comic artists remorse, "what terrifies me now is that at the moment it felt so natural"
before i was on tumblr i was your average cookie cutter wannabe pro artist and knew nothing about nothing, the whole “social justice” (i hate calling it that because its really just basic morals) thing. I know some of you might remember my mlp superheroine series let me say that this is probably the thing that I have drawn that I am most ashamed of ever. While on deviantART the reception of this was great, on tumblr it wasn’t so much and at first it made me angry that people didn’t like it. I never replied it but I thought things like “don’t like it don’t look at it” or “fuq u i draw what i want draw ur own then lol” but the message these people were trying to get across to me never really GOT across to me until months later.
Yes there is a lot of things wrong with that series, I stripped my favorite characters off of their very own personalities to make them into your cookie cutter white able bodied “”babe”“” comic book females. And what terrifies me now is that at the moment it felt so natural, I drew them almost unthinkingly, just one after the other, the way my brain was used to drawing girls, because as an artist, by comic books I was taught “this is what girls look like in comic books”. I never once thought of making them POC or chubbier, or not able bodied, or trans*, or just making them be REAL girls for christ sake. The thought never crossed my mind at all and it really turns my stomach how brainwashed I was because I am a poc myself, yet I neglected making any of them a poc. It was almost automatic to me that when the idea came to me to make them superheroes was cookie cutter girls.
*
I was even posted on eschergirls, and at first when I read the post I felt angry and attacked, especially at the comments, but then I realized they were right. They were right to feel hurt and tired of the same old thing. And for that I apologize deeply from the bottom of my heart.
So to all those people that tell other “sjb” that they’re not gonna change anything let me tell you that I for one have to disagree, because it’s changed me, and while I am the same artist that drew those humanizations, I promise you I am not the same person. And to all the artists who feel victimized or attacked by a critique, try to look past the anger (if critique is worded angrily), and try to read what the person was really trying to say. Sure it’s true that people should be considerate to artists, but I also think as artists we’ve got to know how powerful art is and how it affects the people that see it.
http://milkydayy.tumblr.com/post/32637144825/hey-this-is-gonna-be-a-little-rant-post-its-just
http://eschergirls.tumblr.com/
again. speaking out works. it matters. seems to be my theme today. i guess i get pissed when people tell me to shut the fuck up. lol.
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