Comic book illustrations code dark-skinned masculinity through the semiotics of violence, brutality, stupidity, bestiality, and low caste status. Our analysis shows that Amar Chitra Katha’s stories of gods, goddesses, kings, demons, and historical events associate light- skinned masculinity with divinity, strength, virtue, compassion, and upper caste status. We draw on the concept of colorism as defined by Black scholars in the United States to explore the lessons on gender and skin color that these comics may communicate to Indian children.
This article examines representations of skin color and its symbolic affiliations with discourses of gender, class, and caste in the Amar Chitra Katha (immortal pictorial stories) comic series, the first indigenous children’s comics to be published in postcolonial India.
