George and Harold having a... complicated relationship with superhero media, after everything.
George and Harold noticing how Batman stories got more self-serious and less campy over time. Let's give Dog Man the best of both worlds!
George and Harold being pissy about the MCU getting huge while the DCEU struggled to compete. There's a Hulk joke in Book 1 so they're not complete DC purists, but I think Dav's preference definitely bled into them lol
George and Harold reading about characters like Bucky Barnes—stripped of autonomy, unable to trust their own minds—and squirming as guilt bubbles back up. We were only 9, he was blackmailing us, he wouldn't have believed us anyway, all the times we nearly died was payback enough... right?
George and Harold getting defensive when people make The Usual Criticisms of Superman. He's not outdated, he's not boring, his trunks don't need to go, his kindness isn't unrealistic, he's not invincible.
George and Harold watching a new superhero movie with their spouses, to check if it's okay for their kids to watch (and totally not as a double date also), and struggling to explain their tears.
George and Harold gripping their armrests way too tight when the camera goes just behind his head as he flies, and wind whips by in the surround sound, and muscle memory kicks in and oh, no—here we go again.
This is the last part, I swear lol. Holy cow, I did not expect how long it’d take to bring this one to a presentable state. As fun as it’s been to brush up half-forgotten ideas from the depths of my hard drive, I’m glad to have finally finished!
Again, same ground rules as Part 1. I’ll also be referencing some WIPs from Part 2 here, so you might wanna keep that handy in another tab.
Before we get to the main event: I used to jot ideas down in my blog’s drafts before transferring them to documents, so I dug really deep into my 100+ drafts for anything that might’ve been left behind. Sure enough, there was a whole list of drabble ideas in there! They’re all super short, so I wanna go over them for the sake of leaving no stone unturned.
(Movie-verse) George has a nightmare about Harold losing his Hahaguffawchuckleamalus
(Book-verse) Monster Stuff happens at school while the Boys are home sick, so another kid or kids have to fill in for them! I imagined they thought ahead and hid a comic somewhere that explains how to get Captain, while also leaving out The Truth somehow? (i.e. “Find Mr. Krupp, turn away from him, snap your fingers, and don’t turn around until you hear Captain arrive”?) Looking back this might be too contrived, even for this series lol
(Either) The Boys rig the intercoms to blast this song just as Melvin accepts a Perfect Attendance award lmao. (Fun fact I swear I didn’t know until this year: one of the “gangstas” in that video is Jordan Peele. What are the odds)
(Either) 5 Times the Boys were mad at having to drop what they’re doing because someone snapped + 1 Time they accepted that It Just Be Like That and just enjoyed Captain’s company
(Either) A study of how Piqua's adults and kids cope with the Weird Stuff differently. The adults deny, downplay, send each other to that one hospital for threatening the routines they don’t like, but can’t imagine life without. The kids feel lost without their parents' guidance, but enjoy the break from status quo and trust in an impossible hero. I wrote “like Derry, Maine but funnier” here lol
(Book-verse) The boys mess around with the Combine-O-Tron 2000 and end up fused Gem-style. There was this common idea floating around called Gerald (Buttchins surname optional) and I wanted to play with that
(Book-verse) Expanding on the Li’l Wiseguy Novelty Company! I actually did a little of this here and here, then stopped cus what I came up with was too similar to this SCP character
(Book-verse) The Boys develop phobias after Book 3 (zombies for George, aliens for Harold) and help each other work around them. George leaves a sleepover early when everyone votes to watch My Boyfriend’s Back and calls him a scaredy-cat, so Harold invites him over to watch something else. Harold can’t finish Ecco The Dolphin and laments the money he wasted renting it for weeks on end, but George plays the last levels for him so he can see the ending. This would’ve led into an Aesop on how silly-seeming phobias and triggers are still valid.
