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Post by wildfire2099 on Oct 2, 2024 12:28:13 GMT -5
Sometimes, for sure! I LOVE Tomb of Dracula in black and white, as well as some Savage Sword of Conan collections (some of that was probably black and white originally, of course). Jonah Hex is pretty great too. Even some of the client Marvel silver age stuff is pretty good, like Spidey. Kirby in black and white is OK, but definitely not as good.
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rich
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Post by rich on Oct 2, 2024 12:35:29 GMT -5
Sometimes, for sure! I LOVE Tomb of Dracula in black and white, as well as some Savage Sword of Conan collections (some of that was probably black and white originally, of course). Jonah Hex is pretty great too. Even some of the client Marvel silver age stuff is pretty good, like Spidey. Kirby in black and white is OK, but definitely not as good. I'm glad someone mentioned Tomb of Dracula- even though I own the originals I still purchased the Essential B&W trades. I love Colan and Palmer's art- Colan never looked better than inked by the masterful Palmer, and I think he knew this and upped his game because of it. I discovered he disliked Palmer's use of zip-a-tone, but I loved that. Overall I probably like ToD even better in the original colouring, but still, it had to be seen in original line art form too... now THAT book I'd hate to see in a garish reprint!! Fully agree Kirby looks better in colour, by the way. Edit: I should have mentioned they're the only Essential trades I own, as usually I like colour on books intended to be coloured.
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rich
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Post by rich on Oct 2, 2024 13:29:43 GMT -5
Ok, now in the spirit of keeping this topic fun, anybody want to "confess" if they initially noticed the coloring differences when they first started buying stuff like the Masterworks? I first started picking them up probably in the late 90's along with DC Archives. And NO, I did not haha. But when I first read something online about it and started to compare myself, it was like "oh (censored), yeah, I can totally see that". So in fairness, it didn't "blind me" to start reading them, but it became more of now that I'm aware, I can't help but notice. Yeah, totally, I had no idea the colour was different to the originals, but I always disliked the colour, even as a young teen! I still bought and enjoyed a bunch of old trades, but the colour always really put me off. I was obsessed with colouring as a child and contemplated trying to do it professionally when I was a teen. I think I was always sensitive to colouring as I grew up with Marvel UK comics on better paper and a more advanced printing process than their US counterparts. Even at about 6 years old I would choose Marvel UK comics over the US ones I could buy from a shop that opened up next to my school. (Plus the US ones cost more). When Marvel UK reprinted Marvel US strips the colour was always sooo much uglier on the glossier UK paper.
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rich
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Post by rich on Oct 2, 2024 13:41:04 GMT -5
That's probably very much a personal choice for old, long-term readers like us. But for newer readers, I think the brighter colours of modern reprints look more like the comics that they've been reading since the late '90s or thereabouts. Anyway, one thing is for sure, the colouring of the Marvel reprints since the '90s doesn't seem to have hurt sales, so you have to assume that most readers or collectors like it. I suspect a number of us older readers "take what we can get", the fact that the Masterworks coloring has been complained about so many times on the Internet for years and years suggests it's not a trivial issue. But at the same time, what are we going to do, not read absolutely classic material that we can't easily access in other ways because the coloring is "off"? I own 135 Masterworks at present, along with about 100 Epic Collections and 65 DC Archive Editions. They are not "perfect", but they are an absolute joy still since when I was a kid I couldn't have remotely imagined having access to this much classic material. But if you could make them look like that Taschen Spidey volume I mentioned? Oh heck yes, that would be the icing on the cake. I've still enjoyed loads of collected editions- maybe not quite as many as you, but a lot- despite the faults. Yes, many have crap colouring, many have cheap crappy binding and don't lie flat, every Omnibus is annoyingly heavy, etc, but I can get enjoyment from them. For 20 years I've been at a point where I own so much that I've not yet read that I can now be pickier and focus on well bound premium books. DC's Absolutes, for example. I have lots of Taschen books at this point, most not comics related. Have you also seen the Folio Society's Marvel reprint books, supercat ? You'd like them I suspect!!
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Post by supercat on Oct 2, 2024 13:53:11 GMT -5
Have you also seen the Folio Society's Marvel reprint books, supercat ? You'd like them I suspect!! In truth I have been eyeing them (love the Folio Society though I've only bought literature titles from them), there is temptation there haha! Good reminder to give them another look, thanks!
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Post by driver1980 on Oct 2, 2024 15:03:17 GMT -5
On black and white reprints, quite a few Marvel UK comics I read as a kid only had partial colour. And then I discovered the 70s titles like Mighty World of Marvel which were almost entirely colour (covers aside). So I got used to it. However, most of the DC stuff I read as a kid was in colour, such as the annuals published by Egmont. I found b/w really suited bleak strips featuring the likes of the Hulk, Doctor Strange, Punisher, and Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos. However, b/w didn’t quite work for me when it came to the likes of Superman and The Flash. That said, I did buy as many “Essential” and “Showcase” volumes as I could due to their affordability. I believe b/w worked better for Marvel than DC because I always found DC to be more fantastical when opposed to the “fantastical but world outside your window nature” of Marvel. So, I’m thinking about how great pages like this looked:
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Post by Rags on Oct 2, 2024 19:01:58 GMT -5
I love the colouring and art in this Hardcover and it's over 40 years old.
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Post by Rags on Oct 2, 2024 19:09:24 GMT -5
And I know I'm in the minority here, but if MAD does more full-colour reprints of stories originally done in B&W, I'll get them. Especially Mort Drucker stories. I'm not the biggest fan of B&W, sorry.
