✿ Gondola Episode Bonus page ✿
Gondola my beloved!!! Easily one of my favorite memes ever. I was so eager to talk about him that he even was the example of memes to talk about in "Welcome to LOVEWEB".
I remember brainstorming with Karru about how this episode would go and thinking about how Manon could have a whole meme lab and you'd see them mutate kuma step by step into gondola. Stuff like "adding a droplet of 4chan to kuma and you get.. Pedobear!!", silly stuff. But I decided against that idea pretty quickly... Because coming out of the RFCK episode, I really wanted to make an "easy" episode to create. I was not ready to design a whole labotary and scientist outfits for Manon and Cybermare. This actually reminds me of wanting Manon to be one of those characters that dresses up almost every episode. Kinda like how Princess Bubblegum and Marceline from Adventure Time have a lot of different outfits throughout the show. But yeah, I wanted to make something that should be what people expect out of the usual LOVEWEB episode, aka Manon and Cybermare talking about memes and media instead of whole adventures that takes forever to make.
This episode's plot, like a lot of LOVEWEB episodes, mostly takes shape during research. I just thought that people might think gondola is pedobear at first glance, and turned that into the plot of the episode. I cannot imagine an episode just... Starting with the topic of the episode... That'd be weird right?
Here's concept doodles made in july 2021 for the leaker tier Patreons. Doodling the boi and getting the hang of his appearance for the episode. It took very little time to learn to draw him lol.
In september 2021, I posted this teaser for the episode. I tend to post a teaser image like that when the episode's animatic is done. But... Something happened that I don't know how I didn't see coming... People saw among us behind that silhouette.....
I never recovered from this.
Here's some more doodles from october 2021 showcasing the designs of the imageboard users mentioned in the episode. These drawings end up being recycled a lot in the episode itself to save on time since I already liked them a lot. Here, you get to see them in all their smooth glory. I really like the Jonne design. The gear pin on the Jonne with the ban hammer was supposed to represent that they're an admin but "admin" is a role that's hard to convey visually. This is why Moot in the episode about the rules of the internet just has "admin" on top of his head lol.
The ban hammer is also taken directly from the 4chan-adjacent flash animations by NCHProductions and ZONE. I won't be linking those due to inappropriate content.
Alrighty, episode time.
Idk if it was clear but this cloud is supposed to represent like... A file saving cloud.
Also notice how Manon refers to space as the "Spaceweb". Later at 6:41, they refer to it as "Cyberspace". This is 100% intentional, I just think it's cute that Manon refers to with different names. Also I totally had this in mind when I thinking of names for the space representation of the internet in LOVEWEB.
Ah yes, Cybermare and her iconic lollipop she always has. Cybermare would be the kind of cool person who has a stick in their mouth but that stick can't be a real cigarette because you know.
Smoking's cringe
It doesn't really matter in the end since they both don't exist in our meatspace.
Well I guess it'd still matter if Cybermare was smoking cigarettes because I can imagine this being a bad influence for younger viewers.
She probably smokes digital weed off camera anyway.
The lollipop is also a silly nod to 4kids' censorship of One Piece where they infamously replaced Sanji's cigarette with a lollipop.
I don't even like One Piece, i just think that kind of stuff is fascinating.
Oh gosh, everything looks so CHUNKY lol. This was back when Manon's computer was a Windows 98 virtual machine (VM). I'm glad the huge purple windows was later replaced with a small soft pink windows, it's easier on the eyes. The way these sections are handled is having a screenshot of Manon's VM in the background and then manually adding windows borders around images and videos, and then animating them popping up and overlaying each other a video editing software. I would use a different method in the Yume Nikki episode but I'll talk about it in its own bonus page.
2channel feels like one of those topics that HAS to get a LOVEWEB episode one day. The memes on that website are fascinating considering it was all birthed through text art. This is basically the prehistoric memes of the internet. I don't think I'd wanna do this episode without the help of someone who can understand japanese or maybe lived through that era though. Researches get a LOT harder when I have to dig through a whole language I don't know. (I do think about learning Japanese sometimes just got this lol)
I'm all for archiving content but part of the charm of 4chan was how nothing would get archived. The endless amount of crap would get deleted permanently and people would save the stuff that's memorable (good or bad). It's a shame 4chan would later on get it's own archive tab and even if it's ephemeral... There's 3rd party websites trying to archive EVERYTHING one 4chan anyway.
I think one of the funniest things in LOVEWEB is how Cybermare really hates 4chan and yet she uses 4chan lingo all the time.
Cybermare also got a new haircut this episode! I like this a lot more than her old wavy hair. Pretty punkish. Her mouth is still the old version where it feels disconected from the snout. It'll be in the next episode where she gets a way better set of mouth drawings.
I think there's some beauty to the fact nobody has archives of the original thread gondola first appeared in. It's like he just spawned out of nowhere. A creation by the internet for the internet.
Useless fact: All the pictures shown during that shot are ones that have versions with gondolas put in them. They're probably up on gondola.stravers
The abandoned cinema is something I drew, very inspired by Crow Ciller's art style. I really recommend Crow Cillers, it's a pretty unique webcomic even if i find it a bit too "impenetrable".
You might be wondering "Why an abandoned cinema with a projector flashing white"? That's a good question, I genuinly do not remember where this idea comes from. Thankfully Karru is here to help.
"iirc we were discussing how to end the episode and i was suggesting a location that cybermare and this gondola vibe with but manon doesnt and pulled up an image of a torn down empty theatre as an example of the vibe. And you adapted it basically one to one haha. i dont remember if i was really pushing for that particular scenery or just sth similar to that vibe but it worked out in the end either way".
By the end of this episode, we get a lil taste of Manon's flaws. Here's a link to a version of the abandoned cinema shot with just Gondola for all your posting needs.
Aaaad that's all! I'm glad I was able to showcase this silly lil meme to you all, it makes me happy to see people enjoy it as much as I do. It's funny seeing the fanart section moves by so slowly since there's so few fanart. Feels nice to realise how there's so much fanart inbetween episodes now that the section has to speedrun through them. Heck I gotta be selective about them since the TF2 episode because my software crashes from how many there are.
If you're interested in more bonus pages, they're available on Patreon for 5€! I'd love the support to help LOVEWEB going.