The Bolts

Was the suspense killing you? Of course it was.

So why in the wide world of sports have I got color artwork for my black and white comic, you say?

I'm so glad you asked.

The thing is, after I submitted the thing to Zuda I started to worry that I was handicapping my chances in the contest by submitting a black and white comic. Even though it was conceived as black and white from the beginning, I thought maybe the addition of bright shining rainbows of color might buy me a few extra votes.

Oh yes, I'm a shameless vote whore.

So, while I waited to hear back from Zuda I frantically colored in my comic.

I tried coloring it with bright in-your-face colors.






















I tried it in subdued earth tones.
























I tried it in grayscale.
























I tried it with old-timey 4-color printing effects.
























Finally, I settled on a combination of grayscale on a colored background with highlights and a subtle dot matrix screen.
























When, miracle of miracles, I received the hallowed e-mail from Zuda informing me that my comic had been selected for the January contest, I proudly sent in my new pages bursting with joyous color.










...

But the editors preferred the black and white version.

And thank the holy tortoise (and his bouncing rubber ball of mercy) for the wisdom and impeccable taste of editors everywhere!

I think it does indeed work better in black and white.

Plus, coloring, I have discovered, is a huge time-consuming pain in the USS Enterprise. It is an art in and of itself, and one at which I don't particularly excel. So I'm quite relieved that I can remain focused on scratching out my millions of little lines in not-so-glorious black and white.

Keep it simple, stupid.

I'm totally blaming the zudaluminati if I don't win though. :)