Blacknwhitecomics 20 Comics -

A Victorian horror about Jack the Ripper. Campbell’s scratchy, ethereal pen work creates a London that feels foggy, wet, and haunted. The lack of color forces you to focus on the labyrinthine architecture and the dread in the characters' eyes.

A sketchy, ink-wash nightmare about Jack the Ripper. The lack of color creates a historical fog. Campbell’s loose lines make the violence feel like a half-remembered nightmare, which is far more effective than gore. blacknwhitecomics 20 comics

A “slow” comic about a man trapped in a stone body. Chadwick’s photorealistic pencil work loses nothing in the absence of color. In fact, the gray tones make the protagonist’s stone skin feel heavier and more tragic. A Victorian horror about Jack the Ripper

While later issues introduced color, the early black-and-white run of Zot! is a love letter to cinematic framing. McCloud (author of Understanding Comics) uses B&W to jump between a realistic Earth and a futuristic utopia, using tone to define universes. The zombie apocalypse is morally grey, but the

A historical epic set in Weimar Germany. Lutes uses varying line weights to distinguish the bustling cabarets from the empty political halls. It is one of the most elegant uses of cross-hatching to depict 1930s architecture.

The zombie apocalypse is morally grey, but the art is stark black and white. Adlard’s decision to keep the book B&W (despite the colored TV show) ensures that the gore is artistic rather than gratuitous, and the shadows are always hiding the next threat.