Well, it's the first day of the Boris Karloff blog-a-thon, and I am totally unprepared (thanks goofy day job.)  I was working on a theme for this week's worth of Karloff tomfoolery, but the sudden unavailability of the Rankin/Bass film the Daydreamer, kicked that theme right in the short pants.  Basically, I wanted to take a look at Karloff's work in animation, both via his own personal credits (Mad Monster Party, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and the Daydreamer) as well as the various homages I've noticed. I’m still going to try and stick to that theme, so we'll see how that goes.

For today though, I wanted to kick things off by saying that I'm one of those kids that has been deeply influenced by the man's performances without really knowing all that much about the man himself.  My first contact with a Karloff was through his narration for Chuck Jones' How the Grinch Stole Christmas, though I never made the connection that this was the same great performer that also brought Frankenstein's monster to life with the 1931 Universal classic.  Actually I don't recall ever thinking about who the man was behind Jack Pierce's wonderful makeup until I was a teenager.  I know I read about Karloff in the Crestwood House Frankenstein book in elementary school, but must not have made an impression (even though that series of books made up a huge portion of my early reading…)



Even though I count myself among the legion of Universal Horror fans, I still feel that I don't know all that much about the great Karloff, and that's one of the main reasons I wanted to take part in this blogging event.  If nothing else, I'm mighty curious about what the other 100 or so people participating have to say, or what insights into his amazing career I might uncover. 

To find the list of participating sites you should sprint on over to the Frankensteinia, Pierre Fournier's exhaustive and very well written site that covers all aspects of the monster Karloff helped to cement into the popular culture.

With that I'll leave you with an ink drawing of Karloff as the monster I did almost a decade ago…

I just wanted to take a second and point to a cool part of the 40th anniversary celebration of Sesame Street that's been going on for a couple weeks now.   In honor of the milestone (and as a part of the upcoming release of the 40 years of Sesame Street DVD set) their website is featuring a 5 week series of voting polls to pick the best segments of the show.  Each week's voting is themed with a decade, and this week it's the 80s.  So head on over to the site and choose your favorite video (I'm all about the "Making Crayons" video personally…)

I just wanted to take a second and help spread the word about another interesting blogging event coming up next month.  In honor of the amazing Boris Karloff, Pierre Fournier of the wonderful Frankenstenia is putting together a week-long discussion of the master thespian and all around gentle monster. I'll let Pierre explain in his own words…

"Beginning on November 23 — Karloff's 122nd birthday — and on through the 29th, bloggers far and wide are invited to post something about Boris, his life and his wide-ranging career.

There is much to explore… His film work spanned five decades.  He clocked some 75 films through the silent era before he landed and nailed the iconic part of The Monster in Frankenstein, a film that is almost 80 years old and still seen and admired.  The sequel, The Bride of Frankenstein, is a motion picture classic.  In his path through the history of horror films, Karloff collaborated with James Whale, Val Lewton, Mario Bava and Roger Corman.  He proved equally at ease in all genres, including comedies.

Away from films, Boris Karloff became a Broadway star with Arsenic and Old Lace, The Lark and he was Captain Hook in Peter Pan.

He enjoyed a successful radio career and he was one of the first Hollywood actors to embrace television, appearing in live drama, in his own series — notably Colonel March of Scotland Yard and Thriller — and as a frequent and popular guest on talk and variety shows.  He was the model and the Grammy Award-winning voice of The Grinch.  He made numerous spoken word records, reading fairy tales to children and, in print, he lent his name to horror and mystery anthologies and a line of comic books.

In real life, Boris Karloff was a gentleman, a cricket fan and a brave founding member of the Screen Actor's Guild.

It's been forty years since Boris Karloff passed away, yet his star shines as bright as ever.  This November 23, bloggers will come together and share film reviews, profiles, images, thoughts and remembrances and, I am sure, surprises.  I, as a reader, am looking forward to it."

I plan on participating in this event.  It'll help to wean myself off of all of this Halloween blogging, and honestly, I'm always eager to talk about Mr. Karloff.  For more information head on over to Frankensteinia, which is also always a treat.

(Allee Willis and Paul "Pee Wee Herman" Reubens)

Do you ever have one of those days where everything seems to just coalesce?  Last Friday I woke up to a pseudo press release in my inbox announcing the opening of the Allee Willis Museum of Kitsch on September 14th, and of course the first question that would come out of my mouth had I been awake enough to be enthusiastically talking to myself was, "Who is Allee Willis?"   I tend to get a decent amount of press releases about 80s themed or kitsch/ephemera projects, usually revolving around hip hop groups featuring a bunch of geeky white guys name dropping Axel Foley, He-Man and Rubik's Cubes.   It becomes an automatic process to read through them just far enough to know when it's time to stop and then I flush 'em out of my short term memory.  There was something about this one that stuck with me though.

I didn't think about it all that much, but it was the beginning of a day of odd connections.  When I got into work I stuck one of my favorite mixed CDs into the computer, psyching myself up for a long day of data entry and cataloging media tapes.  The CD features some of my favorite movie anthems including Michael Sembello's Rock Until You Drop from the Monster Squad, Cyndi Lauper's the Goonies are Good Enough, the Fight Song from the Karate Kid, the Cherry Bombs songs from Howard the Duck, the Pointer Sister's Neutron Dance from Beverly Hills Cop, as well as some stuff from Rad, the Legend of Billie Jean and Thrashin'.   Little did I know that almost half of the tunes I was rocking out to were written or co-written by Ms. Willis.  Part of the reason I broke out this CD was that my good friend Kevin and I were going to watch Howard the Duck for the upcoming evening's movie night we hold each Friday.

Anyway, as the day wore on I hit a bunch of sites while on break looking for some fun stuff to read about.   One stop was finally sitting down to read Kirk Demarais' first article on Archie McPhee's new online literary magazine, Monkey Goggles.   The article takes a look at some selections from the 1959 PICO Novelty catalog, in particular a great flask with an awesome kitschy plastic head called the Hip Nip.



I've seen a bunch of novelty flasks, but none quite this novel and fun.  I mean drinking out of a flask that looks like a little tipsy man is just bizarre.  After a bit more web browsing, I remembered to take a closer look at what this Allee Willis was all about.  I whipped over to her blog and started digging through the archives, marveling at her insane collection of odds and ends.  Lo and behold Ms. Willis has her own Hip Nip in the collection.  She even has the sister flask, the Hot Nip. I love it when I find these kind of connections in the junkyard of pop culture.   It's like some sort of affirmation for my interests, as if everything is starting to make sense.  Flipping through the entries in Willis' blog I couldn't help but fall in love with some of her treasures like a fleshy pink cup molded in the image of Mr. Peanut, or this Monty Python Nights-of-Ni-esque four-headed Monkees doll…

   

She even has one of the coolest pieces of wall art known to mankind, a vintage Billie Dee Williams endorsed Colt 45 malt liquor electric sign.  Who do I have to kill to get a hold of one of these beauties?



This is the sort of stuff that I would love to find while digging through antique shops and flea markets.  I never have this kind of luck though, so I can't help but love the idea of the Allee Willis Museum of Kitsch!  You can check out a sneak peek at what to expect by watching this trailer...



As I mentioned above the website is set to open proper tomorrow, Monday the 14th of September in tandem with a week-long physical exhibit in Los Angeles at the newly relocated Ghettogloss art gallery on Melrose.  The gallery will be "…displaying hundreds of amazing artifacts from her rarely-seen-in-person kitsch collection and will frequently be on hand greeting visitors and discussing the Allee Willis Museum of kitsch. Allee's grand kitsch exhibition will feature two fabulous AWMoK launch parties (on Monday, Sept. 14th and Monday, Sept. 21st); the debut of her delightful "What Is Kitsch?" short film series; Allee's unveiling of her featured "Kitsch O' The Day" blog item live at noon daily in the gallery's front window on L.A.'s ever-popular Melrose Avenue; her usual megaton of scrumptious junk food; specially created gourmet treats from L.A.'s hottest new restaurant, Susan Feniger's Street, of which Allee is part owner; live auctions of spectacular kitsch masterpieces hand-picked by Allee herself; a first-time-ever public raffle to win a guided tour of Allee's exclusively private Willis Wonderland; a not-to-be-missed karaoke sing-off of Allee's classic Earth Wind & Fire hit, "September," at the party on the night of the 21st."

