Decision: FaLLEN Chapter 15 Will Be In Color, LTR (Patreon)

I wanted to thank everyone who gave me their thoughts on FaLLEN being either black and white or a color comic. I posted to a ton of groups and sites and got A LOT of feedback. Here's the breakdown of that feedback:

Black and White vs Color: People were very split on this issue. However, there were many people who said they would not even bother to read a black and white comic, but many black and white fans said they would also read color.

Right to Left vs Left to Right: People were much more vocal about THIS issue. I actually got angry, belittling comments about having the comic in Right To Left (I usually did not preface the threads with the fact that this comic was first published in Japan). People felt VERY strongly that an English comic should be left to right and that the word balloons should be less vertical and more appropriate for a left and right format. This response surprised me and is really what made me rethink some things.

In short, there was slightly more support for a color comic by a variety of people (anime fans and Western comics fans, and of course webcomics fans), and people who supported black and white were typically manga fans or older comic readers who were used to black and white from "the good ol' days of indies comics."

I have looked at the thumbnails and I feel like Chapter 15 would be an interesting chapter to start in color. It has a lot of heavy mood shifts and night scenes that could benefit from a splash of color, and a LOT of scenes showing a cathedral, and if I could possibly reduce some drawing time with that, I'd love to try doing this digitally and in color, and in left to right format. 

This is going to be a trial. I am testing the format and I want to see if I generate more new readers and more buzz online, get more clicks, etc. If I don't see an increase in activity or readership, like, at all, I will likely go back to the old format, right to left, in black and white and just tone it digitally. By then, all my art supplies will have arrived in the US, anyway. If I end up going back to RtL and black and white, I'll go back and redo this chapter for the print version. Should be relatively easy since the lineart and colors will all be on separate layers... but we'll see how the trial goes.

I know this isn't going to please some of you, but I really need to increase my readership while covid is restricting convention activity. I'm going to be trying a lot of new things and this is going to be an experiment. It may not be a permanent change, but this next chapter is kind of perfect for a test run in that it has action scenes with the Guardians as well as emotional scenes with the girls in their normal attire and every character is in the chapter. Like, EVERY character.

I hope you can be understanding even if you don't like this decision. On the plus side, I will be able to do more twitch streams of me working, and progress images will be higher quality in general. If this ends up being a special one-time color chapter, that's fine too. 

Thanks to everyone who has been supporting me on Patreon. You know my life has been pretty crazy these past few years...

Regards,

Ogawa Burukku