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[RM8]

On top of being racist, the drawings are just plain bad. On the first panel it looks like he's holding a taco in his mouth, that simply doesn't look like lips.

 

[DiipuSurotu]

Just to be clear for my stupidity, it's because the guy has big lips?

Yes

 

[aksiram]

EDIT: I should mention that there was a movement of illustrators here in Flanders coming up with ideas to correct the image in question.

I'm sorry, but that rework is a fail. He is supposed to be a pure African and in the rework he looks like a mixed race Brazilian.

As much as sensitive progressives like to pretend otherwise, Africans (apart from Ethiopeans and Eritreans) have significantly larger lips than whites and their noses are flatter and wider with a lack of a prominent bridge.
If you are drawing black people and then make their facial features more "white" for the sake of not offending as has been done in that rework above; then what you are doing is called whitewashing black people and asserting that there is something wrong or bad with having true African features, such as large lips, tightly coiled hair and flatter noses.

Also, black people vary significantly in skin tone. Saying that no black people have an almost fully black skin tone is wrong. There are west Africans that have extremely dark skin, very close to black.

If you are going to draw a black person, you can't just give them the same facial features as whites and only darken their skin; that will make them look like Indians or Arabs as opposed to Africans.
Take a look at Paul Pogba's face compared to that of Griezmann. Look at their faces from the front and in profile. There is a massive difference in Pogba's lip size compared to that of Griezman. In profile, Pogba's mouth and lips also protrude far further outward past the rest of his face compared to Griezmann. That is typical of pure monoracial Africans. It is biological reality.

The black man in this cartoon did look ridiculous, I agree. That mouth is extremely exaggerated and looks like a beak, as other have stated. But the answer to this problem is not to draw black Africans to look like whites, because they don't look like whites.

 

[aksiram]

Post-1975:

More European comics should get with the times and follow this example.

That "black" boy doesn't look African at all. He looks Indian or maybe biracial black. Biological reality is that black, pure African people have significantly larger lips and differently shaped noses, among other things.

If you want your character to look like a real African and not an Indian or some unrealistic, white-washed Brazilian black, you need to emphasize the larger lips and nose. You don't have to go all out caricature like in the old comics, but drawing a "black" character with European facial features is just whitewashing and wrong.

That kid in your example doesn't even have Afro-type hair. That is a completely failed representation of an African, unless the character is supposed to be biracial.

 

[aksiram]

I could keep going too. I honestly can't bring myself to read my childhood comic collection anymore because I keep running across shit like this constantly. I'm kind of contemplating getting rid of all of them.

Please get rid of them. You don't deserve to own those wonderful book if you have such a pinko attitude. Why don't you go even more all out moral crusader and demand that all Asterix books be collected and burned on a massive bonfire? Get rid of all racism in one nice big fire! In case you haven't noticed, the white people in Asterix books are also horribly grotesque caricatures. Have you ever seen a real white person that looks anything like the Asterix characters? Have you ever seen a white man in real life that looked like Popeye? I doubt you would ever protest over how horrible Obelix and Popeye look. Of course you won't. Caricatures of blacks = evil racism; caricatures of whites = hilarious, right? You progressives are too obsessed with getting offended on behalf of other people that you are actually becoming massive hypocrites

Seriously, your sanctimonious attitude is unnecessary and embarrassing. Those books were written before the age of political correctness and just accept them for what they are. You can't go through life with your head in the sand like this. Are you having sleepless nights because there was slavery and colonialism in Africa as well? Stop getting offended on behalf of other people over things that happened in the past. That is how the Asterix books were drawn, retroactively changing them and potentially white-washing the depiction of blacks so as not to offend snowflakes is out of the question, and black people don't have to read them if they find them offensive. They are moving to your country and they should accept your history and your art of the past. Who are they to demand everything gets banned or changed just to please them? Let others get offended themselves. You can protest new artwork following the same trend but please stop this ridiculous flagellation of older comics. Even though the Africans were drawn with extremely exaggerated features, the exaggeration was not necessarily malicious, nor exclusive to black Africans, as and whites are also represented pretty ridiculously. I have never detected hatred or condescension towards black Africans in the Asterix books, regardless of how they are drawn. If they are depicted as slaves, it is because they were often slaves in those times in European areas.

 

[KevinKeene]

I'm sorry, but that rework is a fail. He is supposed to be a pure African and in the rework he looks like a mixed race Brazilian.

As much as sensitive progressives like to pretend otherwise, Africans (apart from Ethiopeans and Eritreans) have significantly larger lips than whites and their noses are flatter and wider with a lack of a prominent bridge.
If you are drawing black people and then make their facial features more "white" for the sake of not offending as has been done in that rework above; then what you are doing is called whitewashing black people and asserting that there is something wrong or bad with having true African features, such as large lips, tightly coiled hair and flatter noses.

Also, black people vary significantly in skin tone. Saying that no black people have an almost fully black skin tone is wrong. There are west Africans that have extremely dark skin, very close to black.

If you are going to draw a black person, you can't just give them the same facial features as whites and only darken their skin; that will make them look like Indians or Arabs as opposed to Africans.
Take a look at Paul Pogba's face compared to that of Griezmann. Look at their faces from the front and in profile. There is a massive difference in Pogba's lip size compared to that of Griezman. In profile, Pogba's mouth and lips also protrude far further outward past the rest of his face compared to Griezmann. That is typical of pure monoracial Africans. It is biological reality.

The black man in this cartoon did look ridiculous, I agree. That mouth is extremely exaggerated and looks like a beak, as other have stated. But the answer to this problem is not to draw black Africans to look like whites, because they don't look like whites.

That "black" boy doesn't look African at all. He looks Indian or maybe biracial black. Biological reality is that black, pure African people have significantly larger lips and differently shaped noses, among other things.

If you want your character to look like a real African and not an Indian or some unrealistic, white-washed Brazilian black, you need to emphasize the larger lips and nose. You don't have to go all out caricature like in the old comics, but drawing a "black" character with European facial features is just whitewashing and wrong.

That kid in your example doesn't even have Afro-type hair. That is a completely failed representation of an African, unless the character is supposed to be biracial.

I'm all for keeping zwarte piet and think that American's need to stop forcing their racism on Europe where 'black face' is not a thing.

However:

If you actively search for and bump an over a year old thread to stir up shit, you're a racist. That's my opinion.