Tag Archives: 1990s

01/22/2015 · 5:22 pm

Where We Differ

If there’s one thing I’m certain of, more so than I am that the earth is round, it’s that you and I are different. I don’t know you personally, but I’d bet my bottom dollar we wouldn’t click. I know this from a life of experience. That, and every single person I encounter informs me of thus.

You might think I have a problem with being “different”. I don’t. You do. Out of some deluded sense of camaraderie you felt from one of my comics, you thought I was “like you”. Then, when you realized you were wrong, you attacked me. You all do this. On the internet, on Facebook, to my face. I’ve dealt with this shuck-and-jive routine my entire life. I’m not what you want me to be, so you decide you’re gonna give Big Bad Matty Boy a piece of your mind. Because I’m apparently your little toon-scribbling monkey. Time to bring me down a peg.

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Filed under Bad Influences, Don't Know Don't Care, Nostalgic Obsessions, Site Stuff

Tagged as #tbt, 1980s, 1990s, behind the scenes, corporate crap, depression, despair, Facebook, jail, laughter, Mike the Pod, music, political correctness, R. Crumb, sellouts, Throwback Thursday

01/09/2015 · 12:29 am

Oh, The Guilt

It’s 2015, the year of the second Back To The Future. That movie got a few things right, but I’d say the most accurate predictions appeared much earlier, in George Orwell’s 1984. That’s a book, something dullards use to prop up tables or batter their spouses.

You see, if the average millennial would crack a copy of that book, they’d see the horrible fact that we now live in that world. Free speech is literally under assault. Citizens shame other citizens- oftentimes their friends or family- and cast them out merely for their opinions. Government intervention is practically begged for, in every facet of life, if it sustains the manufactured conveniences people have convinced each other they need. The most popular media is toothless and gutted by political correctsmanship and inoffenspeak. And everyone knows what everyone else is doing.

Never forget to think for your goddamn self. That’s what the bad guys are waiting for. That’s when they’ve got you.

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Filed under Comix Classic & Current, Magazine Rack

Tagged as 1980s, 1990s, censorship, comix, corporate crap, free speech, music, National Lampoon, Orwell, parental advisory labels, PMRC, political correctness, Tipper Gore, underground

12/11/2014 · 9:34 pm

McNugget Anatomy

It may seem obvious, but when over a million people see your creation, it is quite a rush. When you make something that goes viral, I explained to a friend recently, it’s like surfing the inside of a tornado. It’s euphoric, but it taxes your emotional equilibrium, and if you aren’t careful it becomes an addiction. How would you handle the attention of a million people?

Sometime in 1999 (I think) I conjured up this piece, basing the shapes on the most common McNuggets. Nothing I have done since has elicited the same level of emotion and hysteria from readers, which I take great pride in. And despite my commitment to accuracy (for example, the crunch of the ‘eye’), I still enjoy eating the godforsaken things on occasion.

Before you ask, yes, there were t-shirts and posters. Grimace ate them all.

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Filed under Bad Influences, Comix Classic & Current, Eatable Things, Nostalgic Obsessions

Tagged as #tbt, 1990s, anatomy, chicken, comedy, corporate crap, fast food, Last Laugh, McDonald's, McNuggets, Mike the Pod, old internet, Throwback Thursday

12/04/2014 · 10:32 pm

Alask, Poor Popeyes

I’m sure by now a lot of you have seen the trailer for the upcoming CGI Popeye, and unless the sailor is a stranger to you, you noticed a lack of a certain tooty trademark. That’s right folks: a Popeye without a pipe is not a Popeye, and a donut without a hole is a Danish.

It defies all sense. As recently as 2011 we had a terrific Tintin movie with a captain who literally cannot function without liquor, and jumpstarts a seaplane engine with merely his breath. Even the portrait of Popeye on canned spinach labels in grocery stores has the pipe in his mouth. He cannot complete his own theme song without it!!!

I foresaw this gut-shot of political correctness as an 11th grader, and wrote this strip for the school paper. I redrew it two years later for the first issue of Mike The Pod Comix. The lines around the type are because I typed out all the Blockheads’ lines on my old Brother, then sliced them out with a razor blade and glued them directly onto the artwork.

1991:

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Filed under Bad Influences, Comix Classic & Current, Magazine Rack, Nostalgic Obsessions

Tagged as #tbt, 1990s, 1991, comix, corporate crap, Mike the Pod, Popeye, Segar, strips, Throwback Thursday, underground

12/02/2014 · 6:59 pm

The (English) Beat

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Filed under Comix Classic & Current, Nostalgic Obsessions

Tagged as 1990s, Bands I Useta Like, comic, Ferris Bueller, music, ska, strips, The (English) Beat

11/17/2014 · 4:51 pm

Rush

What better proof of the niceness of Canadians could you ask for, than three dudes getting along well enough to perform together for forty years?

This song in particular got me through some lonely teenage nights:

As did this one:

And for crying out loud, to any red-blooded man, this song is utterly indisputable:

That’s why guys like me and Bubbles look beyond the songs about trees talkin to each other and the wordy 90s stuff. You’re lucky I outgrew my “Show of Hands” phase, however.