To cap last Friday off, and after watching Howard the Duck with my friend, we were scanning to credits to see if Lea Thompson actually sang on any of the Cherry Bombs' songs, when I noticed that Allee Willis co-wrote practically everything on that soundtrack.  Though she's probably better known for writing Boogie Wonderland and co-writing the theme song to Friends, it's her work on the various movie soundtracks of the 80s that I appreciate the most.   I never knew just how much she influenced me and I can't believe I didn't even know her name until this past weekend.   If you get a second and want to be wowed by an insanely awesome collection of sublime pop culture, head on over to Allee Willis' blog and be sure to check out the launch of her Museum on Monday.  Be sure to tell her that Shawn from Branded in the 80s sent ya!

I'd like to think that I don't go on all that many ranting jigs here at Branded in the 80s, but I've had something stuck in my craw for awhile that I'm sick of trying to tongue out from between my teeth.   It's time to get a tooth pick and scrape it out.  Spoilers.  Every time I read the word it makes the hair on my neck stand on end.  Unless I'm talking about a sweet 80s era Lamborghini Countach (which I an want to do), spoilers refer to any bit of information in a, typically fictional, creative work that reveals a thought, idea, plot point, or action that would ruin any surprise in partaking said narrative.  Soylent Green is…a classic example of why the word spoiler has become so common that it's starting to really piss me off.

I should back up a second and clarify that I don't intend to spoil any movies, books, or even the 3rd movement Rondo in Mozart's E-flat piano concerto #9, K. 271.  My gripes with spoilers have little to do with the classic definition of the act, but more in how people react to the phenomenon, and in particular those people interested in any sort of movie, television or literary criticism.  I get so sick of this fear of using spoilers when reading reviews or listening to podcasts that attempt to host a discussion about a creative work.  My feeling is that worthwhile and useful criticism comes from a through deconstruction of the work at hand.  Even if it's a targeted deconstruction, I think the dialogue has to be explicit.  Generalities and tip-toeing around a subject can only lead to allusions, confusion or an ambiguous and therefore pointless discussion.   If you're going to talk about a damn movie, than talk about the damn movie.

Everyone seems so concerned with being spoiled or spoiling something for someone else.  Again, I understand why, but there are unspoken ground rules that come with talking about stuff, and writers or hosts shouldn't have to censor for the benefit of the audience.  The audience should have the wherewithal to know when to turn off a podcast or to stop reading a review before they've seen a film or whatever.  If I'm going to listen to a podcast about the original Heston Planet of the Apes flick then it should be obvious the hosts are going to talk about Planet of the damned dirty Apes.  It reminds me of one of my favorite quotes, it's from Michael Crichton (by way of his father) where he learns a lesson in the uselessness of continuing any sentence that begins with "Obviously…"  His father said, and I'm paraphrasing here, that if a statement is truly obvious then it doesn't need to be stated.  To me spoiler warnings in reviews and movie themed podcasts fall under this category.  Now, if I'm reading a review comparing Capt'n Crunch w/Crunchberries with Capt'n Crunch's Choco Crunch and the author lets slip that Darth Vader is really Luke Skywalker's dad, then maybe a case can be made for bad judgment.

On a separate note, and this is just my opinion, but as far as the actual spoiling of creative work goes, if it can be spoiled by revealing a single fact then that fact is not much more than a gimmick.  Gimmicks tend to be devious by nature, they're utilized to deceive and trick one into thinking that something is more than it really is.  Granted not all gimmicks are about the con, there are some that are more about the novelty factor, adding some form of functional or artistic enrichment.  Either way it's fleeting.  Camera phones are nifty, but they're no replacement for a real camera when it comes to quality.  The reason I spoiled Empire Strikes Back at the end of the last paragraph is because the film doesn't hinge on learning that Luke is Vader's son.  It only adds depth to a great film; it's just a moment with a little bit of gravitas.   It's textbook Greek Tragedy.  Besides, you didn't hear anyone pissed off at Lucas for ruining the un-filmed back story to the first Star Wars flick during the opening credits text crawl.   If the reveal of the plot is so important to a story, my question is how important is the rest of that story? 

Most of the famous film spoilers are interesting, but they hardly ruin the experience of seeing the film.   It's also a weird statement on what it means to enjoy a creative work.   If spoiling ruins an experience, how does anybody ever watch something a second time without throwing their arms up and declaring that they ruined the film for themselves by watching it that one time before?  Surprise is fun sometimes, but it's not the end all be all of experience.  Same thing for romanticizing first experiences.   I don't know about anyone else, but my first exposure to most things are usually interesting but not as fulfilling as when I've got a little bit of experience under my belt, including my appreciation of film and literature.

While reading through some of my older Marvel G.I. Joe comics this past weekend, I noticed a couple of interesting things.  First, though there are some overt Nazi overtones to the Cobra organization, I'd wager that they weren't quite as in your face as say the Visitors from the V mini series.  Anyway, in the cartoon the most you'd get would be the trooper's matching uniforms and some of the megalomaniacal antics of Destro and Cobra Commander, but for the most part cobra has its own feel.  With the action figures, because of the varied character designs, you really didn't get that fascist army vibe.  In the early comics though, there are some tell tale signs that the Nazis were a huge influence, in particular in panels like this…



…with a trooper giving the all too familiar salute to Cobra Commander.  I found that kind of weird.

The other thing that struck me was the more dynamic use of the character designs.  When Hasbro set out to mold the line of 3.75" action figures in the early 80s, they chose to make them more visually interesting by adding guns, grenades, and other stuff to the outfits.  These accouterments weren't removable of course, and it lead to some intentional ignorance when playing with the figures in the sandbox.  I mean Snake Eyes (version 3) isn't going to pull those blades off his chest and chop his way out when captured.  For me it pretty much gets to the point where some of these accouterments lose all of their meaning.  Take the stars on Scarlett's gloves.  Are these patriotic patches or shuriken (ninja stars)?



Well, the comics certainly have an answer for this…



Anyway, just some food for thought when it comes to the various incarnations of one of my favorite properties from the 80s…

I've talked in the past about the function of pop culture as a sort of Rosetta Stone for deciphering the past.  How a picture of an Otter Pop can help unlock very specific memories of times and places, and eventually, when you string enough of these together you start to get a grasp on what it was like to live in another lifetime.  The key to this exercise is finding the objects that can transport you back, those pop culture touchstones, not just the obvious ones, but the subtle bits and pieces.  For me, the best source of these elusive treasures is advertising.  That's one of the reasons I love it when guys like Esteban over at the Vintage space Toaster Palace spend umpteen hours going blind while scanning microfiche for ad circulars and sale notices from newspapers from all over the country, compiling all sorts of toy robot goodness.  On the outside it might seem crazy, but it's important, even if it sounds like Richard Dreyfuss in Close Encounters sculpting mashed potatoes important.  It helps to weave a tapestry that acts as a portal into the past.

For me, my goldmine is old magazines.  Some reap better material than others, but all of them usually have something that shines, usually in the form of an ad, but sometimes there’s some gold in the articles as well.  Unfortunately, depending on where you live in a particular state or in the country, finding magazines from years past can be quite the hassle.  I mean, they are periodicals, and more or less designed to be disposable, so you tend to have to rely on hoarders and pack rats.  On top of that, you have to wait for them to want to part with these treasures, and even then for these people to be motivated enough to drag them to flea markets, used bookstores and to eBay.  I'll be honest, this isn't a very reliable group to begin with, so the chances of finding anything outside of the odd People or Life magazine is pretty rare.  In particular the kid-themed zines like Stickers, Muppet, Hot Dog, Electric Company, Dynamite, or the various movie and TV show specials.  Even rarer are the cartoon property magazines like Thundercats, Masters of the Universe, and G.I. Joe, at least in my experience.   I've found a handful of these, and for a fun little diversion from the Joe mini series discussion this week, yet still sort of on topic, I thought I'd break out my copy of G.I. Joe magazine from Spring 1988…



The magazine ran for at least 9 issues and the bulk of them were published quarterly in 1987 and 1988.  I have no idea how I found out about it (though it was most likely from an advert that was package with one of the vehicles), but I had a subscription during the 1987 season.   I picked this copy up at a second hand book store a few years ago.  These weren't very big, usually only running about 30 odd pages, but back in the summer of '87 I was completely enamored with 'em, reading, and re-reading the articles and news.   I also clipped the covers and put them on my wall, right next to my Ralph Macchio and Lost Boys posters.