(Book-verse) Harold and Heidi debate who would win in a fight: Boomer or Gamera (the turtle kaiju on TV in Book 5). It's just a screaming match until they realize that both characters protect children, then they truce. (I was gonna give Gamera a parody name to match Boomer's Barney, like “Gammagon” or something)
(Movie-verse) Something to do with the Edith-is-an-alien theory? I remember a joke about someone citing her blue eyes as evidence, cus that must look unnatural in a world where everyone else’s eyes are black lol
(Either) The Boys go through their Sonic phase because I’m just that predictable lol. George would’ve loved the stories, Harold would’ve drawn OCs
——————————————————————————————————
And now, our feature presentation…
WIP #10: Captain Underpants and the Wish Of the Waistband Warrior
They created the greatest superhero in the history of their elementary school… but that was all in the past future!
Time travelers George and Harold make a pit stop in 1950-something, a peculiar time when strangers filled your gas tank for you and every band sounded like The Beach Boys. They don’t plan on staying very long, but that changes when they meet a kid who’s familiar and different all at once. Can they safely leave the past without preventing the future? And how will their new friend change how they view their greatest enemy…?
Have you read your UNDERPANTS today? [Book!Verse, post-Book 12.]
This is it—the big one. My last attempt at publishing something CU-related, but definitely not the least. Drawing ideas and even entire scenes from the last few attempts, Wish was meant to be a love letter to the book series, disguised as a new installment in it.
Yeah, that logo I posted once? I was gonna make an entire fake Book 13 to go with it. Illustrations, chapters, made-up copyright info, the works!
...Before wisely scaling it back into a normal fic, and then cancelling the idea altogether. But anyway, that’s why writing this one up took so long—its document is formatted way differently than the other 9, and I didn’t want to leave out stuff from the Book Hoax phase. Most of that stuff will be at the bottom because spoilers, but here’s what I can share now to contextualize the actual story:
I planned on posting snippets of it at a time and claiming it had leaked from Scholastic to drum up interest. Then upon release in PDF form, I'd subtitle it as “The Twelfth-and-a-Half Epic Novel by Alms Givings” to prevent confusion in the future. I think I considered cutting “Captain Underpants and” from the title too, because it’s crossed out in some places in the doc.
My goals for the project were to tie up Book 12′s biggest loose end and to affirm Kernel Theory in a believable, canon-compliant way. I took Dav’s comment on how he could’ve made Krupp more human as a go-ahead to do so—if he hadn’t said that, I likely never would’ve tried it.
The plot was my take on an idea that’d been floating around Tumblr for some time (the Boys time travel to when Krupp was a kid and it makes them Think About Things). I think @tornrose24 was the one who came up with it; at least, her post is the first mention I could find of it anywhere.
I remember canning the project because I couldn’t think of a more dramatic climax; what’s here skips awkwardly from rising action to falling action, and it’s not a long or remarkable fall. (Other people have taken the concept further since, most recently being @infini-tree’s Jammer as outlined here. Go read that and search for “Jammer” on her blog if you want a cooler version of what I did!)
Speaking of what I did, let’s finally get into that! Wish mostly followed the George and Harold that left for time-travel adventures in Melvin’s Squid Suit (referred to as the Time!Boys from here on out). The book’s Forward, of course, was them summarizing the last 12 books with a comic. I never made that comic, but I did write dialogue for their usual address to the reader:
H: Hi everybody! It’s been a while, huh? We thought you might want a refresher before you see what we’ve been up to…
G: …So here’s a comic that’ll explain everything! Just don’t let it fall into the wrong hands, okay?
Ya’ll ‘ready KNOW how Chapter 1: George and Harold begins and ends. In the middle, it would’ve established their new normal: time-traveling in the Squid Suit, looking for Sulu and Crackers, taking care of the Hamsterdactyls, and causing some mischief along the way. Sometimes, though, they see things on their travels that make them think about their old lives. And one time, they ran into someone who made them rethink everything.
But before I can tell you THAT story, I have to tell you THIS story…
In Chapter 2: Awkward Class Reunion, the Time!Boys realize they’re hunting for treasure without a treasure map, and visit the Old!Boys for pointers (and a sleepover! I think I posted about this once but I can’t find it rn). So the Old!Boys hook them up with the best guy for the job: Old!Melvin!
