Muggle artist Jim Lee received special permission from the wizarding world’s creator to raise money for victims of a hate crime. While there’s plenty of hate in both our own world and the wizarding world, Lee’s work goes to show that there’s also a lot of love.
Lee’s illustration will be part of the Love is Love anthology comic book, which is bringing together 100 works of art in support of those effected by the mass shooting at Orlando’s Pulse nightclub earlier this year. Every piece is donated and proceeds for the book — which will cost $9.99 — will go to Equality Florida and its fund for the shooting victims and their families.
It’s exactly the kind of support one would expect to find around the halls of Hogwarts.
The illustration features Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, and Albus Dumbledore — who J.K. Rowling has identified as gay in the past — with their wands raised, casting a pastel rainbow spell. The spell is similar to the one the students and teachers of Hogwarts used after Dumbledore’s death in The Half-Blood Prince, which cast away the darkness if just for a moment.
Lee, a co-publisher of DC Comics, uses an oft-forgotten but poignant quote from Dumbledore in the illustration: “Differences of habit and language are nothing at all if our aims are identical and our hearts are open.” Special permission to use the quote was given to Lee by Harry Potter author and generally charitable human being J.K. Rowling.
Mark Chiarello, a senior vice president of art and design at DC, did the coloring for the watercolor rainbow flag.
Love is Love will be available for purchase December 28.