As for this issue, well it reminds me how out of touch I was getting in 1988 with the G.I. Joe franchise.  I'd pretty much stopped buying new figures at this point (probably having moved on to Micro Machines, baseball cards, and comic books), and I'm more or less unfamiliar with this crop of figures.  The last figure I remember buying at this time was the hooded Storm Shadow (who had just left Cobra to join G.I. Joe.)  I only remember Road Pig because of his striking resemblance to Sven-Ole Thorsen, that actor from the 80s that always seemed to end up as Arnold Schwarzenegger's nemesis in movies.   Looking back on some of the file cards, I think Hasbro was really running out of steam on these characters, I mean Spearhead (the one in the driver's seat) was a first class insurance salesman for crying out loud!



Basically these were variations on boys life magazines, with a few articles on sports, a bit of movie and television news, the odd interview and a G.I. Joe short story…



Looking back, it's kind of weird how the magazine was set up, treating the G.I. Joe characters as if they existed (and guest edited an issue or two), but I suppose for kids this isn't all that odd.   I don't think I ever wrote into the magazine, but I'd be willing to bet it wasn't for lack of trying to pen a magnum opus of a letter.  I seem to remember trying my hand at drawing a picture of a Sky Striker in a dogfight with a Cobra Rattler, but never finishing it…



I think it's interesting that a handful of these drawings are based on the card art for the figures (in particular Falcon, and Cobra Commander in Battle Armor below.)  Though these end up looking like the more technically proficient pieces, I'm more interested in the drawings that came totally from the kid's minds (like the friendly Nemesis Enforcer waving or Blowtorch striking a pose.)



I feel a little bad for any kids who begged their parents to pick up a subscription from the ad in this issue as there would only be three more produced at this point.   I bet those kids lamented not receiving that final unproduced issue in the Spring of 1989.  On the other hand, maybe sporting a pair of those badass G.I. Joe themed sunglasses made the pain float away.  Who knows…



Here's an example of the type of news a boy can really use…



That's right, look out for Crocodile Dundee II coming soon to a theater near you.   Now that I think about it, Paul Hogan's career ended about the same time that this magazine finally died out in the winter of 1988…

Anyway, as I mentioned above, what really gets me excited about these back issues are the ads.  There were only a few really cool ones in this issue, but they're gems.  First up is this Sunkist Fruit Snacks ad featuring the cast of the Archie comics…



Back in the 80s, the Sunkist Fruit snacks were some of my favorites, but then again, that was back when it was just them and Fruit Corners producing the original Fruit Rollups.  Now most fruit snacks are under the Betty Crocker branding, and they all sort of taste super artificial.  It's just not the same.

Next up is another death knell, except in this case it was ringing in the end of the G1 Transformers line of toys with the release of the Pretenders figures…



Honestly, just based on this ad I would have been floored to pick some of these up at the time.   I just remember being really disappointed with them though, as they were sucky in "human mode" and not all that great as Transformers.   It reminds me though, that Nala over at Plastic Crack recently found one of these beauties mint in box while he was cleaning up his parent's basement…

Rounding out the advertising goodness is an application for the Ernest P. Worrell Fan Club!  I don't know about you guys, but I can freely admit to loving Jim Varney.   I grew up on the Ernest local fox affiliate commercials in Florida, and always thought he was a local sensation.  By the time Ernest Goes to Camp and the Saturday Morning show Hey Vern, It's Ernest came along I was hooked.  Granted, the Ernest movies overstayed their welcome after the surreal Ernest Goes to Jail, but I'll always have a special little place in my heart for the Jim Varney and his zany antics…



In this issue we also get an interview with ALF, which is odd on a couple levels. On the one hand, the magazine is sort of written from the point of view of the Joe team, so imaginary characters like Storm Shadow are writing and editing articles.  On the other, these fictional characters are interviewing ALF, not Paul Fusco (the producer, writer, and voice behind the puppet), but the character himself…







Each issue also featured a G.I. Joe short story, like Space Shuttle Spin-Out here, which typically had some pretty awful illustrations.  I think even as a kid these paintings bugged me…







It's was probably the juxtaposition with the awesome cover art, and the really badass art on the pull out posters (see this issue's below) that got me hating the interior art.



Finishing out the magazine are a few pages of puzzles…





…and an ad for a sister publication, Thundercats Magazine.  Though I'm sure it's more of the same, I've never gotten a chance to take a gander inside one of these, so I'm kind of curious.   I wonder why there wasn't a Transformers magazine?



Anyway, tomorrow I'll be back with the final installment of the G.I. Joe original mini series Cartoon Commentary! column…

In the meantime here are some other articles I've written about magazines over the years…

Stickers Magazine Issue #7
Stickers & Stuff Magazine Issue #14
Muppet Magazine
...as well as my archive of TV Guide Fall Preview Issues...

I'm not usually one for celebrating my birthday all that much, unless I could go back in time and relive a true Showbiz pizza party with great arcade games, awesome animatronic shows and skee ball.  Well you can still get the skee ball at Chuck-E-Cheese, but the rest is really lacking.  So another year tacked on and all that hoopla.  My wife and I usually have an understanding when it comes to birthdays and Christmas, no presents except maybe a meal out.  This year though, the wife surprised me with something incredibly awesome.  She commissioned an illustration from our friend Mark Rudolph mixing two of my favorite things, monsters and cephalopods!



I tend to not get all that outwardly excited most of the time, so I hope my wife saw through that to noticed how surprised and happy I was while opening the package.   Starring up at me was this loveable horror below…



I mean hutchie motchie!   Look at this guy!  There was even a very nice color print to boot, which really makes the illustration pop.   Carrie and I both love Mark's style, especially when it comes to monster/creature design, and we both think this piece is just fan-freaking-tastic…



The only drawback is that my wife has thrown down the gauntlet in terms of present giving and it's going to have to put me on my toes to think of something this rad.   I suppose that the best kind of drawback though.  We can't wait to get this little fella framed and put up somewhere prominently displayed.

While I'm heaping praise at Mark's feet, I should take this opportunity to point any readers of this site to his work.  You can find out most everything you'd need to know at his site CV Comics.com.   I believe he's open for commissions, which based on the beauty above I'd highly recommend.

He's also one half of the dynamic duo of the Art & Story podcast, which recently 4 new weekly shows called…



The Extreme shows are an extension of the weekly show featuring a nice fly-on-the-wall look at their daily studio activities, as well as scintillating conversation on subject ranging the gamut from the 90s era Zubas/Skids baggy pants fashions to how they'd like their corpses to be disposed of (I vote for Mark's Hunter Thompson-esque shot-out-of-a-cannon request.)  The extreme show is perfect if you’re not into a deconstruction of comics and illustration work, as it's just a great listen.

Mark is also the co-host of the Requiem podcast featuring an NPR-style look at metal music…



You can also find his comic work at Sugary Serials, in particular on the Curse of the Pharaohs story and my favorite from the anthology Switch Runners (which I've mentioned before.)

Michael Jackson.  Sigh.  To be honest, I don't feel all that much in the wake of his death and it's what I find the most surprising.   I was five or six years old when Thriller came out and it shattered my idea of what music was like a sledge hammer.   I know it sounds weird, I was barely in grade school, barely off training wheels, and my musical world was filled mainly with the Beach Boys and the Monkees.  I wasn't old enough to be really be effected by a pop music album they way I was, but I was.  Every single song on that album crushed me at the time and it's probably the only cassette tape that I played (or had my parents play in the car) for at least a year.  For me, when I think of Michael Jackson, his entire career took place between the release of Thriller and culminated in the insane popularity of We Are the World (the U.S.A. for Africa single) in 1985.   In those three years I memorized every second of Thriller, envied the kids who managed to get their very own crazy red leather jackets, bought and wore a gaudy off-brand white sequined glove, felt horrible for the starving in Ethiopia, was shocked at the hair-on-fire footage from that fateful Pepsi commercial, obsessed over the John Landis shot video for Thriller, and luckily had no idea that Jackson narrated an E.T. record book (and it's way creepy.)

