Your thought on accurate racial depiction?

[69Michi]

So this has been on my mind for a while ever since I first created :Rebirth. When I first wrote the story, the settings, character's name, etc were all in Chinese. Basically the setting was in China, or more accurately, based off China. Why? No reason in particular, I'm used to read Chinese novel and write story based off ancient Chinese history, so it just stuck I guess. But when I decided to turn the story in a webcomic and share it world-wise, I decided to change the setting and character's name up into something easier to remember. I myself have trouble remember Korean name, so I just simply pick an English name like "Neo" or "Noah" or a simple name like "Li." I changed up the setting from China to something based off United States. easy to associate with. (In all honesty the setting doesn't make much different since the plot revolve around an apocalyptic world where everything is in ruins anyway)

I have a few readers who asked me "what nationality" are my characters. When I think about it, they actually don't have a set nationality. I keep everything vague from character's race, nationality, to city's name, year, real setting, etc..., because I didn't want to force myself to follow a "guideline" of how I should design the world, how I should design the characters, etc.

So here comes the real question, what do you think about racial depiction in a comic? Do you want everything to be clear and accurate, or you are fine with thing being vague as heck like me? Do you want a real racial diversity? Or you are okay with whatever the author wants to do?

Side bonus question for those who have time: In many comic I saw that stay true to reality and racial diversity, Asian characters are given darker, yellow-ish skin tone and obvious smaller eyes than the other white members. But then you also have those manga that set in Japan, with characters that are clearly Japanese but do not possess those Asian traits. What is your take on that?

[apocryphagraphics]

it depends on the story you're trying to tell and what you're trying to say about the real world with that story. If your characters' personalities and lifestyle are largely influenced by their race, gender, nationality, ethnicity etc... then it would be important for those elements to be clear. If, as in my comic, those characteristics are subordinate to the person'e individual personal experiences as far as who they are and how they behave then I think it is definitely fine to reference their ethnicity minimally or at all. As for the physical depiction, I'm a realistic artist so i just draw people the way they look, but every artist will have his or her individual approach and style. All are ok as long as offensive stereotypes are avoided.

[AnnaLandin]

Preface: I struggle sometimes with specific facial traits pertaining to ethnicity, because of my partial face-blindness. I do my best to avoid it, but like a dyslexic trying to spell a word correctly, it sometimes isn't possible.

what do you think about racial depiction in a comic? Do you want everything to be clear and accurate, or you are fine with thing being vague as heck like me?

I think some vagueness is fine in fantasy/scifi/speculative-fiction/clearly-not-our-current-real-world settings; you can't really say "This person is Asian" in a setting where there is no Asia.

On the other hand, monotonous whiteness is kind of, well, boring to me, I guess? There's no reason why you SHOULDN'T include various skintones and racial diversity in your story.

Or you are okay with whatever the author wants to do?

In the end, it's your story, and entirely up to you what you do - but drawing a variety of different ethnicities/skintones is good for the same reason drawing varied bodyshapes is good; it's a.) fun to do, b.) makes your comic look less monotonous.

Like, imagine drawing every character with the exact same face - the only thing you're doing is swapping their hairstyle and colour. That looks boring, right? It's the same with bodyshapes and skintones. Variety is more interesting!

[indagold]

as @apocryphagraphics said anything is really okay as long as it doesn't fall into stereotyping.

[Kura]

Growing up mixed race it was very well ingrained in my head that people DO NOT like NOT knowing what you are. They will always guess or ask or assume, and some people actually get really angry or frustrated if they can't figure out what you are/ It's a common, very annoying mentality that I guess they drag over to when reading stories as well. Because of that I say what race my characters are out of habit of being stuck in these RL situations (even though it's honestly not necessary), because it was for some reason REALLY important for people to know, even more important than knowing how to pronounce my name right =_=

What's worse is when you or your parents don't have the 'traits' that they think ALL people in that race have. My dad is Asian but he DOES NOT have yellow-ish skin OR smaller eyes. He has reddish brown skin and wide eyes with double eyelids, and I look a lot like my dad so when he or I tell someone that we're 'Asian' it turns into a huge fight of "No your NOT Asian." "You don't LOOK Asian" "Don't pretend to be something you're not. It's rude." "Another wanna be Asian..."

