nox

as i've said before, it's okay to prefer a lighter-skin/closer-to-canon tom. i don't take offense to people who simply ask "why is he black?" as long as they're asking in a respectful manner. i understand that in his canon design, tom is presumably white, along with the rest of the cast, so i get where the confusion comes from. in terms of the "blackwashing" argument, that is a topic that i'll leave to your own judgement. if you disagree with interpreting tom as a POC, then your opinion is up to you.

however, what's NOT okay is being openly racist or hateful. i've gotten hundreds of comments referring to my tom design as a "thing", calling him slurs/derogatory terms, stating how ugly he looks, and so on. i've even received a handful of insults and racist accusations towards myself as well simply for drawing him as a black character.

i also find it odd how there's a certain "limit" to how far you can go with darkening tom's skin. i've seen tom drawn with tan/brown skin, and while these designs aren't completely excluded from forms of hate, the feedback is often much less negative compared to other designs where he is depicted with darker skin.

if you truly believe that drawing tom as a POC is wrong, then why let certain skin tones fly under your radar? and in my case, as someone who has several other designs of the eddsworld characters being depicted as POC (such as my design of edd or patryck, who i've both drawn with brown skin for example), why does hardly anyone ever comment or have an issue with their race? if whether a fictional character is drawn as white or not such an issue to you, then do you not have a problem with a character depicted with a different race as long as they're white-passing or light enough? or do you just have a problem with black characters?

not everyone is going to like the fact that there are artists who depict tom as black, and that's fine. but that doesn't justify the amount of racism i've seen in not only my own comment section, but also under many other artists' artworks on various platforms. i try my best to ignore the majority of the negative comments i receive, but it's tiring to see how blatantly disrespectful people are online. i've dealt with this for ~2 years since i've rejoined the eddsworld fandom, and i'm sure many other artists can relate to this issue as well.