapsi Square
- Girls with Slingshots
- Octopus Pie
- PVP (ok, yes, it’s color now, but spent the majority of its life until recently in sweet b/w, and didn’t hurt for traffic)
- Starslip
- Dominic Deegan
- Menage a 3
- Penny & Aggie
- Pinkerton
- Imagine This
- Kate Beaton’s Hark, a vagrant (and other work)
… the list goes on!
Okay, my friends… let’s hear it… discuss!!
- David
P.S. Steve (Og), Moon Twon would kick booty in b/w or color. Solid linework, storytelling, characters, writing… damn it, man, stop making me look bad!!
Gosh, my ears are burning. Thanks for all the positive comments about Astray3.
Now for the issue at hand. I love B&W artwork to death. Most of the comic work I look to for inspiration is in B&W. And personally, I think some artists just slather on the color to hide their crummy line work. But I have to agree, it’s a color world. Modern audiences are spoiled on colors and slick presentations. And in a world that is throwing a thousand colors at the viewer every second, B&W comics maybe viewed as old fashioned and uninteresting. ( Not to mention it’s the web, are we not supposed to be perceived as cutting edge? )
I can definitely say A3 hasn’t won much traffic being B&W. I have even received requests/complaints lately asking for the return of color strips. This of course, leaves me to wonder what kind of audience I’m missing out on.
As for LoB, I think it works great in B&W. Color tends to distract from the clean lines and character art. ( No offense to OG and Ulrich, who do a great job with the color. ) Unfortunately, the practical traffic friendly decision is to stick with color.
I wish it was a different more monochrome friendly internet, but alas it is not.
I prefer color but the b&w works too. The art is great regardless. Sneak in colors when you can and it’s all good.
really prefer color…but don’t mind black & white.
David, you could vomit on a Wacom and I’d love it. That said I always adored your coloring on LOB.
Have you thought of trying B&W with just some simple gray washes here and there?
With going black and white would add value to the occassional color strip. It’s the same with newspaper dailies being black and white and then on Sunday there was always something special about the comics being in color. And yet, it didn’t take away the value of the black and white strips. Sure u like color, but I can appreciate a great strip like LoB either way.
Color.
Don’t forget to add Sinfest to that list of beautiful black and white comics (even though it’s in color on Sundays). I certainly wouldn’t stop reading LoB if it went strictly b/w, but I do think I prefer color. Just a personal preference; I can’t blame anyone for liking b/w better, because we’re all different. But I toss my vote for color into the hat!
I’ll agree with Brian “David, you could vomit on a Wacom and I’d love it. That said I always adored your coloring on LOB.” With that being said though even though I am a fan of B/W. I do prefer color, Ahhhh that brisk smell of my weekend newsprint color cartoons. Good times man, good times. Your coloring choices really does give the L.O.B. strip anawesome pop factor that keeps me coming back. I rarely leave my editoons B/W, I always color them. They just run in the printed pages in the B/W format, which I hear some publications are going to start running the color. Woo Hoo, color.
I love Bill both ways. My vote is weekday b&w, and color on Sundays; just like old fashioned newspaper strips.
(Suddenly, I want to see LoB in the style/format of Prince Valiant.
By the way all the original autographed strips in my studio are all B/W from Tuthill (1924) to Turnbloom (2008). That’s a huge span of decades of beautiful B/W art that all comics start off as anyway before the color is added. That would look silly if you didn’t have black outlines to define characters and objects, do we even have to get into shading without crosshatching or what not.
Well, I would say say I like color most of the time. But,….sometimes a B/W just gives a while new dimension to a “darker” situation!!
Either way. David, just draw!!! Keep them coming!!
Seeing the color, I had no idea before the Queen was on the bridge – no idea. And the dark lands really pop in panel 3. To me the color strip is just so much richer in terms of atmosphere. This is a very good strip to see the two examples.
I think I like your B & W stuff better. But then again the color does pop more. Ahhh!! so confused, just keep it up I like it all.
So, totally off topic.
Even given Bill’s below average intelligence, won’t he be suspicious when Gina shows up suspiciously over dressed?
Just saying…
I understand schedule/time restraints, so if you decide to go black & white I’d deal, but I really do love the color strips more. I think that unless it’s too difficult, color is the better way to go.
I personally have always liked the color more. You get to see more of the character… their personality and individual traits.. and sometimes when I do see that it is in black and white, I’m not as interested in reading it.. (I generally do anyway, because I love LOB) but it does not get my attention the same way.