#comic appreciation

I came into this series not expecting much, since (at least in my experience at least) it's not really talked about much but holy shit! I did not expect how stunning it would be. Look at that pic above! Look at the dreamy, almost watercoloury way its inked. It's gorgeous! The art by

Bernie Wrightson in this run is stunning in it's own right, but Bill Wray's colouring just elevates it so much

But the reason I'm so obsessed with the colouring isn't just because it's pretty. It's because it's functional.

The basic plot is that Batman is kidnapped by Deacon Blackfire (in his first appearance!) and slowly brainwashed through torture, starvation and repeated drugging.

And look at the way Batman drawn and coloured here compared to Blackfire on the left:

See how mottled he is compared to Blackfire's stark black and simple colouring? It's such a simple way to emphasise the power imbalance, and the way Batman is already starting to fall apart.

And it gets worse as his mental state worsens!

The colour is literally being leached from him. Here's him two pages before he's given the dose of mystery drugs that finally break him:

And her he is the page before:

And then, when he finally loses all his mind?

After that, the colours become sort of a motif. Bright blues, greens and -especially - pink mean hallucinations and madness (here it's contrasted with grey representing reality).

And red and orange mean violence and death.

(You can also see the mottling coming back here too as Bruce realises what he's been a part of and starts breaking again mentally).

Anyway I'm gonna show you two of my favourite little examples of colour use in The Cult:

Here's Blackfire letting his cool facade slip a little to reveal the craxy underneath:

Here's Bruce coming out of a nightmare after leaving Gotham. Look at the stark difference between Bruce's dreams and reality now that he's free of the influence of Blackfire's drugs: