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: New Jersey
Air Raiders
Previously, I remarked upon how those of us who were children in the 1980s “knew disappointment by name”, thanks to the deluge of new toy lines leaping at us from store shelves, most of them doomed to two-year lifespans and discount-bin futures. Companies were just beginning to learn how the lack of a Saturday morning cartoon could put an ugly dent in their profits. The hunt was on for the next best gimmick, the hook that would bring in the kids and establish the next He-Man or GI Joe. Not coincidentally, those lines were also infusing gimmicks circa 1987 in a losing battle to stay on top.
Transformers, arguably the decade’s most popular toys, were expensive to produce. The supply of repainted robots that comprised the line’s first few years had run dry, leaving Hasbro no choice but to design the toys themselves, an extra step that was not only also very expensive, but resulted in the far simpler Pretenders and Firecons. Few, if any, will argue that either was a high point in quality. For the uninitiated: Firecons used the same sparking mechanism as Doc’s DeLorean from Back To The Future, and that was a Happy Meal toy. (It was recalled because “kids” could chew off a rear tire and choke on it, not because of the sparks as you might assume. I have two of the worthless things.)
So it was that in 1987 Hasbro began to try some new tricks. Here is but one example of something they threw at the wall with the greatest effort, and try as it might, it just didn’t stick. Ladies and gentlemen of the Internet, I give you Air Raiders.
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Filed under Bad Influences, Faint Signals, Nostalgic Obsessions, Robot Toy Fetish
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
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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
Yello
30 years ago, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off came out. If you build a time machine and go back to 1986, you might just enjoy that movie.
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Filed under Comix Classic & Current, Faint Signals, Idiot's Delight, Movies You Missed, Nostalgic Obsessions, Saturday Movie Matinee, Thousand Listen Club
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
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Filed under Bad Influences, Faint Signals, Nostalgic Obsessions
XTC
You wanna lampoon Jehovah? It’s been done. Nobody can top Monty Python’s Life of Brian. Move on with your life.
You’re protected from nefarious religions in the present, mostly. Kids aren’t put through the parochial school ringer like sixty years ago. Nuns get in hot water for rapping the knuckles of students with a ruler. Child abuse is rightfully and openly abhorred. Continue reading
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Filed under Bad Influences, Comix Classic & Current, Faint Signals, Idiot's Delight, Nostalgic Obsessions, Thousand Listen Club
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
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Filed under Bad Influences, Faint Signals, Idiot's Delight, Nostalgic Obsessions, Saturday Movie Matinee, Worst Of All
Puttin’ On The Hits
I don’t hate karaoke. Really, I don’t.
I don’t do it myself, either, but I don’t equate it with actual performance. Karaoke is for fun; a diversion. Plus, I’m old enough to remember the first karaoke joke on The Simpsons, when the gag was that it was something Japanese people did. It was the successor to the camera strapped around the neck.
Now, not only is karaoke available in a home version, but late-night talk show hosts burn air time “lip-syncing” “popular” (corporate-backed) songs. The boring blond from Amos & Andy For Nerds, excuse me, I mean The Big Bang Theory, lip-synced her way through a Ludacris song where almost every other word is “bitch”. The idea being, look at this little white girl act “gangsta”. As long as the star is corporate-backed, this is “empowerment”. What do you imagine happens if someone without a hit show* tries this? Continue reading
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Filed under Don't Know Don't Care, Faint Signals, Idiot's Delight, Worst Of All
Bundy Language
The FOX sitcom Married… With Children ran for eleven seasons, five of them good, from 1987 to 1997. It was created by Ron Leavitt and Michael G. Moye, who were inspired by the Norman Lear classic All In The Family. On the surface, the two shows appear similar; a middle-aged ignoramus, his obnoxious yet well-meaning family, contemporary social topics. But since these kind of programs invariably get into hot water for their dialogue, they share a more subtle connection.
Not only do they resemble a real family, but Kelly looks vaguely like Al, and Bud looks like Peg. That’s either serendipity or super-human casting.
During All In The Family‘s run (1971-79), “lovable bigot*” Archie Bunker, played by the great Carroll O’Connor, would go upstairs and flush the toilet to portray his disapproval. Bathroom noise on television was verboten before this. As you know, the home of the titular family on The Brady Bunch lacked a water closet, even though the father was an architect by trade. Early in television’s lifespan, it was believed that the sounds related to using the restroom would trigger the urge to defecate in viewers, driving them from the screen to the loo. Continue reading
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Filed under Bad Influences, Faint Signals, Girls of BIUL, Idiot's Delight, Nostalgic Obsessions
Kidd Video
Parallel universes figure into popular science fiction every so often, but whereas now they are used to explain inconsistencies, in the past they were an intriguing alternative to outer space as a setting. The short-lived TV show Otherworld from 1985 is one example, with its no-frills labels (like in Repo Man) and dumb upside-down pistols. A better-known version of the concept is the cartoon Kidd Video, which aired on NBC Saturday mornings around the same time.
(l-r) Ash, Whiz, Kidd, Carla. Yes, the nerd with yellow hair is called “Whiz”.
Everything I’ve mentioned thus far sucks to varying degrees (well, except Repo Man). But because of that “parallel universe” icing, the crap tasted sweeter than cake. Continue reading
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Filed under Animation Analysis, Don't Know Don't Care, Faint Signals, Girls of BIUL, Idiot's Delight, Nostalgic Obsessions, Zappalogy
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