At some point last year, I made a post talking about how I hoped future Spellentine content focused more on Spelldon (because at that point we only had the two pride comics and Valentine's SDCC diary to go off, basically)... And I feel like the monkey's paw curled, a little bit.
I do appreciate Boomuda Triangle (or the preview pages, because I haven't read what's currently released) for giving a bit more character to Spelldon (I feel like what we've seen is setting up for an arc about how he needs to learn to trust himself more and just *act*, since he messed up when he overthought a spell that needed to be cast quickly and Val ended up hurt. A bit clichéd, but also my guilty pleasure since I am also a chronic overthinker), but I wish that it hadn't come at the cost of an artist who was not willing to depict his Black features.
I don't remember the name of the person who drew the comic, and this isn't *necessarily* a personal attack on them because so many other people also let this get past them, but I am criticising them for whitewashing Spell. Yes, this is what this is about. I've already seen a few people highlighting what's wrong (giving him looser curls and a smaller nose rather than the clearly textured hair and broader nose he had in the pride comics and his cameo in World Scare), so I won't go into that. I have also seen people saying that if you can't/won't depict Black characters accurately then you shouldn't be a professional artist, and I do agree with that. At the very least, I don't think that you should take the job of illustrating a comic with a Black lead if you can't or won't draw Black features.
I'm probably being too nice and it probably isn't my place to speak about this, but I'm so frustrated about this that I'm debating whether or not reading the full comics will be worth it because I know I'll just get angrier about this if I do. Fuck whoever the artist was and fuck everyone who made these decisions and let them get away with it, I hope that they always fumble with their card or cash when at the front of a really long line and that both sides of their pillow are always too warm FOR ETERNITY