The nerd’s mellowed out over the years, but he still freaks out upon seeing both sets of Boys. Like, he goes from “oh, that’s where my old Squid Suit went” to “STOP TIME-TRAVELING, YOU’RE NINE” to “SULU HAD KIDS WITH A QUETZALCOATLUS???” to “okay, if I can’t stop you, at least let me help you do it right”.
First he tries tracking Sulu’s place in time via GPS like in Book 11. Technology has advanced 20 years since then, so it should be easier than ever, right?
Nope, it makes his computer crash. And then catch fire. But just before it crashes and catches fire, an error message claims that Sulu is somewhere where time and space don’t exist. That narrows it down to either before the Big Bang or after the Big Crunch.
The Time!Boys fire up the Squid Suit, but Old!Melvin stops them and explains the risks. Taking a time machine to a timeless place is like driving a car into deep water: easy to get in, impossible to get back out. Ensuring a safe two-way trip requires… some wormhole-y, timey-wimey thing I never fleshed out. He offers to build the wormhole-thing, but he needs some artifacts from throughout Piqua’s history to keep it stabilized and locked onto the Boys’ time-signature. (I left a note to lampshade how Zelda-early-game-fetch-quest-y this is lol)
Cue Chapter 3: Tools of the Time Trade. The Squid Suit is outdated tech from Old!Melvin’s perspective, so he upgrades it! Here are the patch notes:
It can camouflage now! “What was I thinking, making a time machine constantly glow-in-the-dark?”
One of its tentacles hides a built-in Forgetchamacallit 4000, a new model of the memory-wiping device from Book 7. It can erase specific memories from as far back as a week. “I don’t trust you two not to play Pogs with 1800’s settlers or something, so use this after you’ve had your fun.”
And finally, a small hatch under the cockpit leads to a Holographic Oasis for Melancholy Explorers, aka HOME: a faithful replication of the Boys’ backyards, complete with treehouse! “Homesickness during long-term time travel is a real concern. Don’t look too hard into me doing this for you, it’s just common courtesy.”
Then he tells the Boys where and when to find the first Artifact. I never decided what it would be, only that it could be found in the late 1950’s. They thank Old!Melvin sincerely, and then it’s off to Chapter 4: 1950-Something!
——————————————————————————————————
The Boys hide the Squid Suit in a thicket near Jerome Horwitz, then head into town to start their search. They don’t find the Artifact, but they do find a vintage toy store that they really wanna shop at. So they head back to the school and, after humorously navigating a pre-digital teacher’s lounge, make a comic to sell for some time-appropriate money.
(Chapter 5 would’ve been that comic, of course. I planned on making up a one-off hero for it, cus the Boys using Captain or Dog Man before they were born would have Obvious Time Travel Consequences.)
In Chapter 6, they earn enough money to buy the toys and some extra supplies for their stay. As they try to remember where they parked the invisible Squid Suit, they hear someone enter the thicket and hide in the bushes. They peek out and see a kid their age walk up to a puddle, tie a red towel around his neck, and spout superhero-y affirmations to himself. His face and voice remind the Boys of two people they’ve been trying not to think about, but they figure it’s coincidence… until the kid calls himself Benny.
George and Harold slid back into the bushes.
“Is it just me,” George whispered, “or did that kid kinda look like…?”
“Yeah,” Harold said shakily. “But he was talking sorta like…!”
“I know! You don’t think…?”
Harold began to fidget. “Oh, man… What if he sees us and the timeline gets all messed up again?”
“Then we just won’t let him see us,” said George. “No matter what he says or does, we’re not getting involved. I repeat: We are NOT getting involved!”
Just then, something parted the bushes, exposing the boys to the afternoon sun.
“Hey, beans!” Benny greeted them. “Are you two new around here?”
“Uh-oh,” said Harold. “I think we’re involved.”
