This is Tyron Handy, a comic artist and children's book illustrator from Philadelphia.
Handy / BuzzFeed
Handy, who’s been posting his drawings to Instagram for over two years, has reimagined some of his favourite cartoons with black characters. He's recreated loads of childhood classics, from Rugrats...
To Hey Arnold...
To The Simpsons!
Handy's page has over 18,000 followers and people are absolutely loving his recreations.
studio_total_onyx_ / BuzzFeed
People are suggesting names for Handy’s characters, calling for the cartoons to be remade, and even telling him what other characters he should reimagine!
Handy said that it was his goal to eventually go viral, but he didn’t expect to get so much positive feedback so soon.
Handy thinks that the positive attention he’s received is because of the creativity he puts into his drawings. Speaking to BuzzFeed, he said: “Most recreations that I see are just people putting designer clothes and jewellery onto the characters and changing their skin colour. My recreations really look like they could be parallel versions of the characters.”
He told BuzzFeed: "There weren’t a lot of cartoons that I felt represented me much growing up — most black characters in cartoons and tv shows were stereotypical side characters and the best friend of the white main character. Black kids need to be able to see more representations of themselves in media.”
As well as his reimaginings, Handy has a weekly comic, Apple Dapple Tactics, which follows the character Ty and his complicated relationships.
Handy wants to inspire the next generation of black artists. He said: "I hope that one day I can run my own animation studio. I want to create more cartoons with black lead characters that will better represent the black experience."
We can't wait to see what he does next!
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