Because Black & White is beautiful

[Zelena]

As I said, I also read horror comics.

For these comics, color is a catastrophy.

I read in black and white the Ghost Rider:




and the Saga of the Swamp Thing (DC I know, it will be the only one) :




The previous picture was made by Veitch and Totleben, but you can find beautiful pictures made by Yeates at this page.

[Reviresco]

Who is the artist on that Ghost Rider page?



I found a Twitter account dedicated to black and white images of comics.

BlackWhiteBronzComics


And they reminded me that Marvel published a few issues of a book that featured only black and white stories. Here's an amazing cover by John Buscema inked by Claudio Castellini.

[H-E-D]

I do disagree that these pages necessarily work better in black and white or that was the original intent of the artists. I completely lose Thanos and Pip on that background of dials, and the same of Kirby's dinosaurs on the ground -- color would make them pop.

I generally find that art that was drawn with color in mind suits Black and White poorly. For issues of storytelling clarity.

[Marvell2100]

I'm not sure where you would have read these in black and white first, but the original printings of these issues were in color. Those 'real artists' drew them knowing they would be in color.

The only Marvel books I remember coming out originally in black and white were some of the bigger magazine sized issues, mostly horror, like Dracula Lives, Strange Tales, and ... was there a Zombie one? I think Shang-Chi and the martial arts heroes also had a black and white black magazine.

Off the top of my head:

Savage Tales Fea: Ka-Zar
Rampaging Hulk
Savage Sword of Conan
Deadly Hands of Kung Fu

These were in black and white

They also reprinted the original Punisher mini by Grant and Zeck in Black and white large format.

[Iron Maiden]

Might've been illegally reprinted knock offs of the essential line.

The Essentials were published by Marvel only and they were the same size as the comics. And yes, they were in black and white but they were reprints of color comics. I have one volume of the Fantastic Four run and one of SVTU because at the time Marvel wasn't doing bound editions. Then they started doing the original GN's and the Masterworks volumes next IIRC. The paper used for their printing were more like the quality of the old comic books, maybe slightly thicker. Not the slick magazine style pages you get these days. The FF volume I have has a publishing date of 1999 and the SVTU is 2004 and may have been near the end of the line of Essentials.



But it did give you the look of the pages w/o color which is always good thing with the team of Gene Colan and Tom Palmer

[Digifiend]

2004? Sure about that? The 90s Marvel Comics logo tells me it's before 2002.

[Iron Maiden]

The late Bernie Wrightson, who did work briefly for Marvel but nothing in B & W as I recall, is the one artist I think of when it comes to horror comics done in B & W. He would put amazing detail into his work. Frank Darabont paid a cool million for this work from a Marvel adaptation of Frankenstein that Wrightson did.

[Iron Maiden]

2004? Sure about that? The 90s Marvel Comics logo tells me it's before 2002.

Yes, it is: From a Marvel Essentials fan site

[Zero Hunter]

Nothing is worse than seeing a great artists work ruined by a bad colorist.

[Winterboy]

I really miss my collection of Savage Sword of Conan. g0z06y6a_2708181648351gpadd.jpg

[Zelena]

Who is the artist on that Ghost Rider page?

Steve Leialoha. Sorry for the delay…

[The Negative Zone]

If Marvel ever switched to black and white I'd be afraid they'd be trying to copy manga.

[shooshoomanjoe]

I do agree that the art looks better in B&W but i prefer reading my comics in color. The only time I hunted a B&W comic was when I was a young horndog wanting to see some Storm nipplage.

[JudicatorPrime]

The late Bernie Wrightson, who did work briefly for Marvel but nothing in B & W as I recall, is the one artist I think of when it comes to horror comics done in B & W. He would put amazing detail into his work. Frank Darabont paid a cool million for this work from a Marvel adaptation of Frankenstein that Wrightson did.

Beautiful work.

As for the OP, I can go either way. It really depends on the artist and the subject matter. With some titles I absolutely prefer to see the work in color. I need the images to be as resplendent and lifelife as possible. But with others, especially horror stories or that genre of characters, yes, B&W clinches it.

Sidebar: I wish Marvel had permanently committed to Victor Von Doom's face looking like Frankenstein's Monster depicted here. Blame it on the adverse effects of practicing Dark magic or something. It's a cool look.