Drawn in by Gravity: All My Gravity Falls Stuff

Welcome to Gravity Falls !

Twin brother and sister Dipper and Mabel Pines are sent to the small town of Gravity Falls, Oregon to spend their summer vacation with their great uncle ("Grunkle") Stan. Upon arrival, Grunkle Stan enlists the siblings' help in running The Mystery Shack, a self-owned tourist trap that overcharges unsuspecting customers. While Dipper has a hard time getting used to his new surroundings, Mabel's upbeat optimism comes in handy in her quest to find true love.

But there may be more to Gravity Falls than meets the eye as Dipper and Mabel encounter strange occurrences and weird creatures. When Dipper stumbles upon an elusive book, he discovers it is the answer to uncovering the town's mysterious happenings. Soon, Dipper and Mabel realize they must rely on each other to navigate this unfamiliar place. Meanwhile, Grunkle Stan guards a secret of his own—one that just might hold the key to unlocking the deeper mystery that is Gravity Falls.

Includes all 40 episodes!

Bonus Content:

Disc 7:

• Audio Commentaries on All 40 Episodes with Creator Alex Hirsch and Members of the Cast and Crew
• One Crazy Summer: A Look Back at Gravity Falls - Featuring Interviews with Alex Hirsch, Actors Jason Ritter, Kristen Schaal, Jackie Buscarino, Thurop Van Orman, Carl Faruolo, and Niki Yang, Creative Director Michael Rianda, Producers Rob Renzetti and Bria
• The Hirsch Twins: Alex & Ariel Hirsch Remember Their Own Summers Growing Up
• Deleted Scenes: Over an Hour of Never-Before-Seen Content
• Between the Pines: Behind-the-Scenes Series Finale Special
• Shorts: Interstitial Programming Between Seasons 1 and 2
• Promos: Commercial and Other Promo Materials from the Show's Run

Gravity Falls: Journal 3 is the almost life-sized reproduction of the famed and mysterious tome from the Disney series, Gravity Falls. “Journal 3 brims with every page ever seen on the show plus all-new pages with monsters and secrets, notes from Dipper and Mabel, and the Author's full story. Fans of Gravity Falls will simply love this 288-page full-color jacketed hardcover version of Journal 3! Plus the book jacket doubles as an exclusive poster!” – Amazon.

“For their summer vacation, 12-year-old twins Dipper and Mabel Pines are dropped off from their home in Piedmont, California, to the fictitious town of Gravity Falls, Roadkill County, Oregon, to spend the summer with their great uncle Stan Pines (often shortened to Grunkle Stan), who runs a tourist trap called the "Mystery Shack". Things are not what they seem in this small town, and with the help of a mysterious journal that Dipper finds in the forest, they begin unraveling the town's mysteries. With Wendy Corduroy, Mystery Shack cashier; Soos Ramirez, a friend of Dipper and Mabel and handyman to Grunkle Stan; plus an assortment of other characters, Dipper and Mabel always have an intriguing day to look forward to.” – Wikipedia.

Written by Alex Hirsch (creator of the show) and Rob Renzetti, and designed and drawn by Andy Gonsalves and Stephani Ramirez, the book functions as a short review of every episode including details never revealed on the show. Although Gravity Falls (the series) finished in 2016 by Hirsch’s design after two seasons, it continues to fascinate watchers (perhaps because it wasn’t run into the ground and completed a satisfying story arc) who to this day are publishing their first reactions on YouTube and devouring new graphic novels as they are released. The exclusive poster is a reproduction blueprint of Fiddleford H. McGucket’s most memorable inventions. It doesn't include a monocle, but has a book-mark ribbon. There is a fancier edition available that shows secret pages under blacklight!