And for however influential the man was to me at five, I practically dropped him at eight.  This is what tends to happen when people become so popular that they transcend into another realm of pop culture existence.  They aren't just popular, they truly become icons to some and idols to others.   Michael Jackson was so ingrained in the public consciousness, that nothing he did later, none of the stark raving craziness managed to seep into the illusion I had of the man when I was five, six or seven.   I hadn't thought a lot about this until I read that he died.  Jackson is my perfect example of separating the artist from the art.   In a way, it's almost like he died when I was nine.  He released Bad and he died, becoming a doppelganger that was doing all sorts of hideous stuff with his reputation and image.

Part of me is really getting sick of the massive amount of hoopla that is spewing all over the internet (I luckily don't have cable and thanks to the new governmental anti-televised-terrorism regulations, I no longer get local signals either) that's debating the worthiness of Jackson's effect on the populace.  Is it a tragedy or is he not worth taking about?  Are the people profoundly affected by his passing soulless losers or are the cultural elite just snobbish pricks?  Hell I'm adding to it, but it gets back to the point that this is how deeply the man was rooted in out culture.  Michael Jackson was one of the last of the living crazy American gods.   He fits right in between Marilynn Monroe, Mickey Mouse, Elvis, Ronald McDonald, and James Dean as our culture's answer to Jesus, Buddha or whatever god floats your boat.  Michael Jackson is Levi's, he's Kraft American Cheese slices, he's Coke, he's Ford, and he's the Yankees.  He had a light side (insert obvious joke here), he had a dark side (insert slightly less obvious joke here), and his legacy is a series of life after death sightings, zombie jokes, obsessive attention paid to his kids, questions over the truth to the child molestation charges, an endless string of greatest hits releases, and at least seven more urban legends (perhaps involving his bones being interred with the Elephant Man's in some dusty old museum in London.)



I think the above picture sums up how I feel about his post "We are the World" years.  You might also want to check out the rest of the Michael Jackson stickers in my collection by clicking here or the sad clown above…

So about a year ago during Wizard World Chicago 2008, my wife doodled up an idea for a line of creatures that she hoped to turn into a webcomic.  Well it's been percolating and brewing for awhile and she recently decided to try and make them into a line of stuffed animals.  We went out and hit Michaels this weekend and picked up some materials and she whipped together her first proof of concept…



She had been going through a creative funk, and was trying to find and outlet.  I think this first stuffed animal is great and I'm so proud of her for having her vision, and seeing it through to a very neat end!  We're planning out some other additions to the line and hopefully this'll lead to a new hobby for her, which she's needed for awhile.



She's even blogging now.  Holy crap, visit my wife at her Demonals page...

Not a huge fan of memes, at least not doing them (don't mind reading others, in fact I find it pretty fascinating in a weirdly peeping Tom-ish sort of way), but I was tagged and figured "…what the hey."  There's a first time for everything right?  I think the aspect I don’t care for is the chain letter part usually included, and since I am a fan of breaking rules, I think I'm going to nix that part of the game.  If anyone reads this and wants to pick up the challenge though, go right ahead and consider yourself tagged.   Anyway, just for officialness' sake, here are the ruley duleys:

1) Link to the person who tagged you.
2) Post the rules on your blog.
3) Write six random things about yourself.
4) Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them.
5) Let each of the six persons know they've been tagged and leave a comment on their blog.
6) Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

Part one is easy peasy: I was tagged by Charles over at Eclectorama (who is still probably looking for host-ees for his fun Spockcation 2009), a great toy blog.

#2, check. #3, well here we go:

First up is an easy one.  I'm in love with giant cephalopods.  Seriously IN love with them.  I think there is nothing I'd rather see more in this world than a giant squid or octopus, and yet at the same time I think I'd fudge my shorts and faint of utter terror at the same moment that I jumped up to give myself a high-five for finally seeing one.  I can trace this back to the sadly defunct 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea ride at Disney World.  Also every time I find myself in an aquarium, I can't help but make a beeline for the octopus tank where I'll them stand for at least a half hour, googlie eyed and practically drooling.  I know, TMI.



Next up is the first toy I have a vivid memory of wanting while in a toy store.  I wasn't much of the begger for toys when I'd go out shopping with my Mom.  In fact, most of the stuff I received was on birthdays and Christmas, and almost always unpackaged.  This Tonto figure was one of the first toys I remember seeing in a package and it fascinated me.  Yup, not much more to it than that (the rules did say random.)



In third place is my blanky (so it gets three pictures.)  I'm sure every kid ever has had a first blanky/woobie, and I'm sure all the stories associated with said blankies are similar (mine was at times, a whip, a pretend cast, a skirt, a cape, and a bank robber's mask) and end in some sort of traumatic separation.  I was lucky enough to keep mine around long enough, and to have loved on it so much that I basically wore it down to the side of a large hand towel before finally deciding myself that it was time to put her out to pasture.  Also lucky for me, my mother had enough foresight to clip away the nappy edges and store the leftover 5 inch by 5 inch square of soft comforting joy in my baby book so I still have the remnant today.







Coming in at number four is a 1971 Mach 1 Ford Mustang.  Yup.  My favorite car ever.  I got a chance to ride in this one a few times and it was awesome.  Yup.



Numero Cinq, my first attempt at "real drawing" (beyond the goofy doodle we all do as children.)  I copied this picture of Michelangelo from off of the first VHS video release right around 1988 or 1989.  I was sick in bed and desperately wanted to send it into the local news station for some sort of drawing contest, but couldn't bear to part with it because I thought it was genius.  My favorite part?  My crafty attempt at hiding the impossible to draw legs…



Lastly, I was an Indian Guide for a year or two back in 1987-88.  I hated camping, and I wasn't all that thrilled about hanging out with a bunch of other boys I didn't know all that well, but in retrospect I'm glad my father encouraged me to do it.  By the way, I'm the dork in the middle with the gaudy plaid shorts…





Now I'm going to go skip to step number six before passing out in bed.  G'night…

Just wanted to pop out of my post Halloween hibernation for a second and point to the new episode of the Art & Story podcast (hosted by Mark Rudolph and Jerzy Drozd.)  Jerzy & Mark have been lining up some awesome interviews on the show lately (in particular their recent conversation with animation giant Tom Sito), and this week they got a chance to speak with the very awesome and talented voice actor Bill Ratner, who was responsible for bringing the character Flint to life on the G.I. Joe cartoon!  If you haven't seen G.I. Joe (here's an example of his portrayal of Flint), you've probably heard him narrating movie trailers, and most certainly in commercial voice-overs.  I highly suggest you give the show a listen, and check out the archives as the duo has really done a great job deconstructing the process of storytelling as it relates to making comics (as well as hitting other areas.)

As a quick aside from the Halloween festivities here at Branded, I thought I'd take a second and point to a fun project that Diana Nock put together on her newly re-designed site…



If you were ever curious about seeing over 150 different artist's interpretations of swashbuckling, romantic, fuzzy, blue, teleporting elf Nightcrawler (of X-Men, Excalibur, and six million other Marvel comics fame), then take a second and check out the Nightcrawler Sketchbooks.  It's a hoot.

There really are millions of ways to waste time on the internet.  The above is time killer number 1,762,543, or as I like to refer to it, my recent productivity in 1,000 words, or how I came to realize that I’ve been using the word ‘cel’ a lot lately…

This time waster brought to you by Wordle, which I stumbled upon while reading the exquisite Frankensteinia this evening…

I thought I'd take a second and both throw out a shout to a really fun contest that the Art & Story podcast (hosted by Jerzy Drozd and Mark Rudolph of Sugary Serials) is running as well as posting my entry.  I don't typically dabble all that much in sequential art, but the idea was too much fun not to try.  Basically the contest is a variation on a project that Jerzy, his wife Anne and Mark have called 12/12 (details are located here) where they randomly pick 3 newspaper headlines and three items and then they try and hammer out a six-panel comic working it all together.

