*cracks open a bag of candy and a jar of salt* SO, HALLOWEEN PSA TIME

Meta
Title:	Note: This fan comic is untitled and is referred to here by the caption it was posted with.
Creator:	frogopera (now coeurcore)
Date(s):	~ October 2016
Medium:	Meta presented as a fan comic.
Fandom:	Pan-Fandom, zombies, Original Works
Topic:	Whitewashing and skintone in fanart of zombies and vampires
External Links:	Archive link, live link to an early reblog by randomecorner
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

The third panel of the comic/tutorial.

*cracks open a bag of candy and a jar of salt* SO, HALLOWEEN PSA TIME is a tutorial on how to draw zombies and vampires to represent the various skin-tones of people of color. The work is presented in comic form. frogopera posted the meta comic to tumblr in October 2016. As of September 2020, the comic has over 103,000 notes.

Reception has been mixed, with some people debating how death impacts skin-tone, some objecting to the tone of the tutorial, and some are very appreciative.

Excerpts

A partial image of the concluding panel.
"if you can't use that, just try your best to stay within the same range of tones as the original color! remember: there isn't an excuse for whitewashing [...] now go draw some rad monsters!! happy halloween, don't be a scrub."

"ah...the halloween season! time for skeletons brawling, witches brewing, and a little talk about whitewashing the undead."

"so let's start out with the basics of what happens to your skin when you die. yes, it does PALE, but paled skin does not equal white skin. you can't lose pigmentation (it's in your DNA which, shocker, still influences your appearance when you're dead."

"Just because they're on the hunt for brains or have no blood in their body, that doesn't mean talking away the pigment in a POC's skin. even if it is a "stylistic choice" skin doesn't work that way."

"well here's a HANDY DANDY MINI-CHART OF COOL UNDEAD POC SKINTONES! (with original tones for reference)"

Responses

Positive Commentary

[healingsnow]
"I have ALWAYS used grey, green, or light blue shading over top of a normal-colored human being- be it that the normal colored human being is white, Black, brown, or Asian"

[frikkstikk]
"Dead people have a pallor that’s unmistakable. But it ain’t bleach. Keep the color, folks."

[oisinslament]
"Never thought I’d see a post complaining about the portrayal of skin color on zombies. Because I would never have thought that any makeup artist would go out of their way to make a POC more white when racists probably consider POC inherently more spooky than whitey and therefore would have no reason to lighten their dead skin. But hey—a perspective for ya all."

[something-a-little-different]
"thank for usable skin tones, will make scary boi"

[pokemonboyforlife]
"[...] It’s an art tutorial for a reason?? It’s teaching people how to draw dark skin tones maybe get your head out of your ass and read a bit more to realize this isn’t an attack but rather teaching people a skill that’s important because us non pasty motherfuckers are sick of seeing whitewashing even with supernatural people. And damn I didn’t realize not caring would get rid of racism bro why didn’t we think of that??"

[mcnamak]
"I am a scientist, and the OP got the gist of it correct. the color of a person’s skin is largely determined by the amount of melanin in their skin, which is a pigment made by a certain type of skin cell called a melanocyte. The paler your skin is, the less melanin your skin is making, and the darker it is, the more melanin it’s making. This is determined in a large part by genetics, but also has to do with sun exposure. That’s why people get tanned by the sun. Melanin protects you from sun damage, so if you are exposed to more sun, your melanocytes start making more pigment. Interesting but unrelated fact: freckles are what happens if a melanocyte makes a lot of melanin, but it doesn’t disperse evenly, and a mole is when there are a bunch of melanocytes near each other.

Anyway, so someone dies and becomes an undead something or other (vampire, zombie, whatever). They are dead, so their cells are dead. The melanocytes make no more melanin. They are stuck with however much pigment they have in their skin at that moment. That won’t change. What will change is that the blood will cool and stop circulating. This will make that undead person a bit paler. Your blood does contribute to how your skin color appears. Putting a different undertone is a good way to draw this. A living person will have a rosy undertone because they are alive and there is warm blood close to the skin’s surface giving it some color. An undead person would have a cooler undertone. I like the OP’s blue or green suggestion."

[pyrogothnerd]
While this is important art wise, I think it’s safe to say artist never intended to “whitewash” anyone. It’s just a matter of “Most people have never seen a rotting corpse before”

Critical Commentary

[finding-lambsauce]
"okay, i agree with this if the artist wants HELP. an artist can draw whatever and however they want. if they’re looking for tips, this kinda stuff is great but DON’T TELL AN ARTIST WHAT IS AND ISN’T OKAY TO DRAW. Drawing is about creativity and originality so there is no right and wrong."

[jsweetdraws]
"Art is art

i don’t see color

i look at the skill

no one should tell anyone how to color or what to draw.

Everyone enjoy your Halloween ^^"

[ziz-san]
"“i don’t see color :^) i look at the skill :^)”

if someone can’t draw dark skin and resorts to drawing a character white, they’re not skilled lol"

[temmiefromtemmievillage]
"This is actually kind of dumb. I’m dark skinned myself and I don’t really have a problem with it. It makes sense to make us significantly paler as we are undead, and as for the vampire, it makes sense because light skin burns a lot more easily, and vampires pretty much disintegrate in sunlight."

[unhappy-opinions]
"'Make sure to never draw a dead character too pale, but feel free to make them blue, green, or purple' - people who apparently feel that they are the arbiters of what others are allowed to draw [...]"