Graphic Dreams: China-Based Artist Reimagines Anime and Queer Beauty

Aside from revolutionizing communication and how people around the world engage with and consume content, social media platforms have also been used by many prominent and up-and-coming artists to catapult themselves from relative obscurity to recognition, appreciation, and even fame and fortune. The new generation of social media artists, ranging from musicians, choreographers, and photographers, to painters and sculptors, have revolutionized traditional art forms, often reimagining how they are performed, presented, and even created.

The superhero comic book creation genre is one such artistic sphere that has undergone a metamorphosis in the recent past, with artists using their platforms and skills to reimagine and expand on the definition of “superhero,” from gender to race, to appearance, and sexuality. Much of the ‘new stuff’ on platforms like TikTok and Instagram is replete with compelling LGBTQIA+ characters whose sexualities are incidental but present nonetheless, allowing readers to interact with their full “humanity.”

Anime Renaissance

Artists like Parim Sahib (parambanana) from India self-described as a “Maximalist Designer” have taken Instagram with a plurality of the re-imagination of the face of homo-eroticism. Sahib’s works, which portray a Gay Sikh man’s desires are an illustration of cultural and religious artistic intersectionality capturing “an everyday experience in a Queer Sikh man’s life,” in a space in which “it is rare to see artwork showcasing Sikh men in Gay embraces or desires.”

This is not by accident. A growing number of LGBTQIA+ creators from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds have taken to these more democratic platforms to showcase their skills and fill the dearth of sexually, physically, and racially inclusive characters in the world of fantasy, a dearth that has only recently been addressed by mainstream media giants and production companies behind some of the most well-known superhero characters of all time. Artist

Aspiring Black American comic book author and art teacher Robert Christopher Dilworth Jr (Chris) is part of the growing movement of artists transforming the “alternative” into the commonplace. Inspired by manga artist Akira Toriyama and his work on the famous animation TV series Dragon Ball Z, Chris creates a world he describes as “Men and monsters mixed with All Things nerdy,” while also drawing inspiration from the unlikely pairing of Thai Boys’ Love shows like KinnPorsche and Godzilla movies.

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Art of Representation

Like many emerging artists in the genre of animation, Chris felt a lack of representation in the content he consumed and wished to fill the gap. “I want to create a comic/ graphic novel geared toward people like me who are Gay but also enjoy other things like Kaiju Eiga and/ or anime. Something we can see ourselves in without all of cooperate pandering to who sells and makes money,” said Chris. The 27-year-old’s move to China six years ago also broadened his artistic horizons, allowing him to delve into the world of Chinese anime often unknown to those outside of the country.

“Back home in America I couldn’t find what I was looking for inspiration-wise till I started doing research into Chinese culture and stumbled upon Shen the Rabbit God, and it was history from there. I had my starting point, then all I had to do was filter it through my unique lens and throw in some of my own life experience and there I had the story I wanted to tell,” Chris explained.

And drawing inspiration is only the first step in a seemingly frenetic creative process for the artist who recently completed the first arc in what he hopes to be his debut graphic novel, started in 2019. “First an idea hits me, then I quickly find the nearest thing to write on to get the idea out of my head before I forget it. Then I start sketching till I find something I like, then I move to ‘roughing it out’ on my drawing tablet. Then I Finish with line work, and sometimes color.” Surprisingly, Chris claims to have never suffered an artistic setback because “to me, there is always time in the day to draw something.”

Aesthetic concerns play an important even if not central part in Chris’ creative process, encompassing traditional masculine beauty and the myriad of gender expressions therein, as his characters strike a perfect balance between reality and fantasy. Queer characters of African descent are also reimagined as superheroes complete with African and East Asian fusion-inspired costumes. “I say my art is 50 percent male beauty appreciation and 50 percent nerd culture. It heavily affects what I draw, because if I see a man I find attractive, my brain will not rest till I sketch and or full-on draw them. The same goes for the media I consume,” Chris revealed.

Journey to Self

Such a drive can be deceiving, presenting Chris as a “Gay culture” savant, as opposed to someone whose brain “doesn’t compute most of gay culture but I know it’s where I belong, so I enjoy the self-made family aspect while tiptoeing around the other parts that are more intimate.”

To look at Chris’ well-appointed clothes and muscular physique, one would be shocked to discover that he was a late bloomer in the world of love and romance. “I came to China a virgin and full of ‘I’m going to find a man to marry and live the Disney happy-ever-after story with a house in the suburbs and 2.5 kids with a cat’ [fantasy],” Chris admitted, adding that being exposed to the Gay community in China exposed him to the positives and negatives of not only dating as a foreigner but as a Black foreigner. “I tried for a year to put myself out there, but I found out being black complicates things more, on top of being a foreigner.”

Despite this set of unique challenges in the world of dating and love, Chris still maintains a positive, if not entirely romantic attitude toward making his happily-ever-after dream come true. “Now I wait [while] drawing my days away for the person I imagine will come along, because I read a quote that says the person you are meant to be with will come when you are doing what you love, so for now I will stick with that,” optimistically.

Chris, as someone who also grew up in a religious and often homophobic environment, is also all too aware of the importance of change being as good as a rest. “If I had stayed around them my mind would have shattered trying to be the perfect son, now we can talk more and more openly as time goes on,” he said of his relationship with his family. After waiting until he was financially independent to come out to his family despite being “half-outed” by a cousin, leading to a don’t ask don’t tell relationship with his family, Chris has a few words of wisdom – be selfish!

“Work on yourself first. Look deep inside and find what makes you happy and cultivate that. The more you know yourself the good and the bad the better you can deal with a world that feels like it’s trying to kill you at every turn. Once you are comfortable and strong on the inside that energy will radiate and attract the people meant to be in your life. My biggest advice is that if you know your environment is hindering your ability to fully self-accept and grow. Bide your time and once you have an opportunity leave it and never turn back – that helped me with my relationship with my parents.”

_{Photos: Courtesy of Chris, Unsplash}