Original Twitter Upload Date: April 1, 2022. The script below was originally posted to DA the same day, and has been revised from its original version to add story context and fix keyboard errors present in the original version.
[jazz theme plays as we open in this 1950s sitcom-style alternate universe]
[announcer]: “Gilda and Flannery is filmed before a live studio audience.”
[Flannery is playing with a homemade doll of an ovine ewe made of wood, wool, and crudely-stitched pieces of white fabric, and holding a knife made of tinfoil, as another doll lies on a ‘bed’ of cotton and a cut piece of plaid fabric. A beetle walks on the windowsill]
Flannery: “Leave my mother alone, you cad! I’ll kill you for what you did to her!” [jerks the doll back and forth toward the beetle, imitating stabbing] “Grrrrr!” [the beetle tries to run off, only for Flannery to push it off the windowsill with the doll’s tinfoil knife] “That oughta teach you!”
[Flannery blows a raspberry as Gilda enters the room. The procyonine is talking with her hands and has… um… different speech patterns than usual]
Gilda: “Ohhhhh! What’s you’s doin’ over there, Flans?” [sees the dolls] “Playin’ Cheryl Crane with those dolls of youses again?”
[the audience laughs]
Flannery: “Uh… Gilda? Why are you talking like that?”
Gilda: “Whaddya mean, talkin’ like what?”
Flannery: “You’re talking like a lazy stereotype! I thought you hated stereotypes! You hypocrite!”
Gilda: “Ayyyyy now, Flans! Relax. I’s just acting like an Istallion stereotype! Imitatin’ Caucasians ain’t considered racist by nobody. Never will. You give it a try, you’s Glirish!”
Flannery: “Um, no. I’d rather not.”
Gilda: [pauses] “Anyways. I’s just here to ask if you’s family has fulfilled your quota for the commune’s medicinal output –“
[Flannery rushes to cover Gilda’s mouth]
Flannery: “Shhhhh!” [beat] “It’s ‘farming settlement’, you dolt! You want us deported to Walrussia?!”
Gilda: “Kinda, you’s weird like their’s toons.”
[the audience laughs again. Flannery hits Gilda on the nose, which makes a bop noise and makes the audience laugh louder. Gilda holds her nose for a few seconds as the laughter continues, then looks back up as it quiets, revealing it to be misshapen, with prominent, forward-facing nostrils. It looks like a piece of prosthetic makeup]
Flannery: “Haha, you look like a suilline.”
Gilda: “Ah yeah? Well, so do you, wisejill!”
Flannery: [beat] “What?!”
[Gilda uppercuts Flannery in the nose, making a bonking noise as the laughter starts up again. Flannery, like Gilda, holds her face as the audience laughs. When it dies down, Flannery removes her hands, revealing that her nose has become so dislodged that it now appears to have completely replaced her right eye, and left a vacant space where a nose should be. Some laughter is heard as she turns around to face a mirror, and sees her nose over her eye]
Flannery: “Well, I may be ugly now, but at least I look like a Picasso.”
[the audience laughs, more quietly than during the punching]
Gilda: “I’ll rough yous up so bad you’s gonna be lookin’ like a Dalí!”
[a similar laughter to the previous one]
Flannery: [mockingly] “Oh no, don’t subject me to a good time!”
[a loud laughter and applause from the audience]
Yeah, this is what I came up with for an April Fools’ joke this year. Grunvale as a 1950s-style sitcom. Which began as the title card you see above (unless you’re looking at the transparent background version), and I decided to write the sitcom-style script to go with it. Which has a few jokes referencing the time period, and sanitized language and violence much like what would be seen on a sitcom from the era.
Of course, it began with just the drawing of Gilda and Flannery in period-appropriate attire, with the hair ribbons and full skirts and mary janes and such. And to sell the period feel of the asset, I decided to give it some details I associate with/swear I’ve seen before on artwork of the period. Namely, the sparkles in their eyes, the shines on their shoes, and the flush of their cheeks. Particularly in the monochrome versions, I feel these details really sell the retro feel of this artwork.
And I say ‘monochrome’ and not black-and-white, because the monochrome versions of this artwork aren’t actually true black-and-white. They have a slight bluish-purple tint to them, to imitate how I’ve often seen black-and-white images appear on some screens, particularly CRT screens. And with the CRT-filtered versions of this artwork, I went all the way to make it look as much like an image on a CRT as possible. I scaled the image down to a quarter of the size of the canvas, added white dots to simulate film grain, and then scaled the image back up, to blur the pixels and make them appear much like they would on an old TV. To imitate the scanlines, I made a pixel-tall line on every fourth horizontal axis from the top of the image, and then added an overlay effect and one-pixel gaussian blur to the lines.
And then I added the final touch, the curvature of the image that resembles that of a CRT screen. ASP has had a curvature tool for a while now, but it was only on this piece when I finally figured out how to be pixel-precise with it: use a placehold layer with a single guide at a time, in this case, a 100×100 square in the corner of the canvas, which the corner of the main asset could be dragged to the edge of and be snapped to. Repeat until the curvature is equal on all sides, as it is in the main version of this artwork. Which you’re probably looking at above, unless you decided to dig into my DA gallery and look at the other versions.
Anyways, that’ll be all for this artwork. Maybe one day the script above will be fleshed out into its own story in the OTOG graphic novels, heheheh. Until next time, Until next time, take care, stay safe, get vaccinated, reject crypto, and happy April Fool’s Day.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/StormyAdlerPoG
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DeviantArt: https://www.deviantart.com/phoenixofgrunvale
YouTube: www.youtube.com/channel/UCEtCO…
Discord: Contact me by my tag (Stormy Adler, P.o.G.#1752) for an invite to my server.
Grunvale is owned by me. You’re free to draw fanart of it, as long as you credit me as the creator of Grunvale.
This artwork was made at a resolution of 2880×2160 (aspect ratio 1.33:1).
The Gallery of Stormy Adler 