Steven Universe End of an Era, fun, loving and educational

From a story about gems to a fabled opus on friendship, growing up, to its being a beacon in the LGBTQ world, imagination, creativity and so much more. When I first started watching Steven Universe it was all about the gems, earnest characters, and, to an extent the songs. After reading Steven Universe: End of an Era, I now know that it had much more in common with How I Met Your Mother than I ever knew.

I have never seen How I Met Your Mother, but I love the fact that when the pilot was shot the endpoint was already cemented in place. The two kids in the series, Penny and Luke, are being spoken to by their voice-over dad, narrated by Bob Saget. All of their scenes were shot during the first season of the show. As the show ran for 10 years and the actors were going through puberty, that meant that the big reveal of who their mother is was actually taped a decade before the public knew. Now back to its relevance on Steven Universe.

End of an Era features more than 300 pieces of original artwork from Steven Universe. These include rough sketches, storyboards, background paintings, and more. When we saw the show its art looked as if it was influenced by the final shot in Planet of the Apes (1968), some beautiful anime with some of the colors from Guardians of the Galaxy 2. The result is a world that looks like home, but also other worldly-and this is before the characters are even factored in. The artwork in the book is what the animation and production people will come for. The sketches show the foresight and work that it takes into making the show.

At 11 minutes a show it was a brilliant bite of pop culture. If brevity is the soul of wit, then Steven Universe and Phineas & Ferb are riding shotgun. Each of these shows is awesome in their own way. What I, as a consumer of entertainment marvel at, is how creators can make something so consistently entertaining and jam it into such a compact space.

Series creator Rebecca Sugar was interviewed at length for many of the 30 new conversations that author Chris McDonnell conducted while writing the book.  It’s as part of one of these interviews where Sugar reflects on letting the other writers for Steven Universe in on her grand plans for the characters. Much like ‘Mother’, Sugar had a very clear personality trait map for each of them. She knew how they’d act and what they’d be doing years into the series. Considering that the Steven Universe had 160 episodes that aired from 2013 through 2019 that’s a lot of time watching people view your creation, not to mention the time spent actually creating them.

Chris McDonnell does a great job of presenting the mythos and history that lead up to some of the key moments in the show. It’s spread out over six chapters and written in a way that makes it effortless to read. The illustrations break up the text and range from full-size page promotional posters, characters, background, and more. End of an Era is as thick as a textbook but reads like a best friend. This is one of those books that double as entertainment and education, and will also remain in your forever library.

Steven Universe: End of an Era is written by Chris McDonnell, foreward by N. K. Jemisin and available on Abrams Books.

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