All comics I produced from 2006-2008 were written and drawn during the production of my movie, John’s Arm: Armageddon. I jumped the gun by putting a “release date” on my shirt in the opening panel. Here’s why.
Tag Archives: 1990s
Dig Your Own Hole
In 1997, electronica duo The Chemical Brothers released their second album, Dig Your Own Hole. It went on to be an extremely popular example of “big beat” music, and is included in numerous “Best Albums of All-Time” lists. I had a copy of the CD in my old car for so long the case turned into shardy shit.
Comments Off on Dig Your Own Hole
Filed under Faint Signals, Late To The Party, Thousand Listen Club
Eagles
From my understanding, it’s just “Eagles”, not “The Eagles”. Remember how in the 80s, the woman in charge of the LEGO Company put little messages in every box, asking consumers to say “LEGO bricks and toys” instead of “LEGOs”? Yeah. Good luck.
Comments Off on Eagles
Filed under Bad Influences, Comix Classic & Current, Faint Signals, Nostalgic Obsessions, Thousand Listen Club
Animation Analysis: The Transformers: The Movie
For the past ten years, one Rhode Island company has made me so deliriously happy, I’ve considered corporate personhood, so I could ask for its hand in marriage.
Hasbro.
They even threw in a rubsign. Hasbro is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
2006 was the year this little toy company had a subline of their Transformers toys called “Classics”; new figures of favorite characters from the 1984 cartoon. And a funny thing happened- these robots from an old show sold very, very well. Characters like “Bumblebee”, “Megatron” and “Optimus Prime” were familiar to a enviously broad range of people. They had staying power equal to Superman or Batman. The world was on the cusp of finding this out. Continue reading
Comments Off on Animation Analysis: The Transformers: The Movie
Filed under Animation Analysis, Bad Influences, Faint Signals, Idiot's Delight, Movies You Missed, Nostalgic Obsessions, Robot Toy Fetish, Saturday Movie Matinee, Thousand Listen Club, Unfairly Maligned
After The Beep
Answering machines were a form of technology in use before telecommunication was monopolized. At first, they were huge, then they used micro-cassettes, then regular cassettes, then a computer chip, then they went in the garbage. Telephones were not generally mobile prior to the year 2000. The average home had a room where the phone and answering machine resided.
The answering machine was the predecessor to the ringtone, in terms of personal expression through phones. There was even a default recording of a robot intoning “please leave a message after the beep”, which is how you knew your dad or grandpa wasn’t at home. Older relatives were confounded by the damn things, and would require the aid of sons or nephews, just as with smartphones today. A family would retain an answering machine until the tape wore out, meaning that for much of the 1980s, there was a phantasmagoria of wood-paneled plastic boxes, varying in quality. “Wireless” meant “unreliable”, which meant that the telephone station generally resembled an improvised bomb, to 21st century eyeballs. Continue reading
Comments Off on After The Beep
Filed under Bad Influences, Faint Signals, Nostalgic Obsessions
Pure Evel
I don’t know why people are sad about the Great Deathwave of 2016. It’s a remarkable opportunity to make a stranger’s life all about yourself.
Muhammad Ali, The Greatest, 1942-2016. A multifarious and complex personality that’s tough to categorize (especially for a pugilist), not a prop for your opinions.
When a celebrity dies, you now own them. You can take the life’s work of someone you never encountered and reduce it to a personal inspiration. You can interpret their efforts as empowerment for your own agendas. Oh, and you can cherry-pick the qualities of their persona that you agree with, and ignore everything else. A corpse will never call your bluff. Continue reading
Comments Off on Pure Evel
Filed under Bad Influences, Faint Signals, Idiot's Delight, Nostalgic Obsessions, Saturday Movie Matinee, Worst Of All
Suede
There are easier people in the world to draw than Gervais as David Brent. Just FYI.
Comments Off on Suede
Filed under Comix Classic & Current, Don't Know Don't Care, Faint Signals, Late To The Party
The Glory Of GWAR
Gwar, often styled as GWAR, is an American heavy metal band formed in Richmond, Virginia, United States, in 1984, composed of and operated by a frequently rotating line-up of musicians, artists and filmmakers collectively known as Slave Pit Inc. [Wikipedia]
- After seeing GWAR in 1991, my freshman buddy Chris ran into the cafeteria to meet us the following morning. He bugged out his eyes with a grin, making a hard side-glance to push his contact lenses slightly off his irises. They were stained bright red, from GWAR blood.
- I met GWAR’s manager, Sleazy P. Martini, at a DragonCon in the late 90s. I timidly asked him, “Gee Sleazy, do you really know GWAR?” He laughed and replied “Yeah, I know GWAR. I’m their FUCKIN’ MANAGER.”
Comments Off on The Glory Of GWAR
Filed under Bad Influences, Comix Classic & Current, Faint Signals, Girls of BIUL, Idiot's Delight, Magazine Rack, Nostalgic Obsessions, Robot Toy Fetish, Saturday Movie Matinee, Thousand Listen Club, Unfairly Maligned
Why I Love Jar Jar Binks
As the venerable Star Wars imprint slowly transforms into an empowerment series for little girls who wear costumes and bitter old fanboys, one of my favorite aspects is being scrubbed from the narrative:
Weird, stupid aliens.
He attempts to eat that dead Woodring monster.
I’ll never comprehend the segregationist nature of the “Star Wars fan”. Watching the fandom dismiss George Lucas, the creator of everything they care about, has been like observing a schism of zealots. Since general audiences weren’t born in the 80s, when ripoffs of Star Wars abounded, they gladly accepted a ripoff from J.J. Abrams. Continue reading
Comments Off on Why I Love Jar Jar Binks
Filed under Bad Influences, Don't Know Don't Care, Faint Signals, Idiot's Delight, Movies You Missed, Nostalgic Obsessions, Saturday Movie Matinee, Unfairly Maligned
“Last Exit”
When was the last time the name “Pearl Jam” sounded weird to you? Can you even remember when it didn’t sound like a band?
Eddie Vedder
Vitalogy, Pearl Jam’s experimental third album, was finally released in November of 1994. By that time, the record store I had assistant-managed was consumed by Blockbuster. Originally, I worked at “Tracks”, which was where I experienced Pearl Jam’s debut disc Ten, around ten times a day for several months. This resulted in a loathing of that album that burns to the present day. Continue reading
Comments Off on “Last Exit”
Filed under Bad Influences, Faint Signals, Idiot's Delight, Nostalgic Obsessions, Thousand Listen Club, Unfairly Maligned
You must be logged in to post a comment.