Comics UK

I've mentioned this before - about having colour in the Commando comics but last week I came across issues 1 and 2 of Football Picture Story Monthly and was impressed with the way they used a single colour using different tones. Surely the same could be done with Commando using a green tone? TV went to colour in 1969 and newspapers went to colour printing in the 1990s. Here are some scans of the Football Monthlies plus the covers in case they aren't in the gallery (when will we see the gallery again BTW?)

If you ask me that colouring looks pretty cheesy and was probably only used as an extra way to differentiate teams. Commando is so much better for not having colour and as it's 50% reprint half the art they are using was never intended to be coloured.

That red spot colour is the same as that used in the Beano and Dandy comic libraries. I agree though that it wouldn't suit Commando.

I can't see how spot colour would help Commando in any way. The strips are drawn for a balance of black and white and have always worked perfectly like that.

If it did shift to colour, then it'd have to be a proper full colour job by professional colourists (in the style of American comics) or nothing imho. But black and white is fine, and is a legitimate format for comics.

Incidentally, the reasoning about colour being used in other media (TV etc) was why Buster went full colour (with its horrible spot colour on some pages) and it didn't help that one iota.

Commando works fine in black and white, probably because so many are people are familiar with WW2 through endless archive b/w documentary film.

I agree with Lew that this subject should be either b/w or full colour and not inbetween.

Way back when the Football libraries (FBLs) came out, I got both Commando and the Football libraries. And while the FBLs worked with the spot colour, it was only due to the fact that they mostly had less detail in the panels IIRC. I didn't even notice the spot colour as I was already used to it in Victor, Warlord etc, so for me it was normal to have it.

But at the same time (1989/90), the two Commando Annuals came out and they were in full colour and they were glorious to behold, but expensive in comparison to the monthly Commandos.

In my own roundabout way, I am agreeing with Lew and Rab. For Commando, it is either all or nothing. And after seeing how full-colour does not seem to have done any other comics a great favour, can we not keep Commando as the last man standing of how a classic British comic should look?