I can see this page clear as day: Benny crawling further into the bushes and being all friendly, and the Boys backing away and sweating like mad. Their backs hit an invisible dead-end—the Squid Suit!—and Harold scrambles for the Forgetchamacallit while George plays along with Benny's small talk.
The new kid asks for their names, so George makes some up: Bobby Georgia and Mike Harrington. Benny thinks their last names sound funny, and shares his own: Siskin.
The Boys freeze, suddenly feeling very silly for panicking over nothing. They whisper a bit and chalk up the resemblance to bad writing.
Now that that’s sorted out, they ease up and ask Benny what the puddle thing was about. He’s embarrassed that they saw, but is surprisingly quick to come clean. Cue Chapter 7: So Start Ignition, Count To Zero…
“I just wanna be a superhero.
[...] “‘Cus there’s lots of bad things happenin’ all the time. Things I can’t do a thing about. But I wanna do a thing about ‘em! I wanna stop the bad guys, and I wanna be there for people who need help!”
“… And, uh, havin’ cool powers would be neat, too.”
Benny looks away, as if expecting to get laughed at for his silly little dream.
The Boys simply stare at him. Usually they’d discuss what to do, but they’re both consumed by an idea they fear the other will judge him for. Something’s been missing from their lives for a while—though they can’t admit it—and now they see a chance to fill that void.
“We can help you.”
George and Harold blurt it out at the same time. Then they look at each other in disbelief, as if to say “No we can’t, what are you DOING?” But Benny looks up at them with such excitement and hope in his eyes, that they can’t bear to take it back.
And so, they put their search for the Artifact on hold and hatch a plan to grant their new friend’s wish… at least for a little while.
(I thought of having them offer to be his sidekicks specifically here, but then I reread the books and realized that’s a Movie-only thing. Also, this is where I stopped coming up with Chapter names.)
——————————————————————————————————
The next day, the Boys buy even more supplies and meet Benny Siskin in the town square. They explain their experience with making up superheroes, and how that makes them qualified to teach him how to be one.
“REALLY???” Benny exclaimed, wide-eyed. “But… that’s a big leap from just makin’ ‘em up on paper! Are you two sure you can teach me?”
“Are you kidding?” Bobby boasted. “It’ll be a snap!”
Lesson 1: protecting your identity! The Boys bought a mask and one-piece pajamas to go with Benny’s towel cape.
“Hey, there’s still somethin’ left in your shopping bag.” Benny reached in and pulled out a suspiciously skin-colored bathing cap.
“Uhhh…” Bobby stammered. “Th-That’s not ours.”
“It must’ve f-fallen into our cart when we weren’t l-looking,” offered Mike.
“Well, good thing it did,” Benny grinned, stretching the cap over his head. “Now no one will recognize me by my hair!”
Lesson 2: getting superpowers! Harold has Benny drink a carton of Extra-Strength Super Power Juice (actually just Sealtest orange juice with a new label), then asks him what powers he wants. His first answer is flight—so George lifts him up with the invisible Squid Suit’s tentacles! Then he wishes for super-strength and tries chopping a metal park bench in half—the Squid Suit does it milliseconds before his hand hits (cus geez that would hurt), but he thinks it was all him anyway.
Lesson 3: Knowing when to jump into action! For their narrative convenience, a little girl’s cat just happens to be stuck in a tree nearby. After Benny “flies” in to retrieve it, the girl runs off to tell her skeptical mom about her superhero encounter. (Said girl happens to be wearing cowboy boots with stars on them.)
(I tried not to have the Boys suggest anything specifically Captain-y to Benny, just encouraged what was already there. The idea is that they didn’t put the Kernel there, just heated it up a bit.)
The Boys declare Benny a graduate of their College O’ Hero-ing and set him loose, secretly following him in the Squid Suit to provide his “powers.” I planned on drawing this as a montage, having the Boys’ expressions change as Benny helps people with their everyday problems. At first they’d be visibly worried, even having the Forgetchamacallit out in case things go south. But they don’t, so they start to relax. By the end, they’re smiling just as much as Benny :)
I never set in stone what exactly happens next; the following is just the scenario I lingered on the longest.
