Black April

[BubblyShell22]

I certainly wouldn't care down the line if they had a black April at all. It would be something different, and it could work if her dad was white and her mom was black, which would still give her the O'Neil surname.

And awesome drawings, BT and DE. Those are great.

[Warhorse]

I always thought this chick from the EnVogue video Hold On looked a lot like April from the cartoon, regardless of her skin color. Maybe it was the hair style or her eyes. Still though, I thought she looked more like April than Judith Hoag did when I was a kid.

[Xav]

Originally Posted by Tazi

SHE IS NOT WHITE, SHE IS GINGER

That brings up a good point. If April was made black than who would represent the ginger gals in the turtleverse?

[Candy Kappa]

April have only been depicted as ginger in the Imagi movie, 4Kids, if her hair color in BttS is her real hair color compared to what she had prior to the previous seasons, IDW and Nick toon.

[CyberCubed]

Originally Posted by Candy Kappa

April have only been depicted as ginger in the Imagi movie, 4Kids, if her hair color in BttS is her real hair color compared to what she had prior to the previous seasons, IDW and Nick toon.

April became a redhead from 4kids onwards. 4th movie, IDW and Nick all kept this look.

Previously she was always brunette as seen in Mirage, OT and Archie. Movies too.

[Candy Kappa]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

April became a redhead from 4kids onwards. 4th movie, IDW and Nick all kept this look.

Previously she was always brunette as seen in Mirage, OT and Archie. Movies too.

April's hair color in 4Kids was not a real hair color, it wasn't until the Imagi movie the designs in the show reflected the movie, giving April a more natural hair color.

[Metalwolf]

Originally Posted by pennydreadful

There's absolutely nothing wrong with changing an established character to be non-white, or to be more inclusive in general. I woke up this morning to the usual round of "BAWWW, GAY AGENDA" re what they're doing with upping the quota of LGBT characters in the Batgirl series. It's ridiculous, this attitude that "oh, I can't relate to a character if they're black, or gay, or a woman - I don't want to read about that... PC gone mad grumble grumble grumble".

I am wondering, do these folks who create these comics know how real gay people act, or do they only have an idealized singular idea of them? Because a lot of these 'gay people' in these comics seem to be highly stereotypical, they often are very open sexually and have many partners, and plus they seem to have a perpetual chip on their shoulder about LGBT issues.

I never liked those characters, they don't act like real people, and most of the time they never seem to reflect that not every person who isn't straight have the same views regarding their sexuality. Plus these writers seem to be wanting to make a ton of LGBT characters (judging by your remark on 'upping the gay quota') merely to be counter-cultural and progressive, even though it seems to be creating resentment. I'm wondering if it isn't because people don't like the idea of LGBT characters, but because it might be coming off as being too pushy and preachy on the idea of 'diversity.'

[pennydreadful]

Eh, it's kind of a difficult question to answer because there's not really a set way that a gay person acts. Some are camp, some are not camp. Some have lots of partners, some don't - just like straight people. I don't think it's as much that they have a chip on their shoulder, they're just more aware of certain issues because they have to deal with their effects on a regular basis.

Sorry if that's not a very good answer - hopefully someone else can chime in and pick up the slack; I'm not in a very good headspace today so my response probably isn't as concise as it usually would have been.

I think a fair chunk of the people who are complaining about comics being more inclusive are mainly made up of the group who never really have anything positive to say about any types of changes in comics as a medium. If it were up to them, comic books wouldn't have changed since the 1940's - it'd just be the straight, white boy's club. I think it's pretty sad that for a bunch of people who grew up reading Xmen stories, Superman stories - basically, tales about accepting people for their differences and treating people decently and fighting injustice and wrongdoing - they throw a snit fit over this kind of thing. It's like the point went right over their heads.

Not saying that everyone's like that so please don't take offense anybody - some people have perfectly valid arguments for not liking certain approaches towards inclusivity (e.g. Leo656 has covered his views quite well) - but it does feel like the empty can rattles the most sometimes, you know what I'm saying?

Sure, nobody likes being preached to - I know I sure don't - but it just comes off sometimes like the boys' club that doesn't want to let anybody else into the treehouse, y'know?

Anyway, sorry if this has come off sounding like I'm a bit full of it - as I said, I'm not really on my game today.

[The Big Bad]

Originally Posted by The-Shredder

To be honest, I've never thoroughly read the comics before, but based on this cover, wouldn't you assume that she looks that way because curly hair was a trend back then? http://www.miragelicensing.com/comic...e01/11/11.html

The curly hair that was popular doesn't really look like April's hair, though--not comic book April's anyway.

This is what artificially curly hair that was popular in the eighties looks like. Had this been what Eastman was going for, April's hair would have looked more like Judith Hoag's in the first film, or like April's when she's drawn by Michael Dooney.

April's hair the way Eastman and others drew it is not just curly but kinky: it's the sort of hair that has been specifically associated with Black people for centuries, and while it's not impossible for Eastman, Laird, or whomever, to have given her that hair while still intending her to be seen as white, it's unlikely. Add to that the fact that Eastman's April also has notably full lips--another feature associated with people of African descent--and darker skin than most white people tend to sport in comics, and the chances that Eastman intended his version of April to be seen as white plummets.

...which isn't to say that April needed to sport all of these things in order to be convincingly depicted as Black. There is no one single "black look": April could have looked like Troian Bellisario and still have been just as Black as if she'd looked like Lupita Nyong'o.

