Part of being an inscrutable artist weirdo like myself is that you love it when people buy gifts for you, but you never buy gifts for anyone, because you feel an inner obligation to instead create something for them, which you then you take forever to do, and you just end up looking ungrateful.
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Filed under Faint Signals, Girls of BIUL, Nostalgic Obsessions, Thousand Listen Club
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Filed under Animation Analysis, Bad Influences, Comix Classic & Current, Faint Signals, Movies You Missed, Nostalgic Obsessions, Saturday Movie Matinee, Thousand Listen Club
In the early 1980s, video games were simple in concept, much like the “game apps” on phones nowadays. At heart, they were demonstrations of your skills with a joystick, paddle, or “track-ball” controller, performing one or more challenges. Eating all the dots, or climbing a scaffold to defeat a giant ape, to cite a couple of well-known examples. Navigating a maze while being pursued by killer robots. Killing a centipede, segment by segment. Swinging on vines over bottomless pits.
Or, flying planes into buildings. For fun!
Signed by programmer Steve Cartwright!
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Filed under Bad Influences, Faint Signals, Nostalgic Obsessions
Yea, I say unto you, I was in the right place at the right time for two major moments in American history. You must believe that what I’m about to tell you is the truth; it will seem like so much legend and myth.
The first: I was gifted a copy of E.T. (the game) for the Atari 2600, on Christmas, but that is a tale for another article.
I HAD TO PRETEND I ENJOYED THIS.
The second, and more significant: I talked my father into buying me Pac-Man for the Atari 2600, one of the most notoriously disappointing games of all time. Second only to E.T.,of course.
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Filed under Bad Influences, Faint Signals, Idiot's Delight, Nostalgic Obsessions
Everything used to be way better. I found evidence.
A DOLLAR FIFTY!!!
It was at a yard sale for two dollars, and it’s actual proof, unlike my hazy memories. A motherfucking forty-year-old issue of Playboy.
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Filed under Bad Influences, Faint Signals, Girls of BIUL, Late To The Party, Magazine Rack, Nostalgic Obsessions
From BIUL #1. ©Matty Boy Anderson.
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Filed under Bad Influences, Comix Classic & Current, Faint Signals, Nostalgic Obsessions
Long ago, in the Before Times, I was dating a woman with a very young daughter. I had not yet gelled as an artistic entity, and was in the process of learning that I’m really not cut out to be a father, even a surrogate one. This became apparent on two occasions. Both were attempts on my part to make a connection with a kid. Both failed hilariously.
The first was the purchase of a “children’s book”. I spent hours at Books-A-Million (down the block from Media Play) hunting for just the right one. It had to be colorful, clever, and not condescending. I refused to buy anything “kiddie”, on principle. It had to be something that enticed, thrilled, and sparked the imagination, like the books I read in my grade school library.
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Filed under Bad Influences, Don't Know Don't Care, Faint Signals, Girls of BIUL, Idiot's Delight, Nostalgic Obsessions, Robot Toy Fetish, Thousand Listen Club
3-D movies employ greatly improved technology today. Previously, they used the same glasses as 3-D comic books did; cardboard with acetate lenses in red and blue.
My personal pair, since 1991’s Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare. (As much as would fit on my scanner.)
3-D comics were unreadable without these glasses. I still have two issues: Gumby 3-D and Transformers in 3-D #3, both from Blackthorne Publishing.
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Filed under Bad Influences, Comix Classic & Current, Faint Signals, Idiot's Delight, Magazine Rack, Movies You Missed, Nostalgic Obsessions, Robot Toy Fetish, Saturday Movie Matinee
The first brand feud I can remember is Atari vs. Intellivision.
Note Major League Baseball endorsement. And misspelling of product name in quote. Superior, my Aunt Fanny.
Some kids had an Atari 2600 game console; some kids had an Intellivision. (Some kids had an Odyssey 2 or a Vectrex, but not for very long.) Atari kids hated Intellivision kids, and vice versa. The TV commercials for both brands stoked this hatred; George Plimpton appeared in an ad for Intellivision, which he explained meant “Intelligent Television”. Ergo, kids who played Atari were stupid. Continue reading
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Filed under Bad Influences, Don't Know Don't Care, Faint Signals, Idiot's Delight, Nostalgic Obsessions, Robot Toy Fetish
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
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Filed under Bad Influences, Faint Signals, Nostalgic Obsessions
BIG BOOK OF COMICS (SIGNED)
Original price was: $15.00.$10.00Current price is: $10.00.
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