Minorities and Coloring Choices

[Shellhead]

As recently as the 70's, minority characters in comic books were sometimes depicted with strange skin colors. The Yellow Claw was, well, yellow, while Shang-Chi was orange. I think that T'Challa was depicted as kind of a dark gray color back in the 60's, and I'm not talking about his costume. Even native american characters like Red Wolf were a little too red, imo.

Were these strange color choices due to limitations of the printing process at that time? Or was there some bigotry at work? At any point, did the technology advance far enough to achieve realistic coloring while tradition kept these characters with the strange colors?

[JKCarrier]

Were these strange color choices due to limitations of the printing process at that time?

Pretty much, yeah.

At any point, did the technology advance far enough to achieve realistic coloring while tradition kept these characters with the strange colors?

I wouldn't be surprised if that happened, although I can't think of any examples offhand.

[Reptisaurus!]

I actually ran into this last night whilst reading some new (to me) Fox/Kane Atom comics. There's an adopted Korean War Orphan, who's (of course) vitally important to stopping the rampaging super-villain. And she's just so dang yellow! I'm sure that we'd be up and arms if this comic came out today... And rightfully so.

[shaxper]

I can't speak for other minorities in the comics but, regarding asian depictions, keep in mind that this was the same industry that villianized the Japanese in the 1940s because, during the war, those were the kinds of villains that Americans wanted to see. I'd assume that many of the artistists and colorists working in the '60s and '70s had either been working back in the '40s or had used such works as a basis/influence for what they were doing. I think it would be easy for ethnic stereotypes like yellow skin to eventually become the norm without any further offense being intended. People just got used to the idea that Asians were supposed to be drawn like that.

Anyway, that's just a theory.

[MichikoS]

Once and for all, everybody: Asian people are NOT yellow. We are brown, peach, white, off-white and black, but no Asian I have ever met is yellow.

Comic book skin colors have nothing to do with "limitations of the printing process." They have to do with stereotypes and a sloppy kind of visual shorthand in our culture.

Michi

[T GUy]

As recently as the 70's, minority characters in comic books were sometimes depicted with strange skin colors. The Yellow Claw was, well, yellow, while Shang-Chi was orange.

I recall (from memories from about five years ago, so don't take this to a witness stand) that a letters page in Captain America in 1973 dealt with this: the decision was to colour the Yellow Claw his traditional yellow and the other Asian characters as near realistically as the colouring process of four-cloour comics allowed while maintaining a difference between the whites and Asians. The admission was also made that realism, again taking into account the colouring process, would end up with these two racial groups being coloured identically. Shang-Chi's semi-orange colouring was also mentioned.

The British-born Chinese I've met at work and seen floating around where I live and work vary from caucasian-style colouring to brown, so it's not just MichikoS looking at things from inside his own ethnic group or culture. A friend's Japanese wife is about the same colour as caucasians, and a Malaysian woman whom I worked with briefly was brown (the same colour as people from the Indian sub-continent, which is what we mean by 'Asian' over here, though in the paragraph above I've gone with the U. S. usage).

As Robert Kanigher once said, approximately: This piece of paper is white. My shoes are black. People don't come in these colours.

I think that T'Challa was depicted as kind of a dark gray color back in the 60's

I remember seeing that and thinking it was a colouring error.

MichikoS: Once and for all, everybody: Asian people are NOT yellow.
I don't think anyone in this thread needs telling that.

Comic book skin colors have nothing to do with "limitations of the printing process." They have to do with stereotypes and a sloppy kind of visual shorthand in our culture.
Any women around here who want to mention, say, Frank Cho's rendition of Shanna the She-Devil?

[Gingold]

It's an interesting question. I was rereading some Suicide Squad's from 1987 or so recently, I was struck that the Middle Eastern characters were all colored with some bizarre grayish skin tone. Weird.

[Shellhead]

It's an interesting question. I was rereading some Suicide Squad's from 1987 or so recently, I was struck that the Middle Eastern characters were all colored with some bizarre grayish skin tone. Weird.

They did something similar with Stygians (middle eastern type characters) in Marvel's excellent Conan series, back in the 70's.

[west3man]

I've seen that grey skintone from time-to-time. I always thought it was odd.

I'm sure there WERE limitations to the coloring waybackwhen, but I think, as another poster suggested, a lot of it had to do with laziness and apathy.

"Skin" from Generation X was grey, but it was hard to tell if this was due to his mutation or what.


Don't get me started on Linda Park and Jubilee. Sheesh.

[Ed Cunard]

I've seen that grey skintone from time-to-time. I always thought it was odd.

I specifically remember it in connection with Egyptians as late as the '80s (and perhaps the '90s).

[west3man]

I wasn't sure if I should start a separate thread about this or not, but I've wondered, for some time, why there aren't any lighter-skinned Black people in most comic books I've seen.

Ever since a Kid n Play cartoon (from a LOOOOONG time, ago) aired, I noticed that every Black person in comic book worlds seemed to be my complexion.

I was thinking that Thunder might be an exception, but I'm not sure she is. The only reason she looks like a tanned white woman, half the time, is because of that blonde wig of hers. I dunno. Maybe she IS a little bit lighter, but I can't think of any other examples.

[Arilou]

Once and for all, everybody: Asian people are NOT yellow. We are brown, peach, white, off-white and black, but no Asian I have ever met is yellow.

And I'm not white, and black people aren't black either :p

Most asians aren't "yellow" in the least, but I've seen a few with a distinct yellow-ish tinge....