I always thought manga looked way bettern than comics. But now I see that even manga would look bad if it weren't pure black and white or tones. Maybe if western comics dropped the colors they'd look more appealing too.
>>7937092skill issue
>>7937096This is what I mean. It looks good technically but it just seems like this kind of thing doesn't fit in a media like that. It feels out of place or something. Like it took the focus away from what matters.
>>7937096Not quite an Oranges to Oranges comparison, since Akira was meant to be read in B/W, so the colour is an afterthought; whilst Blacksad is drawn and painted by one artist, and is only meant to be read in colour.>>7937099I disagree, I think both look fine and are both totally readable.But I think I get where you're coming from, because I find that the more realistic an art style a comic uses, the more difficult it becomes to read, as if my eyes stumble on each image rather than flowing smoothly from one to the next. Alex Ross, for example, is a great artist, but is a terrible comic artist in my eyes - his stuff is just a stilted chore to read.Are you experiencing something similar with coloured comic?This said... I actually think I prefer to read comics in B/W too? Not because it's stilting the reading experience, but because it's easier on the eyes when sitting and reading for a reasonable period of time.
>>7937112I just feel like bw conveys mood way better than colored works. For a story, it's just perfect. Colors distract me and break my immersion. Expressions for example look a lot more striking in black and white to me.
>>7937092Say what you will about those colors but what the absolute fuck is that lettering? Good lord that's some shit.
>>7937092Because at a first glance it's just information overload. Also B&W allows the reader to fill in the information of the scene themselves. If you want to color comics/manga, those coloring better be astoundingly good. Otherwise it just takes the focus from the story.
The Akira copy I read 20 years ago had watercolor/guache looking painted chapter intros. Looked good.
>>7937099I think it doesn't look out of of place - it's just not what you are used to.But I do agree that most comics lose a bit of punch with color. It seems to make it work one has to put in a lot of effort into good coloring. That said I saw flat colored comics that did look good. And then there's Moebius.It's just seems that color is harder to make work, but I wouldn't consider it a rule: "color bad".
because the shades are achieved with grid foiland doesnt overlay well with colour unless intended so. but you would need different overlays. you can tell when there is colour pages for mangas or spreads done with something like copics or water colour which look fucking great. theres a wide variety of great colour pages in mangos. i dont know why i even have to tell you this, you should be aware of that if you were even reading more than a single manga.
>>7937156
>>7937163
>>7937092That Akira scan is from 1980s-1990s US Comic publishing Dark Horse efforts to import Japanese manga and flipping them then coloring them for American audience.So it's not that coloring ruins the manga, it's the zero coordination between the colorist and the manga artist. Because the colorist is working like thousands of kilometers away from the artist
>>7937164These look way better than the other examples posted here, but I still think they belong more in a poster or in specific pages than having the whole thing in this style.
>>7937092I think it worked well for Steel Ball Run. Probably because both your example and capeshit used overly saturated colors.
>>7937208just disproving OP being so dogmatic. mangos have a lot more workload involved and only rarely come fully colored. but if they do, they can look pretty nifty as long as its intended to look that way.
>>7937092BNW leaves more room for the viewer's own interpretation, which is always the best possible variant in a person's mind.
>>7937092I've always preferred black and white manga, but your example is FAR from the worst offender what it comes to color in comics. Those colors are pretty muted, which is at least appropriate to the setting.But regarding color comics in general, I think the problem is, as others have said, it's just too much going on. The pictures in comics are sequential. They're meant to tell a story, not to be lingered on at length. You have to look at the whole page, or spread, as a composition directing the eye from one panel to the next, controlling the tempo. Color just adds another challenge for the artist, and usually hampers the reader's flow no matter how well it's done. The same could be said, but to a lesser extent, to even B&W comic art that is overly detailed and belabored.I do like in some manga when the first few pages are in color, provided it's done tastefully. Watercolor is better than digital. Picrel is a good example.
>>7937267Nice page
If a manga was meant to be read in black and white, then it's like adding color to a black and white movie.
>>7937092Because it was made to be black and white. Colorizing black and white art, especially anything using screentone, is a fool's errand. Otomo's color work looks just fine.>>7937099Sounds like a you problem
>>7937393Shit, wrong image.
Depends on how it's done, the jaoanese tend to be bad at colourizing comics>>7937099I's say that colours can make the visuals more coherent but the nore you render the less coherent it becomes
>>7937112Also this, manga is optimized for black and white
Use of colour is not that simple
>>7937456I take that black, american courized akiraAlso american colourists ruined the incal, americans know how to make comics look edgy but they tend to lack an understsnding of beauty
>>7937474Most contemporary colorizations/re-coloring of older comics are trash. The comics establishment in americca is so ingrained to semi-realistic coloring that they can't even understand what is it they're doing to older comics, and genuinely look on it as an improvement.
