All right, three of the fixed Connor pictures I was talking about. Originals as they appeared in the comic are on the left; corrected versions on the right. Or at least, that better damn well have been how they uploaded.
I rather like how the last one turned out, but IDK how to feel about the first two. The first one, I think, looks especially weird- this is one where the lighting from the original looked odd, but playing around with the curves didn’t really fix it. The second one, I think, just looks a bit odd due to the shading style of the original image- notice how it only really has a midtone (highlight tone?) and a shadow, which gives it a bit of an odd look. I played around with the curves a bit here, but no real luck.
IDK how many of these I’m going to do. I do rather like doing it, for the practice with GIMP but especially for the carthartic and critical value (THIS IS NOT HOW CONNOR SHOULD FUCKING LOOK: see, look how different these two images are?), but at some point I’m less fixing stray pages and more color-correcting and posting large chunks of an issue, which is pretty non-kosher as far as I understand. If you have one in particular you’d like to see fixed, though, feel free to reblog this with it, and I’ll take a stab at it. Or, hey, try it yourself if you want. Calling attention to both Connor AND whitewashing, yes?
How does turning a white character black fight whitewashing, exactly?
… you don’t know who Connor Hawke is, do you?
This is Connor Hawke from his first appearance in the comics, standing next to his father. Connor is the bald one on the reader’s right, his father, Ollie, the one on the left.
This is Connor from his first appearance as Green Arrow.
This is Connor from partway through his solo run as GA, where he’s taken over the name after his father’s death.
This is Connor from one of his more recent runs, Green Arrow/Black Canary, which has pretty much my favorite Connor art ever.
This is Connor’s maternal grandfather.
As you can see, he is pretty Black.
This is Connor’s mother.
She is half-Black, half-Korean.
Connor is not white. Connor is half-white, 1/4 Black and 1/4 Korean. He has blonde hair, green eyes (though this has varied wildly, and they were actually brown in his first appearance, they are canonically listed as green.), and dark skin.
This is Connor’s first appearance in Green Arrow Volume 3, wherein his father, Oliver Queen, is resurrected.
After Connor’s solo run in GA V2, his skin was about this color in almost every one of his appearances, excepting the first issues of the GA/BC series, where Cliff Chiang drew him, his skin was dark, and everything was beautiful and nothing hurt except the writing.
I sincerely hope I do not have to tell you why this is a problem.
oh shit what.
well hey it’s not a problem because at least DC has an important Gay now, right?
Right?
………Right?
Fun fact, Connor Hawke was originally intended to be gay. You know, back when he was introduced. In the ’90s. Of course, DC chickened out, quite likely because the wildly heterosexist Chuck Dixon wound up writing him, and while he never really had any romantic interests, he was always very carefully stated to be Not Gay.
And now he doesn’t even exist in the reboot, so.
Yes. Just a bit bitter.
WOW. Well, if you didn’t feel like stabbing something before, you’ve got to, now…
Seriously, if the art is not consistent and/or is already whitewashed to some degree, it gets really difficult for the reader to parse.
Look at nearly EVERY character of color in comics, and whether it’s features (another issue) or simply the fact that colorists change and the coloring is sometimes the ONLY indicator that a character is a person of color, and it’s just…
*facepalmheaddeskHOWL*
There are fantastic colorists out there, and amazing artists who embrace bringing characters of varying ethnic/racial backgrounds to glorious life through comics arts.
There are also people who haven’t yet joined their ranks and happen to fail spectacularly.
Let’s have more of the former, shall we?
As for the epic fail of killing an LGBT-friendly character arc, way back when: I am not at all surprised, which is beyond disappointing.