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Post by The Captain on Oct 2, 2024 20:02:41 GMT -5
Sometimes, for sure! I LOVE Tomb of Dracula in black and white, as well as some Savage Sword of Conan collections (some of that was probably black and white originally, of course). Jonah Hex is pretty great too. Even some of the client Marvel silver age stuff is pretty good, like Spidey. Kirby in black and white is OK, but definitely not as good. My first exposure to Jonah Hex was the two Showcase Presents books that collected the Weird Western Tales stories and then the first 25 or so issues of his "solo" ongoing. I'd never gotten into the Marvel Essentials B&W books, but there was just SOMETHING about Hex in black and white that grabbed me, so much so that I went and bought the rest of the series, which I probably wouldn't have done if not for reading those first stories without color.
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Post by Batflunkie on Oct 2, 2024 21:59:20 GMT -5
Continuing the topic of color in comics: I was introduced to Howard The Duck in B&W (Essentials) and Judge Dredd in color (Eagle and Fleetway/Quality reprints). Howard in black and white, especially with Gene Colan's art made the stories seem seedy and grounded, but still incredibly outlandish.
Dredd's world (in the era before 2000 AD was in full-colour) had the intended effect of being black satire of a bizarre future parody turned up to 11. The bubblegum coloring book feel just made it feel like you double dipped your Adam West Batman into a steaming vat of Dirty Harry
It took me some time to warm up to the pair of them in their intended formats, but I still prefer them home I originally read them in some instances
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Post by tartanphantom on Oct 2, 2024 22:06:56 GMT -5
Sometimes, for sure! I LOVE Tomb of Dracula in black and white, as well as some Savage Sword of Conan collections (some of that was probably black and white originally, of course). Jonah Hex is pretty great too. Even some of the client Marvel silver age stuff is pretty good, like Spidey. Kirby in black and white is OK, but definitely not as good. My first exposure to Jonah Hex was the two Showcase Presents books that collected the Weird Western Tales stories and then the first 25 or so issues of his "solo" ongoing. I'd never gotten into the Marvel Essentials B&W books, but there was just SOMETHING about Hex in black and white that grabbed me, so much so that I went and bought the rest of the series, which I probably wouldn't have done if not for reading those first stories without color.
I have a story about those Jonah Hex Showcase books-- back in the mid 2000's my son was in high school and began collecting the Showcase Presents series (along with his regular floppy collecting) because they were cheap and full of great stuff.
However, he hadn't bought the first volume of Jonah Hex yet. I asked him why, and he said that he didn't like western comics. I told him that Jonah Hex wasn't your average western comic, and that almost all of the stories were written by the same guy that wrote the '70s Spectre stories in Adventure Comics (which he loved), but he still demurred.
Later that year, I gave him the first volume as part of his birthday gift. He kind of rolled his eyes and said, "You're gonna force me to read this, aren't you?" I told him that since he now owned it, he might as well listen to his old Dad for once and check it out.
One week later, I got a call out of the blue one day-- "Dad? OK, I have to admit, you were right, I was wrong... the Jonah Hex stories are really, really, cool. Are they going to do a Volume 2?"
Mission Accomplished. He's a hardcore Hex fan to this day.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Oct 2, 2024 22:24:05 GMT -5
Jonah Hex and Tomb of Dracula both looked great in B&W. So did the DC war books. Most of the super-hero books, not as much.
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Post by driver1980 on Oct 3, 2024 2:33:52 GMT -5
I can only enjoy The Savage Sword of Conan in B&W.
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Post by impulse on Oct 3, 2024 9:23:19 GMT -5
I think the color discussion is fascinating, along with how well the analogy with music and even movies works. I like to use the original Star Wars films as a metaphor in these sorts of things.
The originals were groundbreaking at the time and looked the way they did. In 2024, some people will like it, others won't. It could be due to nostalgia, general preference, etc. On the one hand, I completely understand wanting both the original experience as well as wanting to take advantage of modern technological improvements to put out enhanced or updated versions.
A lot of the color choices and general appearance (to say nothing of added scenes) were changed in the HD released on Blu-Ray and digital. Some people didn't mind. Others HATED them. There is a not-insignificant portion of people who would like a modern release that is cleaned up and enhanced but that preserves the original intent and look of the films as they came out. Like let's get the best possible presentation of the original material using modern tools, clean up issues that were side effects of limitations at the time, but otherwise, balance the colors and look so it matches the original.
I came up on late 80s/early 90s X-Books, so I'm generally more fond of the Jim Lee art than a lot of folks here. I saw a couple recolorings of one of his X-MEN covers. One was fantastic. It preserved the original color palette and choices of the era while having more fidelity, and some subtle gradients that worked with the original work. I prefer the original, but I appreciated this. Then I saw one that was, to my eyes, AWFUL. It was ridiculously overly shaded and contoured and it was just that "everything is brown" era. Whereas the first worked with the original art, this one was actively contradicting the pencils, adding things that weren't ever there. Just awful.
Modern recolorings can be extremely hit or miss with me. Same with music remasters or different formats. Basically, it comes down to how good a job they did with it and whether it fits your tastes, which is always going to be subjective.
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rich
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Post by rich on Oct 3, 2024 10:01:35 GMT -5
I think the color discussion is fascinating, along with how well the analogy with music and even movies works. I like to use the original Star Wars films as a metaphor in these sorts of things. Hmm, I'd say if we did the Star Wars analogy, this would be fairer: Imagine in 1990 Star Wars was re released in higher definition than ever before, but now with brightness, contrast and saturation boosted to 100%. Yes, it's sharper than ever before but it looks all kinds of wrong. Fast forward 34 years and the 100% brightness, contrast and saturation version is all anyone born since 1983 can remember. Should they sort the balance out now, despite that being the only version of the film a couple of generations are familiar with? Yes, they definitely should.
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