Art of Lily A.

At the very least, it means asking permission before embedding fan art or linking directly to fan fiction in coverage. It means thinking twice before asking actors or artists to react to ships or explicit fan creations. It means considering whether a fan reasonably expected their work to stay within the community it was made for. Most importantly, it means treating fandom spaces like real places inhabited by real people, many of whom seek out these spaces precisely because they offer a sense of belonging they may not find elsewhere.

Fandom does not need to remain in the margins to deserve respect. But if journalists are going to cover this subject, and we should, we have to be willing to approach these spaces with the same care, ethics, and nuance we would bring to any other community. Because behind every fic or piece of fan art is someone saying, 'This mattered to me.' Did it matter to you too?"

Check it out at afroindex.org! 💛✨

I've been screenshotting the nice tags I get for years, and at this point it would be literal thousands of lines if I still had my old files. I love u tumblr users <333333333

Hoq do you overall feel about the current indie animation boom?

There's good and bad. Overall, it's been SO inspiring to see people take their projects in their own hands and it's really nice to see such an amazing variety of projects that you'd never see a big studio pick up. I think it's really important that artists get the opportunity to make stuff just for them and feel creatively fulfilled.

Is it sustainable?

As it is right now, it's not sustainable. So much of indie is done out of passion and is largely dependent on volunteer work unless you're already loaded. Because even if you kickstart, it requires that you have an audience willing to pay you a lot of money and then even if you have that, the money's usually not enough. People vastly underestimate how much money it takes to make a fully animated project with fair rates. I've seen most projects do kickstarters for maybe $30k-$50k for an 11 min fully animated pilot but in reality, a fair budget runs from $300k on the very low end and $1M being a pretty standard studio budget. That also speaks to another issue that I see come up a lot. Often, people running indie productions don't know how to do so and don't have the proper experience. Even though they mean well and just want to make their projects, it often results in a show that's poorly run, exploitation, issues with transparency, underpaid artists and unclear schedules. This isn't to say everyone new to animation shouldn't try! I'm not trying to gatekeep or anything, but there might need to be more education around the subject and these showrunners should REALLY try to research first or at the very least COMMUNICATE AND PLAN.

Is there really a boom or is it more like people becoming aware of the stuff on the internet?

Is it a copout to say both? Because internet indie animation's been around FOREVER. Since early youtube and newgrounds. But I do think there's a difference in the kind of indie animation that's being made. Rather than just quick, funny animated shorts, artists are now trying to make series and stuff that would be on the level of something you'd see on a network. Fully animated 11s and 22s with large season runs. Getting your work out there is so accessible now and anyone can do it! Which I suppose could be considered a boom.

Do you think indie stuff has a chance of competing against big studios?

Giveaway fundraiser!

I’m giving away 2 copies of One Day in June to 2 lucky winners.

This is one of my latest picture books, written by Tourmaline and illustrated by me. It's a story inspired by the life and activism of Marsha P. Johnson

To Enter:

Donate to the fundraiser - https://chuffed.org/project/rebuilding-hope-dimas-fight-for-survival-in-gaza (any amount is ok)

Take a screenshot of your donation

Email it to [email protected] with 'subject line' Pink June

Giveaway ends on 7th of January

Shipping cost will be covered by me!