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Topic: Spider-man costume -red and black? (Topic Closed Topic Closed) Post ReplyPost New Topic
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John Byrne
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Grumpy Old Guy

Joined: 11 May 2005
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Posted: 19 September 2007 at 9:09am | IP Logged | 1  

As I recall, yes.

And it was more than the color that was poorly served in the "translation". I designed the outfit with an open front, neck to belt, with a "strap" across the pecs to hold the sides together. Somehow, this became a square cut out on the tummy. People still ask me what that was all about!
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Andy Mokler
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Posted: 19 September 2007 at 2:38pm | IP Logged | 2  

I always thought this type of approach to a black outfit was the best way to avoid any "controversy" as to what color it actually is.  I guess it doesn't work well with patent leather but overall, it screams black more than other methods.

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Greg Reeves
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Posted: 19 September 2007 at 5:19pm | IP Logged | 3  

Thank you Andy, that's a perfect example of a black costume.  If it's truly black, it absorbs all light, and black is what's reflected.  As for Thanos' comments (snarky as f'in hell, by the way!), regardless of how those masters drew the outfit, the colorist opted to make the uniform blue (dark blue in fact, suggesting the black are shadows not illuminated by ambient light) and the only example of a black uniform is the original X-Men uniform in the bottom left panel.  The only way that Cyclops' costume is black (besides somebody saying it is) is if in EVERY picture we see of him, he's illuminated by blue light (which is still a cheat, since the light would be absorbed rather than reflected anyway).  If the costume is a shiny black material, then we'd see highlights in the color of the light surrounding the character.  Coloring highlights in black hair with blue doesn't suggest the hair is blue (even though that is what would happen in real life) because we've all accepted the comic book method of coloring black hair highlights with blue.  As JB mentioned, though, the average person unfamiliar with comics thinks black hair IS blue in comics.  They're not wrong in their observation, they just haven't gotten used to the comic book method.
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Brian Mayer
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Posted: 19 September 2007 at 5:32pm | IP Logged | 4  

Starting to read comics as a kid, I teally didn't understand what artists were trying to do.  So I grew up with "blue" costumes.  I understand how it is supposed to work and be black, but the little kid in me keeps screaming "blue" over and over, and I end up giving in to him.
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Wallace Sellars
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Posted: 19 September 2007 at 6:01pm | IP Logged | 5  

I still can't understand how some people thought JB's Northstar and Aurora had white hair!
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John Byrne
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Posted: 20 September 2007 at 6:11am | IP Logged | 6  

I always thought this type of approach to a black outfit was the best way to avoid any "controversy" as to what color it actually is.

••

But, you know, all it would take is one shot of Wonder Man with blue highlights, and you would find people insisting his outfit is blue. It's damn near pathological.

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Flavio Sapha
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Posted: 20 September 2007 at 6:31am | IP Logged | 7  

I´ll just take a moment to think about when was the last time a comic cover featured a flying car knocking down a gigantic super-hero...
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Craig Markley
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Posted: 20 September 2007 at 9:38am | IP Logged | 8  

I bought that issue of Champions off the rack as a kid.  I always thought the black were shadows like on the gloves and the blue portion as the actual color of his outfit.  I always thought Black Widow's and Black Panther's outfits as black but for some reason not Black Goliath.
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Daniel Gillotte
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Posted: 20 September 2007 at 9:52am | IP Logged | 9  

I was thinking about this last night (which is kind of sad, probably...)

We are so trained with comic art that black is a shadow and that white is highlight that the blue highlight thing confuses people. I am wearing black pants, and even if I shine a flashlight on them, they don't EVER get blue highlights. The hair thing sort of works because we "know" that Conan and Superman don't have blue hair (well most of us do, at least...) But Craig's demonstration above seems like the way a lot of us have historically seen the blue black thing. It seems to make sense somehow that a lot of heroes would wear blue costumes, I guess.
Maybe I"m stupid, but I think that I have always thought that Aurora and Jean had so-me funky bi-color hair or that it was silver and black or something. This seems like a dumb thing to think, but it is how I interpreted their hair.

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John Byrne
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Grumpy Old Guy

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Posted: 20 September 2007 at 10:10am | IP Logged | 10  

I always thought Black Widow's and Black Panther's outfits as black but for some reason not Black Goliath.

••

This is the thing I find most perplexing. We could have a lineup of characters -- Black Goliath, Black Widow, Black Bolt, Black Panther, and even tho their costumes are shaded and colored exactly the same way, a random selection of fans would call off their hues as blue, black, blue and black.

Why? What is the "code" that tells someone the Black Widow's costume is black while at the same time telling them that Black Bolt's is blue? Sure -- black widow spiders are black, but if Black Bolt's costume is blue, and he's not of Sub-Saharan African descent, what the heck does the "Black" in his name refer to?

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Matt Hawes
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Posted: 20 September 2007 at 10:19am | IP Logged | 11  

Andy, Greg, is Wonder Man wearing black or blue in this pic?:



Edited by Matt Hawes on 20 September 2007 at 10:20am
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Matt Hawes
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Posted: 20 September 2007 at 10:25am | IP Logged | 12  

I guarantee you that nearly any picture of a superhero character that was drawn originally with an all-black, no highlights outfit has at some point been crawn with highlights that were colored blue.

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