The montage ends when the Boys spot something in the window of an important building—the Artifact! They rush inside and nab it when nobody’s looking, overjoyed to have completed their mission in the middle of goofing off from it. Maybe you can have your cake and eat it too!
But when they walk out, Benny’s already wandered out of sight. They scour the city for him until they hear an alarm bell ringing a few blocks away. They hurry over to find a familiar scene: two robbers stepping out of Frank’s Bank… and Benny standing in their way and ordering their surrender.
Benny throws a punch before the Boys can even react. One of the robbers catches his fist, lifts him by the arm, and tosses him aside. Benny hits the sidewalk hard—not enough to need a hospital or leave lifelong marks, but enough to leave him shaken—as the crooks hurry to their getaway car and speed away.
The Boys rush over to ask if he’s okay. Benny starts to answer, but freezes up at the sight of something behind them. The Boys turn around to see the held-up adults streaming out of the bank… including a man with a familiar scowl, and a woman with a familiar build. They spot their son and come running; the mother to check him for injuries, but the father…
I didn’t write dialogue here, but he was going to rant about how he should’ve put a stop to Benny’s superhero obsession sooner. He also would’ve yelled at the Boys for encouraging his silly ideas and forbid them from coming near him again.
Benny shoots the Boys an apologetic look as his parents drag him away. The Boys leave the scene just as the police arrive.
——————————————————————————————————
George and Harold have half a mind to leave for the future right there, but it doesn’t feel right. Instead they head back to the thicket and retire to their holographic treehouse for the night. They don’t get much sleep—there’s something the two clearly want to discuss with each other, but neither has the courage to bring it up.
They linger in the thicket the next day, hoping to see Benny again before they leave. They’re about to give up when he finally appears, visibly disheartened, but happy that the Boys waited for him.
He explains that his dad always thought his love of superheroes was a waste—that worrying about other people’s needs would get him nowhere—and that yesterday was the final straw. That night, his dad had made him throw out all his comics and toys and promise to “straighten himself out.” The Boys apologize, but he insists it was a long time coming. He also admits that he knew they were pulling “some kinda smoke-and-mirrors” on him yesterday, but thanks them anyway for helping grant his wish for a day.
He pulls out the one thing he’d saved from his dad’s purge, an official superhero comic book, and offers it to them as a parting gift. As fun as it’s been, he plans to make good on his promise, and claims it’s better if they all just forgot about each other and what they did together.
They all hug and say goodbye. Then, after some hesitation, the Boys zap Benny with the Forgetchamecallit and finally head back to the future... but in their hurry to leave, they drop his last comic in the grass.
Benny opens his eyes and picks it up. All he knows is that his dad has finally thrown out all his superhero stuff, and that if he brings it home it’ll share the same fate.
Something about the situation makes him snap. Frustration fills him up until he’s shaking and ready to burst. And burst he does—by baring sharp teeth and ripping the comic in half.
He drops the pieces into a puddle, horrified less by what he’s done and more by how relieving it felt to do it. Overwhelmed and holding back tears, he runs back home, leaving the pieces to rot away.
Here I planned to draw another montage, this time of Benny growing up. I wanted its narration to both echo this passage from Book 10 and explain the lesson he’d taken away from that day: between sadness and anger, it felt a little better to choose anger. There’s notes here calling to explain (not justify, just explain) this thinking: it demanded people’s attention and made him feel more in control of situations. It got him through many things, and over time became his tool of choice—perhaps even his only tool. And when your only tool is a hammer, one tends to treat everything like a nail.
The only scene I locked into this montage was of his parents getting divorced, and him and his mother readopting her maiden name: Krupp.
——————————————————————————————————
The Boys arrive at Old!Melvin’s place and hand him the Artifact. He starts telling them where to find the next Artifact, but stops because they don’t seem very into it (don’t worry if you forgot this was part of a longer quest, so did they). They ask to take a break from time travel and walk back to their Old! selves’ homes under a setting sun.
