Comic color--Old school or modern?

[megoscott]

I honestly don't spend much time with comics anymore and I wonder if one reason is the way they look nowadays. We were looking at a pile of books at work today and I realized I kind of hate the way they are colored anymore. It's too much, all the gradients and effects. Opening a TPB of old John Romita Iron Man with old school primary color was really refreshing.

The new way has a lot more depth and information, sometimes it's gorgeous, but mostly it kind of gives me a headache.

[palitoy]

Not always but sometimes the modern colouring can pull me out of a book, I find Marvel really bad for that. I am more comfortable with the old school but I rarely think about it.

[Earth 2 Chris]

I've noticed that coloring effects have come to dominate many comics so much that all sense of weight is gone from them. Many artists seem to be drawing coloring books now, waiting for the colorists to do the heavy lifting. A lot less spotting of blacks going on now.

Chris

[The Toyroom]

I'm old-school on this topic...with the exception of actual painted stuff like Alex Ross' work I don't care for the glammed up comic book "coloring" of today.

[Captain]

I too prefer the "old school" 4 color stuff. I think the artwork itself is different today too...Again, I much prefer the older, simpler artwork.

[toys2cool]

I love the old school ones

[kingdom warrior]

I've noticed that coloring effects have come to dominate many comics so much that all sense of weight is gone from them. Many artists seem to be drawing coloring books now, waiting for the colorists to do the heavy lifting. A lot less spotting of blacks going on now.

Chris

Yup I feel the same. If you were to see the art before the coloring goes in there is nothing there. That's why i like seeing the classic stuff without color. You can instantly see how great it was.

I find Marvel's computer coloring to be the worst. it looks fake and plastic looking.

I like old school comics primary colors and old smelling books They have a charm that the new stuff will never have.

[Bionic Joe]

For the past three years i've cut way back on the new stuff and have been going after silver age and bronze age DC and MARVELS i prefer the pre mando/ baxter books most current books the coloring and no boraders pages is just to busy for my taste

[Timothy2251]

I'm definitely a fan of old school coloring, but recently I'm getting reminded about how great old black and white art really was. I've become hooked on Dark Horse's Conan reprint collections (the old Marvel series, minus the color), as well as their Creepy reproductions. Beautiful stuff - definitely blows most of the artists today out of the water, IMHO.

[jds1911a1]

I love old 4 color pages

[ctc]

Hmmmm....

I prefer the old stuff too. The digital colour all has the same sheen and weird light effects. No texture. I REALLY like the old school Eurpoean and Japanese colour over ours though. Watercolours, pencils, all sorts of shade and tone work.

>I'm getting reminded about how great old black and white art really was.

Reading some of the Marvel:Esssentials it's astounding how much better a lot of the old art looks WITHOUT colour! I suspect it's mostly 'cos of the cheap repro methods used back in the day. Stuff like then old Son of Satan books look much more moody and atmospheric that way.

Don C.

[ThatBatmanGuy]

Old school all the way.

The problem with new comics is the are colored correctly, but then the colorist puts several layers of gray filters on top of the art. This makes it blend together and creat more flow. Whoever came up with that concept needs several swift kicks to the crotch.

Black and White art is very powerful stuff. It's an old advertiser's trick. It forces your brain to fill in the color.

I've been picking up a few old mexican comics from the 70's to the 80's and most are Black & White. Aguila Solitaria, Bionico, Arandu, Kid Acero and my favorite Orion. Pretty cool stuff.

Bob

[madmarva]

I agree that digital coloring and effects can at times take away from the art or just be garish, but then again Marvel recently reprinted Iron Fist's origin with a new framing sequence and I have to say that Gil Kane's art looked fantastic recolored.

It looked fantastic originally, too, but I was really impressed by the way the colors looked.

Sometimes simplicity is the best and maybe that's a lesson some of the new digital colorist need to learn, but personally I'm glad the color palate has grown.