I loved Elisa Masa, especially watching the show as a young brown girl and seeing that the main kick-ass character who befriends friggin gargoyles was like me!! And to Goliath and the clan, she was just another modern day human…It wasn’t like “yeah yeah look at me I’m mixed” – Elisa was just another New Yorker. Gargoyles did diversity well, for a Disney production….

the angry black woman>> I have tried to insidiously (haha) push the presence of POC in some of my past illustration jobs for mainstream pop culture magazines, and my overall agenda is to definitely create a normalised presence of POC in the figurative art world as opposed to the overwhelmingly unrealistic white-washed one at present. I have also sold some paintings depicting women of colour and such, but I find that many white patrons who like my art think that having a painting with a black girl in it is “OMG like totally styley” and treat POC like fashion accessories or something. Like when you go to a fashion show and the only colour model they have is someone like Alek Wek (who is awesome by the way) but they like to include her for “shock” value (shocking to the white mainstream) and contrast….Its hard to explain. That fashion/styley tokenising of POC is yet another thing to change. SO MANY ISSUES ARGH

Y’know when I first saw Elisa Maza I thought something was wrong with my TV? No way could a sista – a smart, kickass sista no less! – be the lead heroine in a Disney cartoon!

So! Freakin’! Awesome!!

[geek fit! geek fit! geek fit!] :-D

Visionspring, thanks for stopping by! Do you ever do illustrations for magazines? Though there are mostly white protagonists, there are probably a few more chances to depict some brown-skinned people.

I’m going to poke around your site. :)

You had me at “Demona”!! :D

Are gonna be at The Gathering? Do you hang out at the fansites? Do you do any other fan art?

Yay! Another “Gargoyles” fan! :D :D !!

I just want to say that I really enjoy reading your blog, especially the posts that deal with the fantasy/sci-fi genre and race. You articulate so many of the thoughts that have flown around my head over the years regarding race and fantasy/sci-fi :)

I am a fantasy artist and I want to portray people of colour in my work. I am a brown person who grew up in apartheid South Africa, so race issues are always on my mind. This is not possible when working for clients eg a fantasy/sci-fi book cover, because 10 times out of 10, the main character is white. I sometimes feel so argh towards figurative fantasy art in general and how overwhelmingly white it is….even little things like art books and tutorials, which teach you how to paint “skin tones” ie white skin, and its so hard to find technical information about painting black skin (skin tones are very complex and need heaps of understanding about light, hue, saturation – books can be written on the subject!)

I feel I can effect things slowly by painting unstereotyped, strong and heroic POC characters, and change the world little by little :P

There was a moment during the Con where I thought, ‘Yeah, we have all these panels on race but what’s happening in all the other panels?’ Then I just sort of forgot about it but your plan is a good one. No one wants to be the tolerance police, as you said, but knowing how supportive the Con is now I’ll feel much more comfortable speaking up next year.

Naamen

P.S. Also you need to tell me of these markets that are nice to fledgling writers.

But if you accept the claim that the actors cast were the best available, then Mr. or Mrs. Tam needed to look Asian. Saying that the least demanding role could’ve been Asian is not paternalistic. It’s damning the show creators. Maybe the next Chow Yun-Fat didn’t show up to read for Dad’s part, so it was right for that part to go to a white guy. But there’s no way they couldn’t have found an Asian actor who was at least as good as the woman who played Mom. The casting director simply can’t wriggle out of that one.