[oldmanwinters]

Originally Posted by The Big Bad

April's hair the way Eastman and others drew it is not just curly but kinky: it's the sort of hair that has been specifically associated with Black people for centuries, and while it's not impossible for Eastman, Laird, or whomever, to have given her that hair while still intending her to be seen as white, it's unlikely.

I think it is worth noting that neither Eastman nor Laird (or any other Mirage artists outside of Dooney and maybe Berger) had much skill drawing women, as far as I can tell. April's facial details in the third issue make her look middle aged at times. Basically, I wouldn't read too much into their artistic choices, because it was probably the best they could do.

EDIT:

We've hashed this debate in the Forums many times before. This thread actually cites some memories of interviews from E&L regarding their disagreement over April's original ethnicity:
http://forums.thetechnodrome.com/showthread.php?t=31810
So yeah... Eastman claims he thought of early April as black while Laird thought of her as white. And they clearly disagreed on the real story after 20 years.

[The Big Bad]

Originally Posted by oldmanwinters

I think it is worth noting that neither Eastman nor Laird (or any other Mirage artists outside of Dooney and maybe Berger) had much skill drawing women, as far as I can tell. April's facial details in the third issue make her look middle aged at times. Basically, I wouldn't read too much into their artistic choices, because it was probably the best they could do.

I don't buy this. Yes, Eastman and Laird both went through a period of finding their feet. Yes, their women were especially rough, Laird's more so than Eastman's. Were April's features unintentional, though, one would expect them to continue to change through Eastman's tenure in the book, and yet this is not the case. Those same features coding her as black remain remarkably consistent in Eastman-drawn books all the way to issue #50, far too late to chalk them up to early installment weirdness.

Originally Posted by plastroncafe

This comes up on Tumblr every now and again, with people cherry picking art from various covers and pages depending on which side of the argument they happen to lean towards.

How April looks really depends on who's drawing her, and in the case of the panels that started this thread: who's coloring her.

Well...yes and no. I've been working on a series of blogposts showcasing her visual evolution across all mediums, and I would say that, even without cherrypicking, a case exists for the argument that she was consistently--if by no means uniformly--depicted as black. To what degree depends on the artist, but I think it's safe to say that the issue #32 reprint is less a fluke than it is the natural conclusion of what various artists had been doing.

[oldmanwinters]

Originally Posted by The Big Bad

I don't buy this. Yes, Eastman and Laird both went through a period of finding their feet. Yes, their women were especially rough, Laird's more so than Eastman's. Were April's features unintentional, though, one would expect them to continue to change through Eastman's tenure in the book, and yet this is not the case. Those same features coding her as black remain remarkably consistent in Eastman-drawn books all the way to issue #50, far too late to chalk them up to early installment weirdness.

But doesn't her appearance after issue #50 quality as such an evolution of design? Remember, E&L had minimal and sporadic involvement in Volume 1 between issues #22-47.

[plastroncafe]

Originally Posted by The Big Bad

April's hair the way Eastman and others drew it is not just curly but kinky: it's the sort of hair that has been specifically associated with Black people for centuries, and while it's not impossible for Eastman, Laird, or whomever, to have given her that hair while still intending her to be seen as white, it's unlikely. Add to that the fact that Eastman's April also has notably full lips--another feature associated with people of African descent--and darker skin than most white people tend to sport in comics, and the chances that Eastman intended his version of April to be seen as white plummets.

Regarding April's Hair, I feel it's important to point out that in Issue 4 of Volume 1 she mentions having her hair permed. Her hair isn't that curly naturally, but because she had it done that way at a salon.

[Refractive Reflections]

Originally Posted by plastroncafe

Regarding April's Hair, I feel it's important to point out that in Issue 4 of Volume 1 she mentions having her hair permed. Her hair isn't that curly naturally, but because she had it done that way at a salon.

Those were the 80s with all of the hair perms and hair crimping.

[plastroncafe]

It was a dark time.
Let us never speak of it again.

[ssjup81]

Originally Posted by plastroncafe

Regarding April's Hair, I feel it's important to point out that in Issue 4 of Volume 1 she mentions having her hair permed. Her hair isn't that curly naturally, but because she had it done that way at a salon.

Really? Was her hair straight for that issue?

[plastroncafe]

Originally Posted by ssjup81

Really? Was her hair straight for that issue?

No, this is what her first entrance in issue 4 looks like:


And this is what she looked like in issue 2:

[ssjup81]

Oh I remember those now! I'd forgotten. I recalled the curly do, but thought it was natural. So yeah makes sense for her to be white. If she were black "perm" would have a different meaning.

[CyberCubed]

Mirage April was always ugly looking, she looked like a dog.

Thankfully the cartoons/movies/archie/IDW comics all made her a lot cuter and pleasing to the eye.

[Newton Gimmick]

April isn't black or white... She's a drawing.

As for this:

http://media.tumblr.com/ccffd6b46235...8gl1qmks9t.jpg

Yeah, there were tons of white girls who looked exactly like this in the 80s. Hair and all.

There's really no evidence that April was ever intended to be black, beyond some crappy artwork that could be seen either way and Kevin Eastman's random tall tales a few years ago back when he was in his major "Cool Uncle" mode and was saying anything and everything to seem hip and connected to the franchise. These days he's more normal.

And there's really no point in making April black. Randomly changing her ethnicity doesn't add anything to the character and serves no point. And if the point is to make a "strong black character" then you need to create one, not randomly change the color of someone. That's just lazy.

And the only medium this would likely ever happen in is film and it seems unlikely that's going to happen anytime soon. So this is just an excessive discussion in nothingness.