The Color of Paper: Representing Race in the Comics Medium

Gavaler, Chris

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Gavaler, Chris. The Color of Paper: Representing race in the comics medium. Studies in Comics and Cartoons. Columbus: Ohio State Univ. Press, 2026.
Added by: joachim (03/08/2025, 16:08) Last edited by: joachim (21/02/2026, 19:29)

Resource type: Book
Language: en: English
Published
ID no. (ISBN etc.): 978-0-8142-1604-0
BibTeX citation key: Gavaler2026
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Categories: General
Keywords: Color, Empirical research, Ethnicity, Materiality, Reception, USA
Creators: Gavaler
Publisher: Ohio State Univ. Press (Columbus)

Views: 11/445

Attachments

URLs https://www.jstor.org/stable/jj.38979715

Abstract

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.

Contents

List of Illustrations

Introduction: Judging Race

Part 1    Backgrounds
Chapter 1     Marking Surfaces
Chapter 2     Framing Whiteness
Chapter 3     Seeing Skin

Part 2     Languages
Chapter 4     Reading and Observing
Chapter 5     Reading and Observing Race

Part 3    Colors
Chapter 6     Coloring Theory
Chapter 7     Removing Color
Chapter 8     Adding Color

Part 4    Bodies
Chapter 9     Embodying Images
Chapter 10     Othering Spaces

Conclusion: Representing Race

Acknowledgments
Appendix: Answering Questions about Drawings of People
Works Cited
Index

Added by: joachim Last edited by: joachim