If the concept sounds interesting, check out the Art & Story podcast, listen to a couple episodes (in particular this episode which details the 12/12 project) and then take a crack at making a comic yourself.  The winning submission will be drawn randomly from all received and will be rewarded with a jackpot of fun comics including everything Jerzy and Mark have published (that they have in print) and a bunch of comics culled from the quarter bins during this past Wizard World Chicago (I was there during the hunt and there are some choice items for sure.)

Anyway, here is my submission. Can you guess which items and headlines I had to work with (from this posted list?)

I just wanted to take a second and mention that copies of the 2nd Branded in the 80s magazine, the special Micro-Magazine edition that I did specifically for Wizard World Chicago this year are now available for purchase online (as well as copies of the longer 1st issue.)  Just click on the picture of the books above, or at the top left of the page to order them through Indy Planet.  The micro-mag is only 8 pages long, but contains an exclusive (yeah I know, goofy isn't it) article on Choose Your Own Adventure style books from the 70s and 80s.  All magazine purchases go directly to the upkeep of this site, so if you're interested in supporting the Branded in the 80s project, by all means pick a copy of the books.

I thought I'd also take a second to mention that there are a few comic shops now carrying copies of Branded in the 80s:

A Comic Shop
114 South Semoran Blvd.
Winter Park, FL 32792
(407) 332-9636
(I talked to the owner and one of the guys who works in the shop and they seem like some really great people.  The shop is really nice and they stock some great stuff.)

Titan Games and Comics (Duluth, GA location)
2131 Pleasant Hill Road
Duluth, GA 30096
(770) 497-0202
(This has been one of my local shops since I moved to GA back in '90, a mainstay.)

Criminal Records
466 Moreland Ave, NE
Atlanta, GA 30307
(404) 215-9511
(Great music and comic shop in the Little Five area of Atlanta, right next to Junkman's Daughter.)

Bizarro Wuxtry
197 E. Clayton Street
Athens, Georgia 30601
(This is an awesome store in Athens run by the equally as awesome Devlin Thompson featuring all sorts of comics, magazines, books, toys, ephemera, and nostalgia goodness.  I can't leave this place without dropping a bundle on stuff...)

Anyway, ending self-pimping transmission…

So I know I've mentioned the Sugary Serials comic anthology before, but I thought I'd take a second to point to it again.  Basically the anthology is build around the concept of all ages comics influenced by the dynamics and feel of Saturday morning cartoons.  There is already a huge variety of stories available in their archive (they've been going for almost a year now.)  One of the more recent stories that I've been enjoying the heck out of it called Switch Runners by Mark Rudolph and Jerzy Drozd…



Mark and Jerzy decided it would be a fun challenge to try and design a comic based on a fictitious story/toy pitch much like the 80s properties G.I. Joe, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, Transformers, etc.  They wanted to push themselves a bit out of their comfort zone by molding the idea around a vehicle-based toy line, trying to make the story a bit more interesting than shows like M.A.S.K.  Personally I think they succeeded in spades, creating a really vivid set of characters that are both influenced by 80s action cartoons and yet still feel new and interesting.  They did some swell work on the vehicle designs as well, putting together a concept that I know I would have been salivating over as a kid (basically all the heroes vehicles have 2 modes, one built for transportation/speed, and a second built for artillery and defense, which basically grounds the thing.)



The basic story line revolves around a group of space explorers who are drawn to a strange planet ruled by an evil being called Tritannus (he uses emergency beacons to draw unsuspecting aliens to his planet so that he can enslave them.)  The explorers end up crashing into one of the planets moons (which happens to contain a natural element that is a major source of Tritannus' power), brining their ship and a portion of the moon cascading down to the planets surface.  The explorers salvage as much from their destroyed ship as they can to built a new set of vehicles (with the help of the element from the chunk of moon they brought down with them) and a base while they try and figure out a way to fend off the attacks from Tritannus (who wants to reclaim the moon fragment to regain his full power) and find a way off the planet.



There are shades of all sorts of 80s cartoons and other kid's shows within the story and influences on the character designs (from Thundercats and M.A.S.K., to Bravestarr and the Muppet Show), but the world does not feel recycled in the least (it could totally hold it's own on the DVD shelf next to Voltron and the Silverhawks.)  It's also very natural in its influences and doesn't resort to overt or snarky cartoon references, which seem to be about as far as most 80s influenced contemporary cartoons go.  That's something that I enjoy about the anthology in general…



The team of heroes consists of five characters led by a slightly frustrated Ramp (who bears an intentional striking resemblance to Tom Selleck), and includes the distant Anchor (in the first picture above), the lively Talika, enthusiastic Rondo, and the hard nosed Farz (the redhead driving the vehicle Dispatcher above.)

As far as the villains go, they're a little stronger in number (with six), including Cyndrl (a creature of fire housed in a containment suit who talks in excited run-on sentences), Crass Reptillicus (the narcissistic know-it-all) and his admirer Shila (who is equal parts lovely lady and Baby Huey in a powerhouse of a dinosaur body)…



…as well as Tackle (a scheming half rock, half robot cyborg) and Terzo (the ex of Anchor and a turncoat traitor to boot.)



As I mentioned above, a screeching power hungry trio of aliens that combine to form the mighty Tritannus leads the villains…



The comic is still updating on the Sugary Serials site (it's up to page 11 as I type this), so if you have a second and enjoy 80s action adventure cartoons you might want to give it a try (as well as the rest of the comics in the anthology), you won't be sorry you did.  I can almost hear the 80s hair metal influenced theme music in my head as I read each page…

I had such a great time taking the Branded in the 80s magazine on the road this summer that I figured one more stop on the tour couldn't hurt (and by extending the total stops to two it's starting to feel much more like I can actually call it a tour), so I wanted to take a second and announce that I'll be setting up a half table in the artist alley section of the Atlanta Comic Con this coming Sunday, the 13th of July.  You can find information on the show at their website (admission is $5, though you can save 2 bucks if you print out a coupon from the site.)  It's going to be held at the Marriott Atlanta Century Center located at 2000 Century Blvd, NE, Atlanta, GA, 30345 (404/325-0000) from 11:00am till 5:00pm.

I thought I'd also take a second to mention that there are a few comic shops now carrying copies of Branded in the 80s:

A Comic Shop
114 South Semoran Blvd.
Winter Park, FL 32792
(407) 332-9636
(I talked to the owner and one of the guys who works in the shop and they seem like some really great people.  The shop is really nice and they stock some great stuff.)

Titan Games and Comics (Duluth, GA location)
2131 Pleasant Hill Road
Duluth, GA 30096
(770) 497-0202
(This has been one of my local shops since I moved to GA back in '90, a mainstay.)

And soon…
Criminal Records
466 Moreland Ave, NE
Atlanta, GA 30307
(404) 215-9511
(Great music and comic shop in the Little Five area of Atlanta, right next to Junkman's Daughter.)

Also, I wanted to say thanks to all of those who have picked up copies of the book online from the Indyplanet store!  (You can order a copy by clicking on the picture of the magazines above or right here…

End pimping the magazine transmission…

Well, I'm finally back from vacation (both from a trip to Florida to visit the family, and from our exciting trip up to Wizard World Chicago), so I thought it was about time I update the site.  It doesn't feel like two weeks have gone by, but then the wife and I did our best to pack each day with stuff so the time just flew by. The whole point of this vacation was to take the trek up to Chicago to both meet a bunch of people I'd been conversing with online as well as to debut the print edition of this very website, the Branded in the 80s magazine.  So how did it go?  Well, I figure I might as well start at the beginning and work my up to the meat of the post…

The wife and I had originally planned on attending this year's San Diego Comic Con as a belated honeymoon, but after pricing out the trip and finding out that hotel rooms were pretty damn hard to come by, we opted instead to hit WW: Chicago.  My sister was gracious enough to dump a bunch of her frequent flier miles on us, so the airfare was taken care of.  Even though the cost wasn't a headache, the idea of flying in general was.  I hadn't been on a plane since I was about 8 years-old, and certainly not in the post 911 climate.  I took every single security check in horror story to heart and expected the worst, not to mention the whole fear of heights and freaky gremlins (the type that drove John Lithgow to near madness in the Twilight Zone movie.)  I was pretty tense when we were dropped off at the Orlando International airport.  Funny thing is that aside from a short wait to do the initial check-in (the signage was amply confusing), everything else went off without a hitch. Security check in was no big deal (aside from having to take my shoes off, but then again I tend toward laziness), and we ended up having about 40 minutes to sit around in the terminal waiting for the flight to start boarding.  Here's a picture of our plane waiting on the tarmac…