Diversity is great and all BUT 'common traits' are not actually traits that everyone in that race is assumed to have. So don't go overboard or your going to give off the 'all ____ look the same lul' mindset or stereotyping.

As for you actual characters, you don't have to announce their races, and because it's a fantasy setting you don't have to actually give them races to appease the fans (regardless of their features and skin-tones), If you want you can say something along the lines of "Because it's a completely different world they don't have the same races that we do, BUT they're lightly (or) heavily based off of ____ race or culture."

[WakaXO]

I agree that it depends on the story itself, in a story with a future post-apocalyptic setting you wouldn't necessarily have to establish race or nationality because maybe they haven't existed for so long people no longer identify as them. Or maybe people identify themselves more by their community than race, such as in the scenario of travelling caravans. Or maybe through race mixing, the world of the story is vastly less/more diverse? I think in these scenarios added to much present day information about nationality or whatnot would hinder the story more then help it.
But in a present day setting, I think it adds to the story to get little snippets of information about a characters heritage, if its important to the story that is. If you introduce your setting/character as one thing and then portray them as another, at best it comes off as lazy.
I personally like diverse casts in a story, variety is the spice of life right?

[Kayke]

Hmmm, I've had kind of a similar issue? My art style is really stylized, so my character's faces are simplified and it can be hard to tell what race my characters are, even though I do have specific races in mind when I'm drawing them. For instance I have a character who's mom is Indian and dad is black and I think people tend to think she's black since I haven't shown her parents yet. I also have a Filipino character and I don't think that's a nationality people guess right away...

Even if people can't tell right away which race my characters are, I just hope they can at least see there is a healthy mix of different types of people, since my comic is set in a made up city that's a combination of Philadelphia and New York.

But yeah, if your comic is set up in a fantasy setting, your characters would be from whatever that place is which doesn't have to be tied to the real world. Like in Avatar TLA the characters are all from the nations in that world and while they may look like races from earth they're not Japanese, Chinese, Inuit, ect.

[69Michi]

@apocryphagraphics Ah yes agree! If it's a story that deals with racial problem, I guess it is important to do it right and accurately. In my comic, what important is not the character's race or backstory, it's how they interact and how their relationship will evolve in an apocalyptic world.

@AnnaLandin Omg same for the facial traits though... I don't like following the "IRL racial traits" because I'm not all familiar with them and would like to avoid doing anything that could come off as offensive. I like playing around with skintone! Though most of their skintone has nothing to do with race or ethnic, but more or less their personal issue. Like this person tends to spend more time outside, hence he has darker skin tone; or this person spends more time inside and frequently being sick, hence paler skintone.

@indagold Welp I try to avoid stereotyping as much as possible, it could also be one of the reason I just like keeping everything vague.

@kurapikasuki Oh yea gosh I got you. Being an Asian in the states, the question I got the most is "Where do you come from?" LMFAO Okay I'm Asian but why does it matter can't we just have a simple normal conversation without bringing that up first thing? Also gosh those rude people! Sometimes you can't really tell a person's race/ethnic by their appearance :C I mean if you judge me base on my skin's color, it is even whiter than my white girlfriend, mainly just because I spend way too much time inside the house and always try to avoid the sun as much as possible!

Yeah, I like diversity, but sometimes I see people cry "Why is there no Asian", "Why is there no black/African American" to a comic, whom main point is not on racial diversity, and I just smh. I'm all for diversity, but I'm also all for whatever the author wants to do with their comic as long as it's not offensive!

@WakaXO True that! I feel like my main problem is just I don't want to dwell too deep into "accurate diversity" because I feel like they can very much lead to stereotyping and might come off as offensive. No matter how well you execute it, SOMEONE out there will get offended. I'm not very knowledgeable when it comes to other races beside myself, so that might be the other reason why i tend to avoid it.

