{"id":561,"date":"2020-06-26T14:31:18","date_gmt":"2020-06-26T14:31:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/galesaur.com\/tfww\/?p=561"},"modified":"2022-05-25T13:17:34","modified_gmt":"2022-05-25T13:17:34","slug":"gonna-catch-em-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/galesaur.com\/tfww\/gonna-catch-em-all\/","title":{"rendered":"Gonna Catch ‘Em All"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A healthy Friday to you, gorgeous fans! This is a brief Author’s Note, an A\/N if you will, to acknowledge the enormity of the month that has just passed. We hope you are well. If you have the means, please consider sending some support to an organization which advances BIPOC and Trans causes. Perhaps one of these?<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And this is a sentence that will adequately prepare you for the tonal shift below, as we return again to the Fanart Zone.

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Today’s guest is the powerful Gaby Epstein<\/a><\/strong>! Gaby’s a fantastic cartoonist with a ton of stunning work under their belt, including the (highly <\/em>recommended) Breaking the Ice<\/strong><\/a> comics. (Seriously, take a quick break to read those and then come right back. We’ll wait.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I cannot compliment Gaby’s work highly enough, but I sure can try, <\/em>so let’s get into it!

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Good morning, Gaby! Today, we appear to be seated at a hockey rink during a low-key practice situation. I\u2019ve got fruit snacks if you want \u2018em.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Morning Gale!!! Hell yeah. I\u2019ll trade you some Wawa donuts I smuggled in. We\u2019ll feast like kings. Also, feel free to use this complimentary Gritty blanket so your butt doesn\u2019t freeze to the seats\u2026 it\u2019s more likely than you think.

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WAWA!! You\u2019re too good to me!!! <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Okay, SO. This is a delightful relic, and, if I can be real for a moment, I admire that you filled the page. When I was A Youth, I might have had a habit of\u2026 you know\u2026 messing up one face and calling it a day. <\/strong>Anyway, <\/em><\/strong>please tell me everything about this. How old were you? What was on your mind?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Omg, you\u2019re so valid. I feel like that was half my sketchbooks, too (also the first, like, 5 sketch layers of every PSD now lol.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a page out of one of many sketchbooks I filled with Danny Phantom<\/em> in middle school. It\u2019s from 7th grade, so I was about 13 when I drew this angsty bouquet of Dannys. For this page in particular, I was trying to redesign him. Give him some cool cyberpunk duds and I guess a baseball career, too. I just loved any AU that gave me an excuse to draw him in a cool pose. I was obsessed with the Teen Titans, Go!<\/em> floppies at the time, which featured artists like Todd Nauck and Sean Galloway, so this is definitely me trying to imitate their flow-y styles. Except that intensely muscular Danny in the middle. That is\u2026 purely Jim Lee\u2019s fault. God. You read Hush<\/em> ONE TIME\u2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Plus, as I mentioned before: I had a tendency to turn the paper clock-wise as I drew to ensure that the Danny\u2019s weren\u2019t aligned. This was due to a tragic IncidentTM where I drew all my Dannys facing the same direction and a friend said they looked like they were sniffing each other\u2019s butts, which is distinctly NOT emo. So. We have this (and a lingering fear of accidental butt sniffing\u2026. to quote Linkin Park, \u201cthese wounds, they will not heal.\u201d)

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Was this fairly representative of what I might find in your sketchbook around that time? Did you draw a lot? What did drawing mean to you?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To a degree, yeah! But honestly there were even more egregious fan arts\u2014 I drew a lot of Danny Phantom\/Crash Bandicoot <\/em>crossovers where they team up to fight a big bad. Lots of Bart Simpson fan comics and angsty comics where Danny meets Hades\/Osiris\/other mythological beings. I\u2019m so bummed I don\u2019t have those drawings anymore because, regardless of the crossover, everyone was skateboarding. Just. All the time. I\u2019m honestly surprised none of these Dannys have chunky Vans on. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And absolutely, I drew all the time! I always wanted to tell stories but was too impatient to write them out so I\u2019d draw the juiciest scenes throughout dozens of notebooks. It was definitely a means of exploration and escape, but I think also a way to explore emotions I didn\u2019t have the ability to verbalize at the time. I joke about angst and whatnot, but there\u2019s a lot you aren\u2019t taught how to process as a kid, and often it\u2019s easier to externalize things like anger, jealousy, etc. into characters who can actualize those feelings\u2014 give and take a punch! Or maybe do a sick fakie bigspin on a rocket board with death, or whatever.

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