There have been many 'add-ons' to the Gravity Falls franchise (comic books, journals, and such) but the only item I thought really checking out was this one, Gravity Falls: Lost Legends, written by the series creator Alex Hirsch himself. The four tales therein span time periods from when Stan and Ford were kids until right before Dipper and Mabel leave the Falls. The collection ends with the ostensible narrator, the gnome Shmebulock, more or less advocating another season. A tease, or a sidelong hint from Hirsch?

I came back yesterday from a family party and found The Book of Bill (by Alex Hirsch, Hyperion Books) waiting in our mailbox. It had only come out in July of this year; at first I wasn’t aware of it, and then I waited awhile before ordering, which saved me a good chunk of change because the copy was sold as Used Very Good. Still, I might not have bought it even yet, if I had not believed I needed it for Free Delivery (read those details carefully, kids!). Still, I don’t regret having it.

The book is another volume connected to the popular and amazing Gravity Falls series, purported to be written by the series’ main villain, Bill Cipher, a bow-tied, top-hat wearing triangle with one eye, an interdimensional dream-demon with designs on our world.

Hoped to be dead, but long rumored to still be alive, “The demon that terrorized Gravity Falls is back from the great beyond to finally tell his side of the story in The Book of Bill, written by none other than Bill Cipher himself.

Inside, Bill sheds light on his bizarre origins, his sinister effects on human history, the Pines family’s most embarrassing secrets, and the key to overthrowing the world (laid out in a handy step-by-step guide). This chaotic and beautifully illustrated tome contains baffling riddles, uncrackable ciphers, lost Journal 3 pages, ways to cheat death, the meaning of life, and a whole chapter on Silly Straws. But most importantly, The Book of Bill is deeply, deeply cursed.

Alex Hirsch, #1 New York Times bestselling author, resuscitates this infamous villain and invites fans to a Bill’s eye view of the Gravity Falls universe. There are many who believe this book is too dangerous for human hands. But if you can’t resist, just know this: Once you make a deal with Bill, it’s not so easily undone . . .” – Amazon.

From what I’ve read so far, the added caution “Beware: This book travels to dimensions meant for older readers,” might not be so frivolous as it seems. Though warned at the beginning that Bill is a lying liar, he espouses opinions that just might appeal to the cynical and rebellious, opinions seriously held by many today. “A human is an organic machine made out of blood and anxiety, designed to deliver a random bundle of genetic material into the future and then turn to dust … it was designed by random mutation…” is professed to be believed by many today, though few strictly live their lives by it (usually only when they want to do something that is contra-indicated socially or morally).

What The Book of Bill reminds me of is The Book of the Subgenious, hilarious and amusing in the fact that it often says the quiet part out loud, the feared opinions and conclusions of the hopeless and isolated. These might sound quite reasonable to the despairing, with the promise that if you abandon normal beliefs and accept that reality is an illusion and love is a trick, you will lose anxiety, ‘go with the flow’ of Chaos, and quit struggling.

Quite a dark philosophy to be presented to a so-called tween audience, if you remember the grasping and flailing emotions of that stage in life. Although Bill is portrayed as a liar and an ultimate loser in the end, only seeking a way to return to power, I wonder if his philosophy is quite the thing to dangle in front of the impressionable, or if they are guaranteed to take away the right message from what is, after all, a tie-in to a Disney show. What with figures like Maleficent and Cruella DeVille being re-invented as understandable heroes of their own tales, is it impossible that some kids might embrace Bill as their own?

In the meantime, it is comical and entertaining, and probably quite safe if you have a resistance to taking it seriously, and a little skipping ahead shows that Bill does not ‘win’ with his attitudes. Scorn is the best reaction to a villain’s villainy. And in the end, who would take it seriously except an old toot used to dissecting literary works (no matter how humble) for their philosophical underpinnings? Jokingly, of course, though no joke is ever without its serious side.

Note: I've been watching a lot of the fan content on YouTube and felt I should gather together all my own Gravity Falls stuff into one post in one easy place. It's been a hectic day. This is the best I can come up with this late in the evening.