I prefer color, but some stuff would probably work well in b&w, like Batman or Hellblazer.

When DC was reprinting Moore and Bissette’s Swamp Thing as an Essential Vertigo title in black and white it looked fabulous. It was on that nice thick semigloss paper Vertigo was using at the time and it just popped off the page and the detail in Bissette and Totleiben’s art was something to behold. I’d really love to see a b&w omnibus of the run on simlar paper.

That is more or less how I feel. Black & white superhero comics just don't feel the same to me. I treat the Showcases as disposable reading material, but often look to give them away when I am done with them.

Yeah, Stan Lee, John Romita, and Jim Mooney had a crazy idea to do a Spider-Man Film Noir on the printed page, and that was the late 60's Spectacular Spider-Man #1. The art looked amazing - the shading was beyond anything I've ever seen in comics (prior to this century). Romita and Mooney did a phenomenal job.

And even with that it just didn't look right for Spider-Man. It might work for Batman and a few other characters, but for Spider-Man it was a case of close, but no cigar. The art WAS fantastic, but it didn't fit Spider-Man

So take away the shading done just for black & white and what do you have? A lot of white with some black. No gray. No variance.

Comics intended to be in color just don't look right in black & white.

But that Specacular Spider-Man from the late 60's did look great, and the black & white (with lots of gray) was effective and dramatic - just not right for Spidey.

So I now have all three of the Neal Adams Batman collections (in hardcover, Vol 3 came in last week), and I'm halfway through the 2nd volume. Great stuff!

And I just ordered the first Gerry Conway collection. I'm looking forward to reading that one, too.




I'll get the other two Gerry Conway collections soon. I'm really enjoying this era for Batman (late 60's to mid 80's).

By the way, I love the re-coloring of the Neal Adams Batman books. They look great!

He re-colored Superman VS Muhammad Ali, too, and that looks great as well.

I am reading Vol 1 of Batman and the Outsiders now. I'm up through issue #7. That is a GREAT comic. Really good stories and fantastic art. Aparo inking his own pencils - I love it!

I just ordered Vol 2, and will get Vol 3 soon.