Comic strips

[rowyn]

I was discussing web comics with a friend, and he mentioned that he had a subconcious bias for strips that were in color. It wasn't that he consciously looked at black and white strips and said "ew!" -- but he found that most of the strips he wound up reading were in color.

I haven't noticed this bias in myself. In fact, one of the comics I read daily -- GPF -- went to color and I didn't even notice. (Happened sometime in 2002 or 2003, I guess). Out of the 21 strips I regularly follow, nine are in color. But most of those were in b&w when I started reading them, so color didn't have an impact on my decision.

Perhaps more interestingly: I only read a handful of strips where I know the creator's sole income is from the strip. Those would be: Megatokyo, PVP, Sluggy Freelance, and User Friendly. None of those run daily color strips (though the last three do Sunday color).

But this has been on my mind, so I thought I'd do a little poll on it and a couple of questions. For variety, I'll fill out my own poll this time. :)


[Poll #245608]

Comments

Re:

[jordangreywolf.livejournal.com]

Well, I generally argue that "the writing comes first", but of the strips that I follow, there's at least SOME visual appeal. "Spot the Frog" is very cartoony, but it's stylish and Spot is adorable. "Get Fuzzy" is probably the most homely of the comics I regularly read, insofar as the characters' look ... but there's a lot of detail in there. It doesn't look ugly because the artist is lazy or incompetent, but rather because he deliberately makes everyone look frazzled and less-than-perfect. "For Better or For Worse" wouldn't strike me as "great art", but it's good art. The artist can do "pretty" and "cute" and "plain" and "comical", without going into gross exaggerations.

"Calvin and Hobbes" ... I loved the wit ... but, goodness, I so adored the art!

So, while I still voted toward the "writing" side ... if all I cared about was writing, then I should just read a book. Whenever comics are involved, the art has to add something to the experience. It needn't be "photorealistic" or astounding, but I don't want it to be painful to look at, either. (It's just that, where web-comics are concerned, when the art is especially painful to look upon, often the writing is painful, too.)