Spike and Suzy
The other day my 8 year old son received a comic book. It's one of a series called 'Suske en Wiske' (aka 'Spike and Suzy' or 'Willy and Wanda'). It's quite famous in the Netherlands. I actually grew up with these comic books. I still own a pile of them.
When I saw it, I was struck how the colors have changed since I was a kid. The style has remained practically unaltered, but boy have the colors come a long way...
I took out an old copy from my closet and compared it to the recent one. There's a 30 year gap between the two. Here they are, the old one on top.
The new colors are much more elaborate, much better structured. And they introduced the effects of lighting into the pictures. These days they use a lot more grey. But paradoxally this leads to clearer, brighter colors. In the old days many colors were competing to catch the eye of the reader. But no more. That makes makes for a much more tranquil overall image with just a few spots of color attracting attention.
And look at how the figures nowadays become much darker in dimmed light and dark spaces. It makes the spatial arrangement much easier to grasp.
All in all the design team did a great job. I'm impressed. So huge a difference while still preserving the style of the comic is quite a feat.