@Kaykedrawsthings AH RIGHT, avatar is a good example of this too. Usually the way I do different races is just giving them different skintone and names. Mainly the name TT_TT. I wanted to keep :Rebirth's world a fantasy setting, something like a parallel world to our world perhaps. I mean where else can you find a city with the name "H city" LMFAO I'm just slightly worried since most of my characters so far has white skintone, (well different variant of white skintone since I love playing with skin color and shading), 1 that is loosely Asian, no black character in sight just yet. Would people scream for diversity I wonder? I mean in the future I probably would have a character with dark skintone (Chocolate skintone mmmm), but I won't be claiming they are black or African.

[HulkHoQuinn]

To me, it really depends on the story. If race is an important part to developing a character or story, it's important to make sure your characters visually represent that. I know it can feel a little apprehensive to draw certain features but if done right (don't go extreme), it can really add a lot to the character. Readers like to use characters as a sort of mirror, so the way they look can be more important than you think.

That being said, I try to represent a bunch of different races but I'm guilty of using lighter skin tones and I even notice slanted eyes on all my characters. I'm half Asian and I guess a little bit of that is put into all my characters. Most of my characters are mixed race anyway, so I can get away with stuff like that. I think.

[isaacfriedman]

I actually have a comic that takes place in China in the 1940s, when Japan occupied most of the country. I do my pest to research and accurately depict the anthropologically correct facial structures of any group I depict. I don't do anime eyes, I don't do emo hair (though sometimes greasy, unkempt miner hair looks oddly similar to emo hair), and I definitely don't give mountain dwelling Chinese folks jowls. The upper class Japanese characters have narrow eyes, round faces, and wrinkles in realistic places. I go for accuracy above all else.

That said, there is absolutely nothing wrong with drawing them any other way as long as the characters' nationality is given and plays a part in their personality or backstory and isn't just shoehorned in for the sake of diversity.

[joannekwan]

Like the others said, in a high fantasy setting or one without countries and continents as we know them, leave it vague.
Besides, who's to say how a person should look based on their race?
Case in point, a little while ago there was a tumblr discussion on Lúcio, a character from Overwatch. He's a black Brazilian. And some people were saying his lips weren't big enough for a black guy. Um, sorry? That's pretty racist. Not all black people have full lips. It's like saying to an Asian, your eyes aren't narrow enough. (Plus the character's smiling all the time and everyone's lips stretch out a little thinner when they smile) Come on!

[Michelle]

I like having a diverse cast if the setting calls for it. Some countries are more racially homogenous than others, but since my comic takes place in the U.S., I like to reflect the diversity that I see in my everyday life. It's also more interesting from a design perspective when you have a diverse cast.

I don't think adding racially diverse characters should be seen as "forced diversity" unless you're also forcing hollow stereotypes upon them. Saying it's forced feels like saying minority characters have to prove why they should be in the story, whereas non-minority are just accepted as being there. I think it's a given that all characters should be well-rounded regardless of their outward appearance.

[shazzbaa]

sometimes I see people cry "Why is there no Asian", "Why is there no black/African American" to a comic, whom main point is not on racial diversity, and I just smh.

I think the idea that you're not "depicting race" if everyone's white is a kinda icky assumption we got by accident that a lot of creators now are trying to shake. Like, if the answer to "why is everyone white" is "well race doesn't matter in this story" then, uh, again, why is everyone white? if race doesn't matter why aren't there a bunch of different random ones?

I will say that I don't think it's fair or good to demand that every nation's media look like America's demographics, which a lot of well-meaning Americans tend to forget isn't universal (see: The Witcher, whose answer to "why aren't there any black people" was "because this game was made by and inspired by and targeted to Polish people, who are pretty homogenous race-wise, please think about the fact that race looks different in our culture and let our culture represent itself rather than imposing your own on it").
But at the same time, I think the question of "hey, why is everyone white" is a fair question to ask of our media, because it's something we're just starting to notice that a lot of creators, even in diverse cultures, do by accident -- assume a character is white unless they have a "reason" to be some other race. I think it's good that we're starting to challenge that!!

