>>336
If you want my opinion, that page seems like standard colouring, not sure why you like it so much.

But on the subject of colour in manga, colour's always a nice addition (assuming that it's good, as you say) and I think a lot of manga would benefit from it. That being said, I would not trade the cheaper price just to have pretty colours for everything.

Also, I think there are a select few mangaka whose works just won't have the same charm if coloured. To name a few, Matsumoto Jiro's sketchiness, Matsumoto Taiyou's jaggedy lines, or Iou Kuroda's thick black lines would probably not work as well when in a coloured context.

Just to show you a few examples of what I mean. Here is a picture of the climax scene from Summer in Andalusia (one of the chapters in Nasu, by Iou Kuroda).

>>340
Now here's that exact same scene in the anime adaptation.

They tried to copy the original sketchiness of the manga but the entire impact failed (to me, at least) due to the black lines now having to compete with the much more eye-catching colours.

Also, I think most manga don't actually need colouring mainly because of their content and style. In my opinion, colour is best used when the original drawing itself already exudes a sense of vibrance or exuberance.

Manga like Holyland, 20th century boys, or Angel Densetsu are examples of works that are already fine enough as it is because their tone and atmosphere is subdued/serious/grim (yes, I know Angel Densetsu is a comedy) and using b&w alone already fits that feel.

On the other hand, playful stuff like One Piece, Jojo, Yotsuba, or pic related are fucking awesome when coloured.

Oh, and one last thing to add. I think the "texture" of the colour can mean more than the color itself. I have no idea if texture's the correct term for it but that quality that sets apart stuff like watercolour paintings from oil paintings.

I think some of the thick, charcoal-like sketch drawing that Chiba Tetsuya did in Ashita no Joe transferred pretty well in anime because Dezaki adopted the use of pastel colouring.

Great thread topic by the way. This is making me realize I have opinions about things I hadn't even considered before. I'm going to be mulling over this subject for awhile now.

I don't think color is inherently better or worse than black and white. Sometimes you see coloring that just doesn't mesh with an artist's aesthetic, like the aforementioned WSJ stuff, which can be off-putting, but there's no set rule.

For me, though, B&W drawings occupy a higher plane of being. The lack of color results in a focus on the other aspects of the drawing: the linework, the composition, etc. Things are somewhat abstracted from reality, and intensified.

Sorry it took me so long to reply.

>>339

>that page seems like standard colouring, not sure why you like it so much

You might be right but I think there are a few things that make it much better than 'standard' coloring.
First of all we have the colors themselves. They are muted and thanks to it they look very ... well, realistic? The pallete that is usually used to color manga is much brighter and it sometimes just looks out of place (from what I've seen of course).
The other things that usually don't look very well in colored manga are highlights and shadowing. Again, both look great in these 4 koma. I feel that usually the attention to detail is traded for color but you've got both here - what's not to love?

>Also, I think there are a select few mangaka whose works just won't have the same charm if coloured.

That goes without saying, really. Since manga is black and white some (or to be more precise - good) mangaka develop style that benefits from it.

>>341

Good example. It's not that they have done poor job with the adaptation. Rather than that it was probably impossible to adapt this art style in the first place. There are lots of other examples.

Then again, it's not always the case, even if you'd think it is. I was 100% certain that Matsumoto Taiyo's style would be lost in trasition but Tekkon Kinkreet's adaptation proved me wrong. The movie managed to do what I deemed to be impossible: it didn't lose the Matsumoto-touch and overall feel and just plain looked good.

>>342

That reminds me, 20th Century Boys also had some colored pages. If I recall correctly they looked pretty bad. Same goes for other manga drawn by Urasawa (for example Pluto). This is another example of a manga where coloring itself is not the issue, it's the quality of coloring that's the real problem. I (vaguely) recall it as downright sloppy.

>>342

>On the other hand, playful stuff like One Piece, Jojo, Yotsuba, or pic related are fucking awesome when coloured.

I wonder if there really is a corelation between genre and coloring. As you mentioned, serious, complex manga might be better left alone while cheerful slice of life series might benefit from coloring. The calm, muted colors do a very good job of capturing the 'Hidamari Sketch spirit'. To be perfectly honest I think SHAFT has overdone the 'colorfulness' in Hoshimittsu (i.e. it was too bright). //Fortunately, my laptop is really, really old (so old that I can forget about trying to watch high quality rips) and the backlighting doesn't work anymore. Thanks to it, it didn't bother me that much.//

Now I kinda want to see a colored chapter of Yotsubato! (properly colored).

>>344

>I don't think color is inherently better or worse than black and white.

The thing is that's what I used to belive. I've seen so many examples of bad coloring that I just began to believe that there's no way it can be done right.

>For me, though, B&W drawings occupy a higher plane of being. The lack of color results in a focus on the other aspects of the drawing: the linework, the composition, etc. Things are somewhat abstracted from reality, and intensified.

Exactly my opinion. It takes much more skill to draw something that plain looks good if you don't use colors, as all your technical shortcomings are mercilessly exposed.

>>343

>Great thread topic by the way. This is making me realize I have opinions about things I hadn't even considered before. I'm going to be mulling over this subject for awhile now.

Thanks. For a few weeks I also wanted to create another thread about music that goes well with manga but I'm a lazy man and it will probably take a longer while.

I think color goes well with most art styles used in manga, and even just somewhat lazy anime-style coloring is usually a plus.
And yes, in principle I would be willing to wait longer for the releases, but that might also mean that the artist would end up releasing less manga in his lifetime (unless he takes on several projects simultaneously), which would be a shame.

Depends on the coloring job. A lot of mangaka really suck at coloring. A lot of comic artists in general actually do. I noticed a lot of artists will either make everything too washed out or their pages will look too tacky from having so many different colors and often lack a good atmosphere. With manga, color doesn't work well since there are usually so many shortcuts involved, that a decent coloring job becomes pretty hard to do. Plus it's so time consuming to color, most manga are about releasing as fast as they can.

But, there are some good coloring jobs out there. Color can certainly add an atmosphere that greyscale couldn't ever possibly mimic, but it's rare to come across pages of any comic (western or eastern) that does a smooth and good job of coloring.

>>407
I wouldn't say it's lazy coloring, simple color actually works quite well for this sort of thing. Its when you start adding in every single color in real life onto a comic page that it begins to look like a clusterfuck.

Depends on the overall style the artist is going for and how well they execute it, I think. Sometimes less is more.

>>498
What manga is that?

>>515
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot:_Super_Color_Comic

>>499
Woah, weird, that looks like Letter Bee, and Lag is there, but it's not...wtf?

>>517
It's a short story by the same mangaka that made Letter Bee. It's only natural it would look similar.