The flight itself was no big deal. It probably helped that I didn't have the window seat, so at most I could only get a glimpse of the horizon out of the window.  The flight time seemed to slip by as well (it was admittedly a short flight at and hour and forty five minutes), though part of this had to do with Delta, as they had installed TVs in the backs of all the seating, so I had the Food Network to keep me company though most of the flight.  We had a stop over/connection in Cincinnati, and then a much shorter flight (45 minutes) to Chicago on a smaller plane, but again it was pretty uneventful.  My only other worry was catching a shuttle to our hotel in Chi town, but again, no big deal.  In fact, I think part of me was looking forward to some kinks in the trip as we only every really drive down to Florida from Georgia which can get pretty routine and boring.  Some snafus up to Chicago would only have reassured me that the trip was a little farther and more of a big deal.  As it was when we stepped out of the airport in Illinois we didn't even really have that feeling that we were in a different place.  The temperature was very similar (hot and humid the first day) and we hadn't really heard anyone talking so there were no local accents and flavors.  At most there were a ton of Cubs displays in the airport, but I'm not a sports guy so again, it could have been Atlanta for all we knew.

It didn't start feeling like a strange city until we hit the hotel (we stayed in the Sofitel because it was both close to the convention center were WW: Chicago was held, and because it was the only hotel that had rooms available for the entire weekend.)  The Sofitel was a bit, shall we say ritzy compared to what we were used to (I grew up on Super 8s and Holiday Inns), and as a perfect example of this all of the staff spoke in French (French first and then English second, how utterly ritzy.)  Actually, to add to the almost pretentious atmosphere in the place, there were HD TVs lining the wall above the Check-In desk that were playing old French black & white silent films.



At the end of the day, even though the place was nice as hell, there were a lot of simple drawbacks that made it feel like it was grossly expensive.  You had to pay for daily wifi service, local calls, and way too much to get a mini fridge in your room (I've never had to pay to get a mini fridge in a hotel room before.)  There were also pointless amenities in the room like an HDTV with no HD channels, so everything looked like piss poor quality.  It was however connected to the convention center via a very convenient sky bridge, so it gets some points there.

The con was held at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont, which was by far the best comic convention experience I've ever had.  I've been going to Dragon Con here in Atlanta since I was a junior in high school and it's always been a headache of multiple hotels and con floors that were sometimes 2 to 3 blocks apart.  At Wizard World though, everything was in the same building, which for convenience's sake was much appreciated.



Wizard World was also about 2 to 3 times larger as far as the floor and attendance goes, so it's the largest convention I've ever attended.  Of course, considering that I was exhibiting for the first time ever, I didn't really get a chance to get wrapped up in the experience like I used to back in my Dragon Con days.  I was expecting to see throngs of humanity and insane lines for everything (which was certainly the case for every Dragon Con I've ever attended), but with the exception of the line to get in on Saturday morning it seemed like quite the opposite.


(The line to get in on Saturday)

When my wife and I first walked into the convention center lobby and we saw the two areas for attendees to buy tickets and sign up we were shocked.  Not only was there one on waiting in line, but bother area were planted right next to the entrance to the actual con floor.  In my experience, there is usually a registration area on a completely different floor (if not in a separate building) to house the thousands of people vying to get inside.  It's not uncommon to wait in the ticket line for three to four hours at Dragon Con.  I guess most people pre-order there tickets to WW: Chicago.



Our second surprise came after we picked up our badges and made our way onto the con floor to set up our table.  WW ran from Thursday afternoon until Sunday evening, but there were hardly any people setting up in Artist Alley 2 hours before show time on Thursday.  Though that evening was only for people with four day passes, apparently not many of them show up.  Suffice it to say that we were a little perplexed by this, again because of our experiences at Dragon Con (where people wouldn't think twice about ripping your arm off and beating you with it if it meant they could get onto the exhibitor or dealers room floor an hour early.)  WW was just a little too laid back in this manner.  Also, we were also a little worried at this point because no one we were supposed to meet at the con (and exhibit with) had showed up yet.  It didn't stop us from setting up the table post haste though…



It might not look like much, but making everything in the picture above a reality has been keeping me from updating Branded as regularly as I'd like for the past two months or so.  Getting the two magazines written, typeset, and working on the layout and design took a lot more energy that I had anticipated.  Not only that, but I spent a lot of time agonizing over the cheapest yet most semi-professional way of filling out our half table space.  My friend Daniel at work suggested the collage as a way to catch people's eyes as they walked by and my wife suggested the vintage lunch box to house the buttons we were selling.  Then there was the matter of finding and designing cheaper color fliers and business cards.  Again, it might not look like much, but it sure did take a lot of trial and error to get that table set up looking as good as it did, and for as cheaply as we did it (I'll never tell.)

All in all I was pretty happy with it, happy enough that I actually look like I'm smiling for real in the photo below (a very rare occurrence, at least in photos of me.)



Like the lunch box, practically everything on the collage was culled from vintage materials as it was sort of my theme when creating the table.  I tried to get a nice overview of imagery to convey what it is I talk about on the site and in the magazine, and surprisingly it ended up working pretty well.  There were quite a few times when people walked by the table and you could see the gears turning in their head as they first dismissed it, and then something stuck and they'd slowly walk back and do a double take.  Strangely enough, the pictures of Scott Baio (from Charles in Charge) and the unmasked lizard trooper from V hooked people the most.  I think I'm actually going to leave the bulk of my con going experiences for another post (or perhaps a podcast, we'll see.)

Anyway, like I mentioned above, one of the main reasons we picked WW: Chicago was to get a chance to meet a whole mess of people we'd run into online over the last couple years including Jerzy & Anne Drozd (of Make Like a Tree Comics, Sugary Serials, and Boum Art)…



Mark Rudolph of CV Comics and Sugary Serials (pictured in the middle, in between Jerzy and Anne)…



Chet Lucero of Storm Corps and Sugary Serials…



Diana Nock (of Sugary Serials, not to mention some great work up at Jinxville), and Barry Gregory of Ka-Blam digital printing (pictured behind both Diana and Jerzy's quizzical head.)



Here's a shot of the Ka-Blam booth for completeness' sake.



I'm getting a typing cramp, so I think I'm going to end it here.  Hopefully I'll be able to force myself to do a part 2 (or a podcast) tomorrow…

I finally got a chance this past weekend to see five guys that have had the most influence over my sense of humor and worldly outlook, the Kids in the Hall.  My mom introduced me to KITH right around the time they really got going with their show on HBO back in 1990, which just happened to coincide with a lot of changes in my life.  I just turned 12 and was leaving the southeast (having spent my life to that point in central Florida) to move up north (and getting to see snow for the first time), not to mention all the rigmarole that comes with moving up into middle school and becoming a teenager.  Up until that point my reference for comedy didn't stray much past John Candy, Tom Hanks, and the Amazing Spider-Ham (with a dash of MAD and Cracked magazines.)  I totally missed out on Monty Python up until then, and my exposure to the classic SNL skits was limited by the crappy heavily edited rerun specials that would air late at night on the weekends, so I didn't really have all that much exposure to sketch comedy.  Well, that's not true per-se, I did watch more than my share of You Can't Do That on Television and Out of Control on Nickelodeon.  Anyway, pointless story short, I love the Kids in the Hall and I finally got a chance to see them live at the Cobb Energy Center in Atlanta on 5/24/2008…



Before I get to the rest of this post, I wanted to give a shout out to Melanie McDermott who took all of the pictures below.  I never think to bring a camera to live events (always afraid it's going to get confiscated), and I stumbled upon her KITH pictures on her Flickr feed this past week.  I love it when I can get my hands on photos from the exact concerts I've attended, as I'm a pretty big archiver and well obviously a nostalgia whore.  You can see a lot more of photos from the 5/24 event in her KITH gallery.

