redid some old amab panels thatd been requested and i timed myself to see if i could still manage to do the room ones within an hour and a half like i used to. i can! not counting repainting stans bedroom. it was fun
my old color palettes were almost certainly fucked up by my old 2009 hp monitor. its fun giving them proper human skin. i still feel the same Angular sharp-serpentine lineart but theres a world of difference now. i see a lot to love in the old style
I can't believe I read the whole #askmarshandbroflovski in one day, like I started in the afternoon, at 6 o'clock and now it's 6 in the morning and I just finished it. I haven't even slept. WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?
WENDY: So, you were pretty quiet on the ride here. You're allowed to stay the night.
WENDY: Do you want to tell me what the Middle East was like?
CRAIG: Later, maybe. I think there's something else I have to tell you first.
WENDY: Good, I thought you forgot.
CRAIG: I'm glad you didn’t.
CRAIG: Wendy.
CRAIG: ...Wendy.
CRAIG: I'm going to preface this with the fact that I feel stupid, and that what I'm going to say is probably also stupid.
WENDY: Okay?
CRAIG: I came back because I missed you. I missed you too much.
CRAIG: I missed you because I like you. God, I can't get New Years out of my head. You're amazing, and smart and funny- that all sounds dumb, I know, but whatever.
CRAIG: You've always been supportive of me and doing my weird job, and I want to do the same for you.
WENDY: Do I have a weird job?
CRAIG: You know what I mean.
WENDY: I know. I think it was really sweet of you to come back because of me. And I don't think missing me is stupid.
WENDY: But throwing your career in the garbage for a girl is stupid, Craig.
CRAIG: I'm not, I'm still employed. They're just letting me do domestic stuff for a while.
WENDY: Good. So you're staying for a long time?
CRAIG: As long as I can.
WENDY: I missed you, too.
WENDY: I really like you.
CRAIG: I like you more.
WENDY: Prove it.
God just end me now. Every time I look at this art, I cringe with the intensity of a thousand imploding suns. But alas, here we are, and I don’t have the power to turn time back and redraw this from scratch so yeah− we’ll fight on and try to ignore the fact there’s like, a thousand things done wrong with this god damn picture. I’ll just scream into a cushion, it’ll be fine.
Right then, so.
I drew this one as a take on some of the stuff happening behind the scenes during Craig’s disappearance, after the confrontation with Clyde and getting shot down by Stan at Kyle’s birthday. When I first read this part, I guess it kinda resonated with me in a way. I’ve never had friends go missing like Craig does, but I certainly have had them up and shoot out of my life in the space of a few days, with like, very little on the explanation front. It’s jarring, to say the least, and it makes it easy to sympathize with Clyde who seems pretty gutted over the whole thing. (Bless) It really does leave you confused and wondering if, maybe, some part of it was your fault, second guessing that if you’d have done something differently, maybe they would still be around.
I took a bit of liberty in assuming it was Clyde that hung up a lot of the missing person posters (and making himself sad all over again in the process), but I don’t think it would have been much of a stretch considering. The whole ‘Craig’s Missing’ story-line was something I remembered quite vividly− perhaps due to the fact it happens straight after the big Stan/Kyle kiss moment the story had been leading up to? It was like a sudden crash back down to earth and it wound up catching me very much off guard.
It’s also one of the bittersweet moments in their relationship throughout the story that struck me as the most genuine. When it came down to brass tax, Clyde freaked out and became single-mindedly fixated on trying to get Craig back− driving through Denver as a one-man search party and being regarded by everyone who brings it up as taking Craig’s disappearance as hard as his family members were. Despite everything that’d happened, the boy has a good heart.
Which brings me to the Craig/Clyde relationship in general− which winds up being a bust. Clyde ends the story back in his comfort zone, back together with Bebe, and Craig ends the story getting… well, kinda shafted. However, I’m still going to defend this as one of their stronger outings together for a number of reasons:
They are involved romantically, and for a good year and a half no less− and initially, at the start of the run, they come across as quite a cute couple. Sharing dorky snap chats and fucking around at parties. I completely adore the panel where Clyde’s grinning and doing his finger-guns at all the compliments he’s getting from the asks, but straight up says that he’s ‘flattered but taken’− with Craig putting a hand protectively onto his shoulder.
Clyde’s insensitivity kinda works with me, bizarrely. Again, I remember being his age, and I remember how I felt back then− along with a lot of other boys my age. And as much as it feels like I was being stupid now, I can’t deny that being a guy back then sort of came part and parcel with being a bit of a dick, trying to act macho and all that shit. So I can believe how that would have strained his relationships since it’s something that my peers and I all went through as well.
Yet even despite the last point, I love how honestly concerned Clyde gets over Craig, and how fucking loyal he stays for so long. Despite Craig having a rough time of it, Clyde isn’t wrong to call him on lashing out at the people around him. It’s fairly admirable of Clyde to have tried so hard to make things work the way he did, and still care about Craig even when things start to go sour.
My number one reason for including this in my list of essential Cryde viewing though, despite it essentially being a Style askblog where Craig and Clyde don’t even end up together, is that they’re still so utterly intertwined throughout, even if neither of them want to admit it. Even though Craig takes the center stage between the two, Clyde’s always the one pushing him forward (and so often positively, not just negatively like Craig likes to fixate on.) Maybe they weren’t right for each other at that time in their lives, but there’s never a bridge burnt between them. Even though the feelings get complicated and messy, it lets you draw a lot of your own conclusions about the pair in an open-ended sort of way.
Honestly, I could write a fucking essay on the subject of Craig and Clyde in this askblog and all the ways they mesh together better than even they seem to realize, but I’ll leave it for now (For now…) Sufficed to say, I think I could easily see more in the future for the two of them.
I’ve also got to give props for the blog pretty much winning me over to Style as a ship, what can I say− the part with Stan’s diary was a genius move (as well as proof that even without the amazing art, the story could easily stand on its own) and the song Stan writes for Kyle with the fairy-lights and the stuffed whales and everything else? God. I could literally not stop smiling, people must have wondered what the hell was wrong with me that day.
I’m so, so incredibly glad that the blog managed to get its ending, much deserved. I can only imagine how tiring it got doing that for two years, but god damn− what an incredible ride, like, what a fucking testament to perseverance, passion and hard work, tying in the production of the story to the theme of the story so perfectly, I think it gives the whole thing such massive authenticity that just shines through the entire run. Every time I get to Wendy’s speech at the graduation, it’s always such a moment− it feels earned, y’know? Like it really is the end of some big journey, and what an awesome feeling to have accomplished.
I just realized how long I’ve been going on, so I’ll call it here, and try and contain myself from spilling out another thousand words of praise− and instead I’ll thank the amazing jovishark for making something truly wonderful (and to the no doubt equally amazing puppetamateur for all her work in the first half of the story and for helping make this blog a reality)
Hope everyone’s reading the pseudo-sequel staring Craig at college, and I hope you all enjoyed this long ramble of a recommendation. Can’t cay this’ll be the last time I talk about this one, I just love it too damn much.
