There's some great digital illustrations on the internet. How do you like the terrific example above by Jorge Gutierrez, riffing off a character by Gabe Swarr? Web comics are a different matter. There's some first rate artists and storytellers doing web comics, but at least half of them are still struggling with finding color schemes that work on the computer screen.
The horrible fact is, that the same saturated, digital color that makes illustration look good on screens can be lethal to long-format, comic book-style storytelling.
I envy the old print media cartoonists. Newspapers and comics couldn't reproduce saturated color, so everybody was forced to use something more subdued. It was lucky for them, because faded color didn't compete with the drawings the way saturated color does.
The early days of digital coloring (before Cochran and Gladstone figured out how to do it right) produced some hideous efforts. Here (above) the color dominates the page, not the story, and the graded background give Scrooge's silhouette an eerie glow. Yuck! Some newspaper strips are still colored this way.
A number of digital cartoonists have experimented with updated versions of the old pulp color, including Gene Hole, who did this picture. What do you think? I prefer the older way, though it looks a little old fashioned now.
Some cartoonists darken the lines so the brighter colors won't dominate the characters, and that seems to help.
In my opinion textured backgrounds seem to work for digital storytelling, but not everyone agrees.
John K's color style looks like it would work great for web comics. If ever John ever does a comic just for the internet, and can figure out a way to monetize it, he'll clean up.
In addition to those already credited, thanks to Katie Rice, Luke Cormican, Michael Sporn and Bill Peckmann.
