Color?
This is a topic I’ve been toying around with for several years, now…. the idea of producing the comic strip in full color, as opposed to the current black & white format. Actually, when the strip first premiered in late 1998, it was in color. I hadn’t planned it, but when Genre magazine offered to run the first few episodes as a showcase of the strip, they asked if I could provide it in color. I was glad to oblige, though conflicted. As I said, I hadn’t planned for the strip to be in color, and I wasn’t sure how those “made to be black & white” episodes would translate into color. They ended up looking fine, but there was something about the black & white I preferred. Perhaps it was the gloriously-produced romance comic strips of old, which made an artform of black & white, that I was shooting for with the comic strip, that I didn’t want to let go of. Or maybe the fact that all of my comic strip work up to that point, (Manic Music, Angel’s Story, and all of my high school & college comic strips), had been done in black & white, and it was a format I was used to. (My comic book work, though, was mainly in color). More recently, certain fans of the strip have made me pledge to always do it in black & white, as they feel it is the hallmark of the strip, and to go to color would take away from the overall look, feel, and moodiness of the strip, much as the glamour of many 1930s & 40s films is enhanced by their black & white beauty. So, reader, what do you think? How about leaving a comment here, (click on the comments link below), and share your input on this? I’d love to hear what you think!