I had no idea what to expect as I've only seen one comedy act, and never gotten a chance to see sketch comedy live.  After opening with a short pre-recorded bit (which was freaking hilarious and totally set the tone for the rest of the evening), the Kids burst out on the stage and it was pretty darn crazy.  I don't tend to get star-struck all that easily, especially after years of attending comic conventions and getting ample opportunity to see a lot of my childhood heroes from TV and the silver screen, but it still put a lump in my throat to see Dave, Kevin, Bruce, Mark and Scott race out onto the stage.

 



 

My only wish going into the show was that we'd get a monologue from Bruce (which we didn't), but my wife got a chance to see him and Scott bring the Cathy's to life, as well as seeing Scott's Buddy Cole character do a monologue.



All in all my favorite sketches are probably the ones Dave and Kevin write and play out together.  In probably the funniest moment of the night there was a little back and fourth between the two involving a prank on Dave by Kevin (an in-joke involving Dave's jacket) that broke the fourth wall a bit and for me made for some great ad libbing and vamping.  I thought it was really cool to see behind the curtain a bit, and it was obvious that they were really enjoying themselves which is always a plus.



The capper to the night was Mark performing as Mr. Tyzik doing his whole head-crushing bit, but in a very interesting way.  Mark brought out a video camera and shot the audience while he did his sketch and he used a large video screen behind him to get the whole head between the fingers deal across.  It was great when he got an uber fan in his sites (a dude who too the time to construct and wear a cabbage head toupee) and they had a little tête-à-tête (the fan using the patented head-crushing parry.)



It all ended with Mark's Tyzik picking off the rest of the Kids, one by one and insulting them on their post-KITH work, and then crushing their heads before he ultimately turned the camera and his fingers on himself.  I don't think I'll experience quite the same rush ever again, not at least unless science finds a way to reanimate Graham Chapman's body so he can perform with the surviving members of Monty Python.

I thought I'd take a moment and talk about my current nostalgia obsession. I've been spending the last three or four months scouring my local used bookstores for all the Choose You Own Adventure style books that I can find. I only had a handful growing up, most of which were books from the actual Choose Your Own Adventure series, but there were a couple others that I read and re-read a few times including a Marvel Super Heroes Gamebook featuring Wolverine, and one of the Which Way series of books starring Batman. Though I loved both of these latter books because of the characters, I always sort of thought of them as CYOA knock offs because they didn’t have that branding.

Well, when I first started buying up all of the CYOA books I could find I was getting a little discouraged because I wasn't finding all that many. In fact, without resorting to eBay I only managed to find about 20 (there were something like a hundred and fifty or so I think), and another 5 that my friend has had since he was a kid. One of the reasons that I wanted to track these books down was to get some more material for the site as I’m getting towards the end of my sticker collection (I have a good 6 months worth of material left, but I've sort of tapped that reservoir), and 25 books just isn't going to cut it. Then I remembered the Batman and Wolverine books and it got me thinking about what other CYOA style paperbacks were available in the 80s.

Let me go on record as saying that there were a ton, and I've been buying them left and right. I was sort of blown away when I started taking stock of the books that are stacking up on my shelves. I've found no less than 20 different series that range in branding from generic/original (like CYOA, Find Your Fate, Which Way, Your Amazing Adventures, and Wizards, Warriors and You) to a ton of popular 80s properties (including Marvel, DC, D&D, G.I. Joe, Transformers, Thundercats, Jem, Indiana Jones, James Bond, Star Trek, and even Blackstone the magician.) I've even discovered the world of paperback gamebooks (including stuff like Lone Wolf, Fighting Fantasy, and Sagard), which are basically one player role playing games that act a lot like CYOA style books except you use dice and make decisions based on what weapons and spells your character has amassed.

What's kind of crazy is that I'm currently about a hundred or so paperbacks in to a collection that I think might just be gargantuan. The good news is that I should have plenty to talk about when I finally tackle how I want to approach these books. The bad news is that since there are so darned many of them I'm not sure where to start. I guess there are worse problems to have though. Anyway, I thought I'd share a few cover scans to give an idea of the kinds of books I've found and what's going to come up eventually on Branded…



First up we have an entry in the Twist-a-Plot series (I don't have the date handy as I type this.)  I was completely unaware of these books growing up and though I've been scouring the kids section of used bookstores for years I never paid any attention to these because they're kind of light on the page count. I have a couple that are around the CYOA standard (which is around 110 pages), but most seem to be around 50 to 60.



Next we have book one in the Lazer Tag series published by TSR (again, don't have the book in front of me so the date escapes me.) TSR, the publishers of the Dungeons and Dragons roleplaying game system, seems to be the second largest publisher of CYOA style books (next to Bantam who were responsible for CYOA, the Time Machine series, as well as the Be An Interplanetary Spy series.) Not only did they publish about 50 novels in their D&D branded CYOA series called Endless Quest, they were also responsible for a series of Marvel Super Hero books and the above Lazer Tag books.



Last up today is one the rarer series (well at least in suburban Georgia), the Heart Quest books, which were also published by TSR and took place in the D&D universe. These were aimed at girls and I believe are more in the vein of romances (which ought to be a trip to read.) They even have die-cut covers, so that when you open the book you get a full version of the picture on the cover. Classy.

Anyway, I thought I'd throw these up on the site since I haven't made an update in awhile. Hopefully I'll get back on schedule with more Peel Here columns next week.

I thought I'd take a second to note the passing of Steve Gerber. Initially I wasn't going to write about this as I feel that I'm the last person in the world that is qualified to comment on either Gerber or his work. I didn't know him personally (or even impersonally for that matter) and I'm only beginning to become familiar with his work in cartoons (and though I've owned Essential editions of both Howard the Duck and Man-Thing for a while, I've only read through a little.)

Then I got to thinking about how I came to be introduced to the man. I guess in some way I've been familiar with his work ever since I started collecting comics in the 80s. I am one of those people that can proudly admit not only that I enjoyed the Howard the Duck movie, but also that I saw it in the theater when it was first released. Granted, I realize that this isn't the preferred incarnation of Howard, and if I had to hazard a guess I'd say that Gerber wasn't all that pleased with it (there's a quote to that effect on the HtD movie wiki page, but, well it is the wiki page), but it made enough of an impression on me to get me excited about the character, if only in the most general way concept-wise. I've also been vaguely aware of the character Man-Thing (yeah, I realize Gerber didn't create him, but he sure did put his stamp on the character throughout the years), and I know I've watched a bunch of the cartoons he wrote, even if I didn't realize it at the time. Honestly, that's the reason I'm putting this up. Toward the end of last year I began taking a closer look at the cartoons I grew up loving. My goal was to stop and smell the roses if you will, taking the time to find out about the people behind the scenes, the writers, producers, voice talent, etc. I decided to start with the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon and one of the first people who really stood out to me in terms of their writing style was Steve Gerber with his one credited writing contribution to the series.

Long story short, I really liked that episode, realized that he worked on other shows that I loved and made it a point to pick up some more of his comics so that I could get a better handle on his writing.

I'd also recently started keeping up with his blog, and it came as a pretty big shock on Monday to read of his passing (on yet another blog I discovered via researching the D&D cartoon, Mark Evanier's News From Me.) Again, I didn't know Mr. Gerber personally, but I was getting to that place where I was becoming familiar with his world, his words, and his characters. If nothing else I'm glad that the long battle he was fighting with his illness is over, and I hope that if there is another place where people move on to he doesn't have to fight anymore (as I've been reading he seems to be a guy who was always willing to fight the good fight.)


Steve Gerber from the 1982 San Diego Comic Con.
Photo used with permission, was taken by, and is copyright Alan Light.

I guess what I'm getting at is that if there's anything at all to take away from my post, it's that if you get a chance check out some of his comics or cartoons and maybe it'll lead you to some stuff that you really enjoy (either his own or through the people he worked with.)

As long as I'm giving shout outs, I thought I'd mention real quick that the Sugary Serials comic anthology has begun officially updating. There will be daily additions (including on weekends) for the next couple of weeks before it settles into a once daily every weekday update schedule. Though it’s free for everyone online, at the end of the month you can also order a print version if you'd like from the Indy Planet store.

