Since I started Finding Dee in 2017, the strip has been in black and white. This has been the general status quo for years, except for whenever it’s not. Which is to say, that while the strip is usually black and white, I really DO enjoy playing with that idea from time to time in order to make a fun point.
What this means is the occasional strip that incorporates either a spot color throughout to punch a joke or a reference, or even an entire panel colored to reinforce an idea.
Here, the use of blue and pink helps to make it clear that Toon Me is shooting out the trans flag colors like a violent Care Bear Stare. The visual wouldn’t have made any sense without the color here.
And in the above panel, the gag wouldn’t have really worked at all without using a touch of bright orange. Just DESCRIBING a vivid color is never going to work as well. And in cases like this, I feel like the rest of the strip being in black and white makes the use of orange here even funnier. It’s similar in the panel below, where the color helps sell the joke.
In the above two, it’s there for emphasis. They didn’t require color, but the color enhances the ideas that some panels here have weird dream imagery.
It’s a similar application to the panel below, where the gag still works in black and white, but the use of blue draws the eye and helps reinforce that the new character is a literal sketch.
Color can also be used to push a REFERENCE. For Example, Lightsabers just look better if they’re glowing in COLOR. The gag would have still worked in black and white, but it works BETTER with some color.
Some of these, in truth, would not work nearly as well if the entire strip were in color, for sure. (And some of them will get to prove that in the color collections. lol) BUT, for a comic that’s normally in black and white, that occasional punch is very eye-catching.
And sometimes, the color… or lack thereof… is important for making the distinction between the “reality” of the strip in contrast to whatever it is I’m parodying.
Frank Miller’s SIN CITY is well known for being a black and white comic that only occasionally uses spot color. So, for this strip, since the narration makes the point of emphasizing the dark, gritty nature of the gag, the final panel being in very bright colors, punches the gag well.
The reverse serves well in the homage to Mike Mignola’s HELLBOY, a comic with a very well-defined color style that I only break for the one panel set in the strip’s normal “reality”.
The point of all of this is to say that I really don’t like to color, and I can come up with all SORTS of reasons to make that sound pretentious and intentional. ;)
GREAT column!