Re:Why Black and White? (Score 1)

I haven't seen anybody mention this yet, but online comics also don't just cover newspaper-style strips. Some of them are more like comic books, and there you have color, black and white, and gray scale. I think most of the time it comes down to what best fits the artist's style and taste.

Personally, I prefer black and white or gray scale comics to color ones, because it seems to me that it takes more skill to produce good looking art without color. An artist working without color has nothing to distract you from the line work. If it's crappy, it stands out as crappy. Pretty colors can help hide poor lines and mistakes in the art, while in black and white you can see every little mistake. I really like to see the personality of the artist in their lines, and color sometimes makes it hard to see that, for me.

Not to say there are no good color comics, either. Sarah Huntrods' Ceph has some of the nicest coloring I've seen online, and I'll be glad when it comes back from hiatus! It's one of the few color comics I like.

One of the best-drawn b&w comics online is Elf Life, by Carson Fire. Very nice emotional line work and a unique style.

For gray scale, nothing beats ShadowFall and Wings of Cranes and Eagles, both by Kaichi Satake. I haven't seen pencil work of that quality anywhere else online.

None of those comics are newspaper-style strips, either. You can look at those four comics and easily see what would happen if they were changed to color or to black and white. It all depends on what the artist wants to do with it.

Kimi