On the way there, they finally reflect on why they leapt at the chance to help Benny …but not before admitting that they saw right through the last-name-misdirection thing and figured he was Mr. Krupp all along. (Harold would’ve even nailed that the name change was due to divorce—after all, he would know.)
So why had they risked changing the past and helped him anyway? It takes them some effort to dig beneath “he looked so sad” and “it just seemed like fun” and confess the real reason to each other: they were trying to recreate their time with Captain. They couldn’t admit it earlier because it seemed silly; running after him whenever Krupp heard snapping had been stressful, so why did they suddenly want that back?
At the end of Book 12, they’d jumped right into finding Sulu and Crackers; I wanted to posit here that they did so to take their minds off the messed-up stuff they’d just gone through, including the final bombshell that Captain was suddenly gone. But they hadn’t forgotten it, just refused to talk about or process it. It finally hits them on their older selves’ front steps—their greatest creation, one who’d saved their lives more than once, is effectively dead—and they stop to comfort each other accordingly.
Suddenly, something else hits them too: Mr. Krupp had liked superhero comics as a kid. They think back to when they’d found their confiscated comics in his cabinet in Book 1 (to quote the holy text: “He’s got every issue!”) Then they remember how Captain often knew what had happened in their latest issue, sometimes on the same day they’d written them (swinging on toilet paper in Book 3, his spray starch weakness in Book 5). Then they realize that in order for Krupp to become Captain while hypnotized, he had to know what Captain was like in the first place.
And so, sitting on their future front porch as the stars emerge, George and Harold come to a stunning conclusion: Mr. Krupp had been reading their comics the whole time. Not only that, but from what they now know about his past, there might’ve been more to the Captain’s existence than meets the eye…
The illustrations here would’ve shown the Boys imagining what had happened in Krupp’s head that fateful day. I planned to draw the dream-ish sequence described in WIP #9: Recall, but with the Movie-specific imagery removed.
The following excerpt was meant to accompany this sequence. It reads like the tail end of a longer statement, but it seems this is all that’s left.
He could run around in a cape and not even care if people looked at him funny!
He could help people like he’d always wanted… and this time, nothing could stop him.
He was now the greatest superhero of all time: The Amazing Captain Underpants!
Realizing all this strangely brings the Boys some peace. The next part is formatted as if it was meant for a multi-page spread with major focus on the illustrations, but I didn’t write down what to draw for it.
Captain Underpants, as they knew him, was gone. But they were happy to know that, just maybe…
… somewhere deep inside Mr. Krupp’s cold heart…
… the wish that had made the Captain who he was still remained.
Right where it had always been.
Their revelation is interrupted by the Old!Boys opening the door and bringing them inside. Their kids and spouses have gone to bed, so the Time!Boys take the chance to ask them how they dealt with Captain’s “exit” at their age.
To Make A Long Story Short: they hadn’t. Not at first, anyway.
First the Old!Boys explain how they found out Captain was gone (told in a flashback retooled from WIP #7: Coda). Then they admit to snapping around Krupp for a week after, just in case. They’d even considered using the Hypno-Ring on him again, but the idea just felt wrong. (And even if it hadn’t, I planned to reveal that it had been crushed under the TV when the treehouse got jostled in Book 11.)
But eventually, the Yesterday!Boys talked it out and chose to honor their fallen friend’s memory in several ways. First they took the Ring and other trinkets from their adventures, sealed them in their old carton of Super Power Juice, and buried it under their backyard tree. Then they designed a mural of Captain and the bad guys he fought (art by Harold, written dedication by George) and installed it somewhere in the school that only kids could squeeze into to see.
Finally, although they never went back to writing comics about him, they started giving him cameos in their Dog Man series like in WIP #8: Letter Column. George would write a scene that called for a crowd shot, and Harold would find the perfect spot to hide him. They kept this tradition going until it became another part of their lives, and their lives had slowly but surely moved on. They’d graduated, they’d met their spouses, they’d had their kids, and they’d gotten Dog Man published.
