Characters were treated with the same level of care and detail as their environment

 Characters were treated with the same level of care and detail as their environment

 with both showrunners aware of the racism that has historically existed in the visual styles of animation. “That conversation has been had and not just for Black people, but also the Latinx community. I watch shows and it’s like, ‘This is the brown color,'” Clouden says. “I worked on shows where I had to put some background characters with some color in there. Yeah, the show’s leading characters are white, but the world that is revolving around them is not white.”

Devil Dinosaur and Lunella in ‘Marvel’s Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur.’

That generalization in depiction is why the show is so particular about giving characters different hairstyles and shades, as well as incorporating elements of the culture like Timberlands or Air Force Ones. “We wanted to make sure that we really portray that so that people who are watching can recognize that person,” the supervising producer adds. That specificity is also because diversity is what defines New York City. “Everybody takes the train, no matter what their socioeconomic status is,” Clouden notes.

“There’s a part in one of our episodes, in the montage of where you come from, that was originally animated as a woman sitting on a stoop braiding her daughter’s hair,” he recalls. “It was done in a certain way — kind of robotic — and I’m looking at that going. ‘Yeah, that’s not right. We need to fix that.’ Because I want to make sure this is all portrayed in the most accurate way.”