Phil Smith
Daily Sketch Challenge 13/11/23: Music Meister
First seen in the animated series Batman: The Brave and the Bold. Like all good comic-book villains his colour scheme's all secondary colours.
#dailysketchchallenge #musicmeister
Nov 14, 2023 at 9:48pmWeb
Show threadjaeNov 14, 2023
@ununseptimus I love the fact that secondary colors = villain and has since the beginning.
Show threadPhil SmithNov 16, 2023

@jae There are exceptions, of course: The Hulk -- but then he's sort of a monster, so the green skin and purple pants works.

Then there's the Green Arrow, Green Lantern. I guess they get a pass since the colour's in the name... but otherwise it's pretty solid. The Joker and Lex Luthor's warsuit, particularly.

Show threadjaeNov 16, 2023

@ununseptimus and of course it’s all a by-product of the four color process. Heroes need to pop off the page, and ended up being mostly solid process colors. The fact that you can shorthand the US flag in process colors (and white, or the absence of color) doesn’t hurt.

And since villains can’t look like heroes: halftones were the easy answer. Less page time, harder to process, obviously different.

Technical limitations leading directly to visual identity of an entire age of comics!