Do you want everything to be clear and accurate, or you are fine with thing being vague as heck like me?

Sure, vague is fine! I don't think "please consider character diversity" means "all your characters need an exact pedigree," and I don't see any problem with responding "they don't really have an equivalent real-world ethnicity" -- in fact, that could be kind of cool, to point out that not all characters or people fit neatly into a box of one race or the other.

[spadesart]

It mostly depends on the setting/country and how much people of other ethnicities would travel or live there but if it's based in a place as diverse as the united states then there's absolutely nothing stopping you from including people of other races and variated skintones. As long as it doesn't fall into stereotyping everyone loves seeing themselves included and represented in entertainment media. Since my comic takes place in a country similar in diversity to the united states I try to keep skin tones as realistic or variated as possible in human-esque characters. I tend to get really bored when every character is the same pale white skin tone and their darkest shade is Slightly Tanned White(TM)

however if you want your character to be racially neutral (like the human characters in homestuck) you'd probably have to just say that when asked.

as for japanese manga and anime, since it's made in japan the characters are automatically assumed by the japanese audiences to already be japanese (despite the fact that they might look white to us). white people in japanese media are usually drawn with bigger noses and a blond hair/blue eyes kinda deal.

[Tanisha]

I also agree with keeping it vague somewhat. But just to add on what @kurapikasuki said, if you have a black person, don't think just because their black they must act ghetto. Or wear not wear clothing that would be consider "white people clothing".
I was told by many friends that I act too white (which I don't care for. I don't get offended that easily so this was just joke to me.) to even be considered black. They even call themselves more black than me. Whatever that means. And whenever I acted "black" (ghetto) they would be like "omg we're so proud". I'm also told I dress too "white". Which pisses me off honestly. Clothing shouldn't be limited to just a certain race! It's base on personal preference! My clothes are such a big part of me, I personally love dressing in so many different styles. It's such a dumb thing to say and I think this only applies with modern day sort of stories.

[AnnaLandin]

What's worse is when you or your parents don't have the 'traits' that they think ALL people in that race have. My dad is Asian but he DOES NOT have yellow-ish skin OR smaller eyes. He has reddish brown skin and wide eyes with double eyelids, and I look a lot like my dad so when he or I tell someone that we're 'Asian' it turns into a huge fight of "No your NOT Asian." "You don't LOOK Asian" "Don't pretend to be something you're not. It's rude." "Another wanna be Asian..."

Yes it's almost like Asia is an entire continent full of people of various ethnic backgrounds with every shade of inter-mingling in-between, isn't it. =.=

And while there are certain physical traits that are more common in people of a particular ethnicity, common =/= universal. Be it skintone, eyelid-shape, nasal shape or any other thing, none of it is universal - just as there is no facial feature that is required to be white/caucasian. You see white people with epicanthic folds, just as you see East Asian people without them. The faces of people of colour has as much individual diversity as those of white people. Are you more likely to find epicanthic folds in people of East Asian ancestry? Yes, probably - but saying that they HAVE to have them because they're East Asian is like insisting I HAVE TO be blond and blue-eyed because I'm Swedish.

Except, you know, loaded with a lot more racism and harmful stereotyping.

[indagold]

being part jewish everyone goes "your jewish?! Funny you don't look it"

[joannekwan]

You see white people with epicanthic folds, just as you see East Asian people without them

A couple good examples

Ike Barinholtz

and Ken Watanabe

[HulkHoQuinn]

It's a little different but I know a lot of Koreans get eyelid surgery to have more "Caucasian" eyes. If you use a Korean actor's image as a reference, there's a good chance you're mixing racial features because of stuff like that too.

[HulkHoQuinn]

If you haven't read this yet, Ron Wimberly was up for an Eisner this year for his comic about skin tone and race in comics. It's a good read. Lighten Up by Ron Wimberly