#mpask

nope! originally i had planned for george and marina to get together but the further i got into the comic the more that just didn’t feel right. george’s crush on marina just felt too puppy-ish and not like a feeling that would mature and deepen as she got older.

so my second plan was actually for george to end up single after a slew of brief but intense relationships where she would realize that she was more enamored with the idea of liking someone than with the people themselves.

but as i started writing that ending it just… didn’t quite feel right either. i kept going back to her possessiveness when franny and percy first started dating and how, prior to that, george hadn’t had the same reaction with other people franny dated. and i realized it was because with percy, george saw franny prioritize someone other than her and that really freaked her out, both as a friend… and not.

SPOILERS BELOW! if you haven’t read the end of MP! script, read that first!

originally i only had chapter 1 written, but partway thru that i got the ideas for marina and percy and those romances! at first marina and george were going to end up together, but the further i got into the comic the more it just felt... wrong. i started thinking about george, franny, and percy ending up together around 2015. i always knew i wanted franny and percy to be romantically involved, but the other romances evolved more organically.

the whole ben and sasha romance really evolved organically from a couple things: primarily, it was important for ben and sasha to meet/become friends because it did a lot for the story. first, it was a way to bring ben back into the story while instantly showing character growth on his end (because sasha is so undeniably a monster). second, it gave me a chance to show more of george and sasha’s friendship. and third, having them be friends made ben’s place in the narrative/friend group more solid/lasting, which meant george couldn’t avoid him, which then meant that george would, in a way, be forced to figure her shit out and reach some form of emotional catharsis, which was really important as part of her growth both in general and also for her friendship with marina. 

from there, i just really liked the way ben and sasha treated each other and how supportive they were of each other and, you know, who doesn’t love a nerd/jock pairing? they just seemed like they made each other’s lives much better and i’m a huge sucker for that.

by 2015/2016 i couldn’t escape that i just felt that marina’s and george’s relationship should be a friendship. for a while i was like “well, george doesn’t NEED romance to have a happy ending” and i was OK with that, but rereading what i’d written before chapter 6, i couldn’t shake how well the three of them fit together. franny was george’s first crush, george was franny’s first kiss, george gets really jealous when percy enters the picture and part of the reason that marina liking franny was so upsetting wasn’t just because george liked marina -- but because marina liked franny, rather than someone else. 

as someone who had a very liberal family and gay friends going up but still didn’t realize i was queer until i was 20 or 21, i thought more about franny and how she was raised and how she probably also wouldn’t have realized she wasn’t straight, regardless of george being openly pan right next to her. really one of my biggest regrets about not being able to put in a 7th chapter is that i don’t get to write/draw franny’s queer panic.

yes they actually get married in the epilogue!

if you’d asked me a couple years ago, i definitely would have said no.

and now idk if i quite miss it bc mp is still so heavily tied to my burnout as a comic artist/human, but i do have a lot of nostalgia for the characters, especially for george and franny, and for a few of the jokes.

it’s been a few years but iirc sasha started using he/they pronouns some time between chapters 3 and 4, after the halloween party makeover but before thanksgiving.

ok i have a 10 image limit and some of these are multi-image jokes so i’ll try to distill these as best i can. also these jokes are all from i think chapter 4 and later, where i really flourished my sense of humor more

1. marina’s high school crush/bff sharkwanda being a highly contentious contestant on a spoof of top model

this is specifically a spoof of the early seasons, which usually had an assessment within the first 2 or 3 episodes, including a weigh in. as much as i loved trashy tv, i always hated these moments so i thought it would be funny to have a literal shark and to have her be weighed against mostly average-sized humanoids because it would be ridiculous for anyone to expect a healthy shark to weigh the same amount as a human.

there were a couple other layers to this: george idolizing her as a strong, independent woman. george’s brother freaking out because sharkwanda just ate a man on camera and no one’s overly bothered by this. george chastising him for not realizing it was obviously fake/over dramatized for the ratings (and not examining that then this moment of “self empowerment” would also be fake). and then also i named her after a fish named wanda. except she’s a shark named wanda. she’s also the most beautiful and popular girl in the world and she wins her season and becomes a very successful model.

2. the tinsley family thanksgiving outfits. actually their themed outfits in general. i think shit like this is super cute and funny. i also just enjoy writing siblings who rib each other lovingly.

also the part of this where george’s mom has three eyes (she’s psychic) and her dad has no eyes, so her brother has two eyes and for all intents and purposes looks human, but he is a full blooded monster. early on i had some ideas for an off shoot chapter about eli and his struggles with his identity (being a monster but not looking like one and not feeling at home in either community), but it got scrapped for time and also because it felt like too close a parallel to mixed race people who pass as white and that’s not my story to tell.

3. sharkwanda’s cover (up) girl ad campaign during the superb owl half time show. some of this stuff was a bit on the nose, but there’s a line about sharkwanda finally having makeup that doesn’t melt off her face like hot cheese that i still like

4. this multi-strip joke where franny’s dad pulls a turkey out of a hat. just read it there’s nothing to explain lol

5. basically every part of the magic shop scene, but especially the part where percy meets franny’s dad for the first time during a very tense situation and franny’s dad is wearing a skeleton (this is a reference to ranma 1/2). and then also percy sits and there’s a whoopee cushion. it’s incredibly awkward and not exactly haha funny, but it simultaneously cuts and adds to the tension in a way that is very monsterpop.

6. human!franny getting ben a dog toy as his secret santa gift (he doesn’t own a dog) and then dropping it and then it making a horrific, shrill squeak when it bounces

7. the whole situation with chadler, his horrible christmas outfit, the marshmallow gun, and him taking sexy santa ben as prisoner.

8. ben, killed by glitter, soon to be avenged by his crush comrade (or not)

9. george being gifted a framed painting of a photo of herself, asleep during class, which she later carries into an actual museum and gets in trouble for because a guard thinks she stole a piece of art

10. the brotebook

when i first introduced marina i didnt really have a concrete plan for whether or not she’d end up with george, just that she’d have a crush on franny and this would set off george’s jealousy (on both fronts) and her feelings of inferiority towards franny

but the longer i kept writing monsterpop the more they just didn’t really feel right for each other. george’s feelings felt pretty shallow so i think even if they had ended up dating, it wouldn’t have lasted terribly long.