Black and White Version of 102 Page Graphic Novel printed on both sides of page

I was hoping for exactly what I received a black and white version of a graphic novel. It seems to be exactly the same artwork but with the colors removed. There is a lot of heavy black but that’s okay with me. If I want to darken the black, I can always use my coloring pencils over it.

Additionally, there are areas that look more like gray tone water color that would be hard to color using traditional methods. I’ve recently learned how to use coloring pencils for gray scale images and that is what I will do with these images.

What I really appreciate is that I can now color my characters in traditional ways or pick my own color palette and go for it. In the past, I’ve tried drawing some of my favorite characters but in the end, I wasn’t happy with the result. This book will be great for my use.

I think it’s a fantastic idea for publishing companies to pull out their classics from the archive and give us the opportunity to color. I hope to see more coloring books from graphic novels in the near future.

I will provide more details below for anyone interested in the nuts and bolts, but here is an overview of what I found in this coloring book:

102 pages of black and white graphic novel plus title page
Design printed on both sides of page
Paper is heavyweight and non-perforated
Designs merge into the binding
Binding is both sewn and glued
All markers (alcohol and water) and India ink pens bleed through the page
Gel pens leave a shadow of color on the reverse side
Coloring pencils work fantastic with this paper

The designs are printed on both sides of the white, heavyweight, non-perforated page. I really didn’t expect anything other than this as it follows the format of a graphic novel. The binding is glued and sewn which makes it really sturdy but almost impossible to remove pages from the book. I don’t intend to do so anyway, so no problem for me.

The designs merge into the binding and some of the designs spread across the binding onto two pages. I was able to get the book to lay fairly flat but it took some effort to crease the spine enough. As I said before, the binding is really sturdy in this book.

I test a large variety of coloring medium on my books. I’ll list those I used for this book in the comments section below. Here is what I found:

Alcohol and water-based markers and India ink pens bleed through the page and will ruin the designs on the backside of the page. Gel pens leave a shadow of color that is easily seen on the reverse of the page. In the end, I can only recommend coloring pencils for this book and those I recommend highly. My soft lead pencils went on thick and I was able to blend them really easily. My hard lead pencils went on sharp and are perfect for the tiny spots in the designs.