And all the while—as they show the Time!Boys by opening their latest books—the Captain had been with them.
But now that they have money and a respectable public image, the Old!Boys reveal that they’re planning one last memorial act: petitioning Piqua’s government to revive the Great Outdoor Underwear Festival, with all proceeds going to improving local schools. If the city gives them the go-ahead, they want to hold it on September 1st. (They mention that last part while winking very unsubtly.)
The Time!Boys get the hint, rush back outside, and set the Squid Suit’s coordinates for that date. And sure enough, they emerge in a town with festivities well underway. Red banners with black polka dots line the buildings, floats sponsored by Snotco parade the streets, and everyone has their underwear over their clothes and a wide grin on their faces.
They weave through the crowds and spot the Old!Boys getting interviewed by the Eyewitness 4 News crew. They wisely lay low to avoid exposing time travel live on camera and listen as Ingrid Ashley asks why they weren’t doing something more in line with their comics, like a dog festival.
I never fully wrote out the Old!Boys’ response, but I wanted its core message to be that underwear is what all people have in common, “from the highest king to the lowliest peasant,” and that acknowledging it brings them to the same level. Just as Ingrid starts to look sorry she asked, they wrap up the interview on this note:
“As an old friend of ours always said... Never underestimate the power of underwear!”
The news crew sets the men free, and they run off to rejoin their families. The Time!Boys decide to leave them be, duck behind a dumpster, and reemerge with their underwear on the outside. Raring to enjoy the festival, they vanish from view into the crowd.
I didn’t plan any narration or dialogue for the book’s last few pages, but I had some very clear visuals in mind:
The Yesterday!Boys’ mural, faded and chipping, but still standing 20 years later.
Jerome Horwitz benefitting from the Festival’s proceeds, as well as generally becoming a better school over time. The document calls for “more teachers like Ms. Chivess: willing to engage, sympathize, and even laugh with their students”.
Kids still drawing Captain in their notebooks and speaking of his good deeds in legend, just as real kids still draw the Cool S and sing the jump rope songs of old.
And finally: an older, retired Mr. Krupp watching the Festival in his living room. He would shake his head with an I-can’t-believe-I’m-seeing-this smile, and get up to do something else… but leaving the TV on.
——————————————————————————————————
And there you have it :)
We’ve got lots of document-bottom-extras to cover this time. First, a list of ideas I toyed with but never fit into the outline. I’ll let you judge if there was room for them:
Flashbacks to the Boys having Captain around just for fun. I think I shelved this because it made sense in Movie-verse, but not Book-verse, where they only snap during emergencies as sad as that is.
Giving Benny a favorite superhero—I couldn’t decide whether to make one up or just use a real hero from the Silver Age of Comics. (Let’s face it, I probably would’ve just gone with Superman.)
The elusive Jasper Krupp! I remember Dav announcing his existence after I’d started on Wish, and I drew him as a baby a few months later. Maybe I could’ve stuck him into the Frank’s Bank scene in a baby stroller.
The Hamsterdactyls having plot relevance? As you can see, I forgot to give them something to do lol. Maybe they could’ve just stayed with Old!Melvin, he’d probably want to study them thanks to their unique lineage.
The Time!Boys actually saving Sulu and Crackers. I chose to keep it a distant goal, but came close to just having them fulfill it as part of the plot
The Time!Boys reading the Yesterday!Boys’ Dog Man series so I could relate their themes to the plot. Specifically, I wanted to draw parallels between Krupp and Petey… and, in the same vein, Captain and Li’l Petey. (Please consider listening to this song from the musical and losing your mind like I did a few months ago)
The usual once-per-book stuff, like sign gags and Flip-O-Rama. I remember debating whether Wish could be a worthy successor without them
I REALLY wanted to end it with Something Fun instead of just linking to my blog and stuff. Like, “If you X because of Y on Page Z, send a message saying ‘Hey, I X because of Y on Page Z!’ to biolizardboils.tumblr.com. I’ll send you something fun!” Don’t ask what I would’ve sent, I never thought that far ahead lmao
At least one self-deprecating joke about this not being an official CU book lol
I briefly toyed with the idea that Jerome Horwitz was a better school once, maybe even a fun one. It was named after one of the Stooges, after all. Not to mention, the school’s held more than one event that clashes with the whole no-fun-or-creativity thing, like the annual field trip to Piqua Pizza Palace in Book 4. I figured stuff like that was put in place by the district, or some other higher level that Krupp couldn’t challenge. (I never thought of making up a superintendent and might have facepalmed when they introduced one in Epic Tales lol)
One idea I had for the Artifact tied into this: a brick from a room in the school that was later demolished to cut costs.
