Colour in Black Canary

Colour is a complicated matter in that it varies in meaning from culture to culture, and has different functions based on medium – it’s symbolic in literature, not being seen but read (Yellow sweater or wallpaper a), and tonal in art, some paintings being rendered in just one hue, or certain colours popping out for certain effect. In comics, colour has both functions of symbolism and tone. However the artists of comics choose to use it varies, but it’s there.

In the case of Black Canary, colour is used in tandem with the art to say things where dialogue and sound effects don’t.

Colour in BC is meant to be tonal – it’s used heavily with one hue, primarily (the inclusion of another is meant to create a stark contrast), and to set time. In Black Canary, colour is used less symbolically than it is tonally, technically, and more powerfully.

Whole pages will be set in one hue, varying mostly in tints and shades, typically varying in one or two colours.

As part of the DCYou, a marketing move likely to capture newer readers, Black Canary take a step away not just from the typical save-the-world or street level crime, spandex, Kevlar, and all-star team-ups, but the colour and colouring style as well. It deviates from realistic colour choices, minor shifts in hues and semi-realistic shading and opts for a sharper, starker, and face-punching colour style that is loud, a play on the character and the story.

The most notable use of colour used in the extreme would be Dinah’s Canary Cry.

In the moments where she (and later Bo Maeve) use the iconic move, colour changes. Instead of making use of sound effects (all of which vary on the magnitude and direction of the cry), Black Canary’s colourist makes use of blindingly loud colours – white and hot pink.

White is used instead for lines. More specifically it’s for the sound waves, something typically done on top with added transparency or a glow to subtly blend it into the art, but in the new Canary book it’s part of the lines – sharp and crisp, creating a stark contrast, and likely a play on the idea of white noise – unnerving, uncomfortable, and piercing to the ears, leaving an unsavory, unpleasant, painful ringing in ones ears for quite some time after.

Hot pink is an uncommon colour in nature. The comic already makes use of putting several sequences into a single hue with minor variations or pairing it with another for contrast, but they remain somewhat natural, at least within context – yellow lights at sunset, driving through the desert, deep blue for lights out at a concert, so on. Throughout the story as well, the palette never seems to deviate too far from either gently warm or freezing cold hues. Pink, a hot pink, no less, breaks pattern, and for the sake of drama, it’s only ever used in special instances, making it stand out and giving it more power on the page.

Overall all the colours are striking, likely able to catch a person's eye from quite a distance away, the covers utilizing the same loudness, which helps the book scream off the shelves appropriately.