I am super excited today to get to write a little about the latest issue of Paper Doll Review that arrived a few days ago. If you haven’t gotten your copy yet, you can grab it from Paper Doll review or subscribe, which is what I do.
I always look forward to Paper Doll Review when it comes in the mail, though I don’t draw for it that much. I was still recovering from my surgery when the deadline was and I hate recycling old things for the magazine (which I know is silly), so I let this one slide. I sort of regret it, because it is always fun to see my stuff in there along with other artists I super respect.
I am working on an animal paper doll for the next issue and let’s just say- not the easiest thing I’ve worked on!
Renaldo Barnette was the featured artist and his interview was fascinating, plus there were many images of his amazing at. You don’t follow him on Instagram, you should, because there’s always fun stuff to see. His ability to render fabric texture in markers (I think it’s markers?) is awe inspiring.
There was an article about Katy Keene where I learned some things I didn’t know about the history of the comic. A lot of space in the magazine was devoted to the Katy Keen Dress-A-Doll which was fun, but I confess I’m not the biggest Katy Keen fan on the planet. Nothing against her, of course, but there’s a lack of nostalgia for me, because I didn’t grow up with Katy Keen comics I think the same way people twenty years older than me did.
While I was going through the magazine, I noticed that two of my favorite Dress-A-Doll designs by artist Tori Wright had exposed skin. Wright illustrated the doll’s skin tone for those outfits brown, much darker than the Dress-A-Doll figure. It made me wonder what the result of dressing Katy in some of these costumes would have been- a sort of strange paper doll semi-black face? I realized that if I had wanted to dress Katy up in these outfits it felt wrong somehow to do so.
So, I thought, maybe they could have had a second dress-a-doll for those outfits that had brown skin. After that thought, I realized I couldn’t recall ever seeing a Dress-A-Doll in these magazines that wasn’t white. I don’t own enough back issues of Paper Doll Studio (no longer in print) or Paper Doll Review to do a complete survey, but the ones I have this was the case.
If the magazine was going to feature an artist, like Renaldo Barnette, whose rendering of black models is such a feature of his work, surely there could be a black Dress-A-Doll, Katy Keene inspired or otherwise? I’d love to see Barnette’s version of Katy Keene. I bet that would be fantastic.
If you don’t subscribe to Paper Doll Review, I would so highly recommend it! There’s some magical about getting a paper magazine in the mail every few months and I’m always so impressed the articles, layout, and amazing paper doll art featured. I took a few pictures of my favorite pages, but I didn’t want to reveal all the good stuff.
Did you get this latest issue of Paper Doll Review? What did you think of the magazine?
Thanks for sharing Rachel! I do subscribe to Paper Doll Review – it seems every issue is even more super than the last! And I love all the COLOR. Speaking of… you’re spot on about skin tones / representation in the magazine. It’s past time to be more representative – I too have tunnel vision, – thank you for speaking up. <3 🙂
I love Paper Doll Review. I enjoy every issue. There’s something interesting that I haven’t yet been able to fully unpack about the tendency of so much of the paper doll world to tap into nostalgia. Something about how nostalgia warps the past probably impacts the way people write, draw, and engage with paper dolls, but I haven’t fully been able to form those thoughts into anything beyond an observation yet. I think there’s more there and maybe eventually I’ll be confident enough to write about it coherently.