AHS uniform reinterpretation

[bunnyThor]

Alison: http://www.livejournal.com/users/staedtler/212149.html

Hrm.

That's a nice drawing, but it doesn't feel like Alison.

Let me explain:

Part of the charm of the Avalon characters was their blockiness and angularity. It gave them an earthy sense of solidity, and made them feel *real*. Real as in, "Those people look like people I could know" or "These people are so real I could care about them." The way that "Alison" is drawn here give me the feeling more of "This schoolgirl is too pretty to exist." And so it is not Alison, because Alison was never pretty. She may have been beautiful to some of us, but that came 100% from who she was, not how she looked. *This* person I expect to sprout wings and flit off to gather dewdrops and nectar from a field of bluebells and ladyslippers. She's too pretty to live, and far too pretty to be bitter, sarcastic, arrogant, wonderful Alison.

Obviously Avalon is your work, your baby, your vision, and you have every right to do anything you want to it--and your audience *wants* you to do things to it. None of that is in question in the slightest. But the work you put out does become transformed from exposing it to an audience, and gains a certain mythology. Try to imagine "Peanuts" drawn with a completely different style. It's hard--the mind balks at the idea. "Peanuts" characters possess a certain shape and style without which, they would no longer be "Peanuts".

And so it is with Avalon. The Avalon characters are rumpled, angular, stocky, and thoroughly identifiable-with. They possess the same awkwardness and inelegance that the readers do. They share the same gawky world that we shared when we were in high school. This "Alison" is not one of us. None of us are worthy of gazing too long on the otherwordly vision that is this "Alison". She is from Avalon, indeed, but not the one in Ontario!

I really, really, really hate to say anything that might slow your potential forward momentum on this or any project, but I ask you to *please* consider where you came from as well as how far you've come.

And if you don't find any hint of relevance in my post here, please ignore it. I'm still eager to see what comes next, regardless of what has come before.

[Fool]

Uh... have you ever seen the original "Peanuts" characters?
They're a little different from the ones most people know.
Especially Snoopy.

Besides, he's done manga versions of Avalon characters as art separate from the story strip before.

[Marcos]

Here's the original art with the new colors. And yes, a good plaid is very hard to draw.

[bunnyThor]

Uh... have you ever seen the original "Peanuts" characters?
They're a little different from the ones most people know.
Especially Snoopy.

Schulz went through a gradual style shift in the first couple of years of Peanuts, just like Josh went through in Avalon. That's almost inevitable. But if you look at the early Peanuts strips side-by-side, you'll see the same basic shape and feel to the art. You can get the same feeling by looking at strips near the beginning and end of Avalon. The redraw of "Alison" doesn't have any feeling of connection to either the old strip *or* the new strips, or, IMHO, the thematic feel of Avalon as a real-world, non-magical, oh-the-memories story about high school drama.

Besides, he's done manga versions of Avalon characters as art separate from the story strip before.

If they stay seperate from the story strip, I'll be most pleased. This is not a slam against the anime/manga art style. I'd be less-than-enthusiastic about Avalon being redrawn to look like Wapsi Square or Zebra Girl, just to name examples of two strips whose art I also like.

[Bo Lindbergh]

So what kind of lube do they use?

[bunnyThor]

So what kind of lube do they use?

WTF??

[Hai-Etlik]

The jackets are certainly an improvement over the vests. But I just have a preference for dark and unsaturated colours, dark green in particular, and the skirt is just too short for my taste.

[GrassyNoel]

So what kind of lube do they use?

Hard to say. None of them had their own cars when we last saw them

[jeffk]

I like both versions of the uniform, and all four pictures in the new uniform. The more pictures, the merrier....

My current adult/parent self personally thinks the skirts need to be longer, because that's way too distracting, and not suitable in an academic environment.

Meanwhile, my old school-aged-guy self wishes he could talk his parents into transferring to Avalon.

I agree that the Alison pic is least like her Avalon-strip self, and it's not so much because she is (or isn't) more beautiful in this pic.

The primary reason's the skirt...Alison wouldn't wear something that short. Ceilidh? Probably, to attract Joe. Or someone. Or anyone (depending on which year we're talking about). Nancy? Not unless she could use it as a combat advantage. In other words, yes. Phoebe? Probably not Sad Phoebe, but the skirt length's less obvious since she's sitting down here. But certainly not Alison.

Part of it is the hair--the other three have more distinctive (read "bigger") hair than she does, so it's not quite as obvious.

But it's also the pose. I don't see Alison getting into someone's face like that while she's at school.

Alison with that pose in her cafe apron, on the other hand? That's a different story....

[GrassyNoel]

But it's also the pose. I don't see Alison getting into someone's face like that while she's at school.

She might look like that at school while rehearsing yelling at Iain, though

[jeffk]

She might look like that at school while rehearsing yelling at Iain, though

True...but it's just not the same without a chair in her hand

[Fool]

Then again, how well do any of us know Alison?
It could just be a side of her we haven't seen before.


...
And not just because her skirt is shorter.


So, no comment about Ceilidh and Phoebe's shoes being ABA?

Could it be that it isn't BA?

[Fool]

I finally see what the others meant!
I must be Foolish not to have seen it before!
They have too many fingers!


...


Here's a Foolish idea: Hildegarde in one of the new school uniforms.

Hee hee hee...
Joe Mama...