>>7937457>>7937474even though everyone loves Moebius I'm not a fan of the coloring on those pages tbfamdesu
>>7937092The Akira color release by Epic has the issue of leaving the original screentones in place on the black plate, which means wherever there's screens the colors turn into gray mud. They also have unflattering sculptural lighting when it should have just been flat color, and this is has been a problem with colored comics since digital coloring started happening the 80s. That said the Epic release does have color keys by Otomo himself.In its original serialization in Young Magazine a couple chapters got this black, red and green treatment which I think looks pretty cool.B&W vs color is not a real controversy in comics, there are plenty of appealingly colored comics. The problem is horrible practices in digital coloring that work against the inking instead of with it. Flat colors are preferable.There is also some truly great colored manga, check out the Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past adaption by Shotaro Ishinomori.>>7937170The Dark Horse editions are in B&W, the Epic editions are the colorized ones.
>>7937258Only rational post so far.
>>7937092>why does artwork designed to be black and white look better in black white than haphazardly colored we will never know
>>7937474My first opinionated thought about art that I can remember having is thinking that the gradients in western comics look like total fucking ass. It's like they realized that you can make smooth gradients in digital, and because of that every shape has to average to the same value. And they completely demolish any sense of form. Everything curves at the same rate and in completely nondescript directions.Anyways, nobody has ever complained about the kind of coloring Topolino has.
>>7937651>My first opinionated thought about art that I can remember having is thinking that the gradients in western comics look like total fucking ass.Let me guess, you are a zoomer.
>>7937660Yes nigger I am thirty why don't you go back to the eceleb thread and post about how 50 is young
>>7937209You mean the one that gave every character garish technicolor lipstick?
>>7937669ahahahahaha oh nononono he thought being called a zoomer means he's being dismissed as to young ahahahahahahaha
>>7937684Come back tomorrow when you forget what calendar year it is again
>>7937669I'm implying you didn't have enough experience to be able to tell what good western comics are. Isn't this a legit argument?
>>7937692>what calendar year it isas opposed to a non calendar year? lmao zoomers catching the alzheimer's
>>7937706No.Experience? Sure.Enough? Quantify.Even if you think that it's invalid when it's less than yours, that won't remain true forever, because you will die first. My son could have well-informed opinions. You're just a shitter who's even closer to expiry with even less to show for it.
>>7937092Too much information. It’s distracting. Colors can work when things are more simplified. In detailed/scratchy work like this it’s just a mess.
>>7937682You mean like Araki did?
>>7937807...on the covers, yes. Where he draws purple alligators and bright green skies. He did not give everyone bright lipstick in the b/w artwork.
>>7937829
>>7937092I think it depends on the colouring and skill of the artistdetailed, shaded colour > Black and White > flat/basic coloring
>>7938049You have that completely backwards. Shading and rendering can work, but usually for a specific kind of comic that’s mostly narrative and light on the action. There’s examples counter to this like dorohedoro’s color pages, but those are supported by their artstyle.. Flat colors in 90% of cases will be superior, especially when dynamic action is in play, as long as you have a grasp on color theory. Here’s a page from weapon x, a comic that’s was originally written, illustrated, and colored all by the same artist, Barry Windsor Smith. The first image is the ink. It’s a great image that may have a handful of readability issues, but it’s still a very solid illustration on its own.The second image is his original colors. The colors here are great, they’re interesting and lead the viewer’s eye to what’s important in the scene. An important note here is that these color choices here aren’t made because they’re realistic, they’re made to support the illustration and the story by making what’s happening in the image more clear.The third image is a recolor, that chooses more realistic colors over the trippy colors of the original. The image still works somewhat, and you can argue that Wolverine maybe even more readable, but the realistic color choices make the image way more boring. Some of the soldiers were colored lighter in image 2 for the purpose of leading the eye.The fourth image is also a recolor, but this time it’s been rendered to shit and looks absolutely disgusting. While I’m not a fan of image 3, image 4 is incredibly weak and boring. While I do think certain comics like Blacksad get away with their high quality rendering, flats are generally superior for most comic storytelling because they allow the story to flow more smoothly.
>>7938070Second image isn't flat at all: it has strong highlights and it's the type of good colouring I'm generally talking about, although the background itself is flattened a lotThird one is pretty mediocre to be honest, and the last one is very washed out despite the rendering, although I'd argue it has better BG than 2Fourth one has shitty shadows that have no definition and the highlights are just gradientsI think detailed colouring is the wrong word, but it needs good colouring and shading to compensate for the added information, 1 is better than 3 to me
>>7938070The blood splatter on the floor turns into cobblestone flooring over timeIncredible
>>7937781tl;dryou posted a bad example, because your range is shit. simple as.
>>7937393Otomo himself was involved and endorsed the Epic comics colouring of Akira
>>79381321 is better than 3. My point was that 3 still works as an image, it’s just very very boring. 2 is still flat colors. Flats aren’t just “everything is colored in one color”. It’s just regions of flat colors, which I believe is the best approach for colored comics, especially action oriented ones.
>>7938197Are you legitimately 40 IQ or what?
>>7938203...what part of>Colorizing black and white art, especially anything using screentone, is a fool's errand.is giving you trouble?
