[ VIZ x I'm the Grim Reaper ] Blog 3 - Color (Patreon)

The first issue we came across is VIZ expressed to me that they wanted me to convert the comic to black and white, because their entire lineup is black and white. It's not really a matter of cost with the ink, it's that my comic would stick out like a sore thumb amongst all the screentoned manga- Especially since my comic is expected to sit right on the shelf next to comics like Tokyo Ghoul and BLEACH.

I understood the concern, but also told them that a print version should be a definitive version. There will be a lot of people who read the WEBTOON who want a physical version, and it would be massively disappointing to buy a version in black and white, which to a lot of people is viewed as a "downgrade" (Manga often advertise full color pages as a bonus special event- Imagine a full book of it!)

We had a bit of discussion of just retaining a few splotches of color to align more with the canvas version, and I was more amicable to the idea, but this also would require a lot of time-consuming edits. Also, I didn't draw the current version of ITGR with value scales in mind, so I would probably have to recolor a lot of things in black and white. This part is kind of hard to communicate, but color can help the human eye distinguish things, and sometimes if an artist works in color they forget to distinguish values as well (Which I surely do a lot because I can't keep my mind on all these different artistic aspects when I have a fire under my ass to release weekly)

I am unsure if the discussion is over or not, but I think we're going to keep it in color. It'll definitely be viewed as an "other" compared to the manga it'll be placed beside, but I think it would always be that way because of the western influences in my anime style. It's not going to fool anyone- People who are well-versed in manga will know it's drawn by an American, even if it's black and white. People are really good at picking up on stylistic consistencies within cultures lol.