Now for more stuff from the Book-13-Hoax phase! First, I left behind a brief plan of what to draw for the book’s title page (not cover, that’s different). It would’ve looked similar to the one in Book 1, but with the Hamsterdactyls added, the Boys smiling instead of worrying, and Benny in place of Captain. (I imagine he would’ve been just off-page for the Bad Writing joke to still work.)
Here’s a Table of Contents I slapped together as a test. Only the chapter titles I’ve already mentioned were locked in, the rest are song names and phrases I thought fit thematically and added to fill up more of the page. I think the crossed-out ones on the bottom were "disqualified" for giving too much of the game away.
Book 5 opens with a quote from Einstein, and I thought of doing something similar. Here are some of the candidates:
“So, like a forgotten fire, a childhood can always flare up again within us.” — Gaston Bachelard
“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.” — Pablo Picasso
“Can you remember who you were, before the world told you who you should be?” — Danielle Laporte
And finally, the music segment! Wish’s document doesn’t have a Mood Ref section... but it does have a link to a 49-song playlist. I won’t be sharing the full thing because it’s too long and disorganized, so here’s some highlights instead:
Every song I’ve already linked to in this series (except the Biggie one)
Mid-century songs that fit the setting, like Mr. Sandman, Yakety Yak, and Tutti Frutti
Songs from that psyrock EarthBound album I gushed about that one time
These ones listed back to back that I think represented the Georges and Harolds: Good Day by Jukebox The Ghost, Good Old Days by Macklemore, and Champagne Supernova by Oasis
In the same vein, I think these ones were meant for Benny: The Great Pretender by Roy Orbison, The Last Waltz by Engelbert Humperdinck, and Hero by Nickelback
I Will Remember You by Ed Helms (I’ve never even watched The Office but oh god this one hurts)
Songs that ended up on The Warden/Mr. Blue Sky, including Used To Be A Sweet Boy, both versions of Superman, and The Banana Splits theme song
To close out this whole thing, I wanna share my favorite song on the playlist: Used To Be by Cody Fry. I heard it at my day job and left the floor to jot down the words, they broke me and I didn’t want to forget them.
Captain Underpants does not provide a moral for adults, because it wasn't written for adults—and that’s more than okay, it’s great! That being said, rediscovering the series in adulthood did teach me something. It was that something that I tried to embody in Wish and that this song captures perfectly: Don't forget the kid you used to be, so you can better understand and provide for the kids of today.
...Oh wait, I almost forgot! Hey, @jackie-sugarskull! I hope all this makes up for my tease—sorry it took nearly five years!
post-book 12 headcanon: when the time travelling!George and Harold need a break from looking for Sulu and Crackers, they crash at their older selves' houses. if anybody asks they go by their middle names and say they're long lost nephews
so i was thinking of this convo and a headcanon happened
old! george and harold’s first few graphic novels became bestsellers and thrust Piqua into the kids lit industry’s public eye, and the town asked the boys how theyd like to celebrate
so they asked to bring back the great outdoors underwear festival
and the city council didnt want to but they knew the town likely wouldnt make national news again for a while so they went with it
and reporters keep asking george and harold why they didnt ask for something more relevant to their comics, like a dog festival, and they just say the town’s been taking itself too seriously and its about time everyone got together to do something silly
but when the cameras turn elsewhere they look at each other and share a knowing smile
