DCML digest, Vol 1 #1265 - 16 msgs

[Gary Leach]

Cord:

> What I have always wondered is why Chinese (or Asian people
> in general) are depicted as yellow. In reality their skin color
> is not a little bit yellow. It is exactly like the skin color
> of Europeans.

Among the many reasons for the color choices made in comics, 
particularly prior to the 1990s, was the very limited color palette 
available in the "standard" four-color comic production/printing 
process. Until the advent of the PC, all of the methods for setting 
color up for print were physically messy and very labor-intensive - so 
the fewer colors you asked for, the less expensive it was. Comics 
publishers being comics publishers, the envelope on fewer-and-cheaper 
was being pushed constantly until, by the days of Gladstone I, there 
was a "standard" palette of 64 colors, not a few of which were to all 
intents unusable.  So there were never a lot of choices about what to 
color things, from the sun to the sky to the sea to the ground to all 
the various "shades" of humanity.

That said, it's also true that color cliches were around long before 
comics came along. I can think of none that comics themselves 
established, but I do believe that comics - with their longstanding 
color limitations - helped reinforce existing ones to a considerable 
extent.

Gemstone update: us three Gladstone "old-timers" have just enjoyed a 
weekend hallmarked by a record snowfall for the Baltimore area. This is 
interesting, because two of us - myself and John Clark - got to enjoy a 
record snowfall in Prescott, Arizona, when Gladstone was moved up there 
from Scottsdale in January 1987. One begins to wonder if some sort of 
pattern is setting in...

As far as the Disney comics go, everything remains on schedule. The 
Free Comic Book Day comic is approaching publication, the prestige 
titles are coming together - with Rosa and Van Horn doing the covers 
and lead-off stories -  and we are still looking at two newsstand 
titles starting up in late summer (one a Donald, one a Mickey). For 
those interested in trade paperbacks, we've got a bi-monthly series 
planned to start this summer.

Gary