The Color of Paper

Chris Gavaler

ISBN 10: 0814259707 / ISBN 13: 9780814259702

Editore: Ohio State University Press, US, 2026

Codice articolo LU-9780814259702

Riassunto:

How does a comics reader understand that a certain race is assigned to a character? In The Color of Paper, Chris Gavaler establishes a formal approach for analyzing racial representations in comics, demonstrating that the ink-on-paper materiality of comics reveals the illogic of metaphorical colors as racial categorizations. Analyzing images by a wide range of comics artists and colorists, including Emilee Denich, Jaime Hernandez, George Herriman, Jack Kirby, and Ben Passmore, Gavaler goes beyond pigment and gradient to explore the formal and material elements of page backgrounds and the negative space of gutters that literally frame race in comics. He surveys major and independent publishers to assess how industry trends and evolving coloring techniques affect racial representation. And, breaking from subjective and overgeneralized analytical norms, Gavaler grounds his analysis in quantitative research on viewers’ responses. The centuries-old relationships between drawn racial markers and assumptions about their meanings continue in a white-dominated culture that benefits from and therefore preserves illusions of their natural accuracy. Denaturalizing racial depictions through formal visual analysis potentially alters racial thinking in ways that extend beyond works on paper and into daily lives.

Informazioni sull'autore:

Chris Gavaler is Professor of English at Washington and Lee University, comics editor of Shenandoah magazine, and series editor of Bloomsbury Comics Studies. He is the author of The Comics Form, Superhero Comics, and On the Origin of Superheroes. His coauthored books include Revising Reality and Superhero Thought Experiments, with Nathaniel Goldberg, and Creating Comics, with Leigh Ann Beavers.

Dati bibliografici

Titolo: The Color of Paper
Casa editrice: Ohio State University Press, US
Data di pubblicazione: 2026
Legatura: Paperback
Condizione: New