Right now you can take a look at the Issue #1 cover, as well as pages one, two and three of Chet Lucero's Dreamform Defenders.

So, this weekend had some fun and excitement in store as the Secret Project that I mentioned last week was finally revealed to the world during a midnight live podcast this past Saturday. No I can finally make an announcement about a new comics anthology called Sugary Serials, an all ages book that takes a cue from the Saturday Morning Cartoons of the 60s, 70s, 80s, and I guess a little bit of the 90s…


You can listen to the announcement podcast, which was moderated by Jerzy Drozd (of Make Like a Tree Comics) and his friend HooveR, and featured some of the upcoming contributors including Mark Rudolph (of Control Voice Comics), Kitsy and Kimonostereo (of Nemu Nemu), as well as publisher and contributor Barry Gregory. I also provided a couple minutes of my promised stammering, if that's a draw.

The anthology, like I mentioned above, is an all ages comic, but before you start getting images of Dora the Explorer dancing around in your head, I'd like to remind you that all ages doesn't mean for children only, but for ALL ages. Think Watership Down, the Goonies, Ambush Bug, or the Tick. Heck, actually the best example of all ages that I can think of are the fairy tales that have been handed down orally for centuries, some of which were collected into volumes by the Brothers Grimm, or le cabinet des fees (the Fairy Cabinet) published by Charles Perrault. These fairy tales (or in essence all fairy tales) are not for kids, but for everyone, and can be just as scary, adult and disturbing as they are filled with wonders and, well, fairies.

The comics of this anthology range the gamut of action, adventure, and comedy and have a wide variety of styles and settings from Victorian steam punk to super hero, Sci-Fi to Fantasy, and beyond. Diversity is one of the most intriguing aspects to the anthology, yet it's all still all focused under the theme of being influenced by Saturday Morning cartoons. Some of the other creators involved in this anthology include: Chet Lucero, Sara Turner, Scott Neely, Robert Burke Richardson, Dario Carrasco, and Matt Putnam-Pouliot.

You can find out more about this project by hoping over to the website, where you can download or view a copy of the launch preview book, join the forum to talk about the comics or ask questions, not to mention taking a second to listen the Sugary Serials theme song composed by Gina Pensiero of Umberto and I am Janet. If you like what you see you can also pick up a print copy of the preview book from Indy Planet, as well as strolling over to the comicspace page.

I thought I'd take a second to mention a few cool things that have been coming down the pike recently, the first of which is a new podcast from Jerzy Drozd of Make Like a Tree Comics and friend Hoover, called the Saturday Supercast. The podcast is part of a super secret project that Jerzy and a host of talented artists and writers have been working on for the last year or so, that will finally be unveiled this coming Friday, August 31st, at midnight (or for those out there that see the glass in a different perspective, Saturday, September 1st, at 12:00 in the morning.) The project, the details of which I won't spoil, is very much influenced by practically everything that influences and informs Branded in the 80s, so it's quite possibly something that anyone reading here might be interested in as well.

The Saturday Supercast podcast will be recorded live via TalkShoe, which is important to mention because not only can you listen in live, but you can also call into the show or chat and ask questions or give your two cents on the announcement and the project. I'll be participating as well, offering plenty of stammering and hopefully some insightful comments (no promises), so if anyone would like to call into the show you are all officially welcomed. Like I mentioned above, it will be a little late at midnight, but hopefully this will bridge the time gap a little between any U.S. and international listener/readers. If you can't make it for the live recording, you can also access the finished show from the Supercast TalkShoe page later as well.

To take part in the podcast, you will need to download the TalkShoe software and sign up for a free account. This will enable you to listen in and chat, but if you would like to call in you will need to either use a use a VoIP (voice-over-IP) service like Skype (in which case you will either need the SkypeOut Unlimited plan; you'll need either a headset, or a microphone, speakers or headphones), Gizmo Project (which, like Skype, turns your computer into a phone; you will need a microphone and either speakers or headphones, but unlike Skype it's free to call out), or TalkShoe's own Shoe Phone (which is free for TalkShoe users in it's beta format, but you have to make sure you initialize it to enter the beta testing.) You can also call in over your normal phone, though long distance charges will apply. The phone number to call into the podcast is (724) 444-7444, and you'll be prompted to enter the show ID: 38795. I'm not sure if there's anything else, but if you need any additional TalkShoe help, you can visit their FAQ.

If you're curious about the type of comics that Jerzy does you can visit the Make Like a Tree comics site where you can read them for free, or you can now pick up a copy of his trade for the Front: Rebirth comic at Indy Planet.

I'm really looking forward to the unveiling of the new secret project as I've had a chance to see a lot of the work that's been put into it and it looks like it's going to be a whole lot of fun.

It's been awhile since I've mentioned any upcoming DVD news, so I thought I'd mention a few titles that I'm looking forward to.

First up is a movie that I thought would never see the light of day on DVD, Twilight Zone: The Movie. Even though it was shown on TV a million times and had a VHS release, it seemed like there was sort of a stigma about releasing the film on DVD because of the horrible events that happened on set during the filming of the John Landis portion of the flick (Vic Morrow and two children were killed during an accident with a helicopter stunt.) I'm not sure what's prompting Warner Home Video to release the disc this year (I figured if it was ever going to be released it would be next year to coincide with the flick's 25th anniversary), but nevertheless I'm still glad to see it coming out on DVD October 9th.



In television news, there are a couple of cartoons coming out. First up is a much better release for the Littles cartoon on DVD. There were two single disc releases from about six years ago, one of the made for TV feature film, and one basic DVD with 4 episodes (which was released at the same time a bunch of other cartoons were given the same single disc treatment like Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors, C.O.P.S., Heathcliff, and the Super Mario Bros. Cartoon.)

This new set will contain all 29 episodes of the series, remasterd, with some TBA special features (though it looks like there will at least be an interview with one of the writers.) The set is supposed to come out November 13th.



Lastly, the Smurfs will finally see a Region 1 release in English on December 4th. The set will feature the first 19 episodes of the series (there were actually 21, but a lot of the episodes contained repeated segments from previous episodes, which have been removed for the DVD release; read about it here), though I'm not sure if there will be any special features (though considering Warner Brother's track record with their cartoon releases I have to believe there will be something.)

We should also see a press release pretty soon for the regular Bravestarr cartoon sets.

I was thinking about the passage of time the other day while talking with a friend about our shared memories of the 80s, and how weird it is that time seemed to move so slowly when we were kids. I have a couple of vivid memories of childhood that seem to outline this idea particularly well.

The first was when I had just turned four and I was running around the neighborhood with absolutely nothing to do. I took a shortcut around our neighbor's hose that I typically didn't take (around the front instead of their backyard) and I just sort of stopped in their driveway and thought about something my mother had said to me that morning, that I would be starting pre-school in the fall and that soon I'd be enjoying the summer for more reasons than the warm sunny days. I had no idea what she meant at the time, but I was trying to process the whole idea of this school thing coming down the pike. When was fall? How long was that? It must be like forever and a day away because I swear it must have been like 10 years since the last Christmas, and that was in winter, so I guess I didn't need to worry about school, it's just too far away.

My other memory is of walking around a department store around the time that the Transformers movie had come out (I was eyeballing a Kup action figure on the shelf) and my sister and I were talking about school. She was bemoaning being a senior in high school, while I was cranky about being in the 4th grade. At the time I couldn't imagine the progression to the 12th grade. I mean I'd just spent practically 9 years, my whole life, attaining the 4th grade, how could I possibly conceive spending another 8 year to get to the 12th grade?

In fact, thinking back, those years between '87 and '90 seemed like an eternity. I had just met a new friend, Peanut, who I hung out with all the time and it seemed like those three years comprised most of my life at the time. It didn't hurt that there were a lot of changes, graduating from elementary school to middle school, beginning to ride the bus, getting into heavy metal for the first time, getting into comic book collecting, moving across country twice, getting into skateboarding, as well as seeing a handful of pivotal movies (stuff that I've kept close to my heart ever since like The Monster Squad, Transformers the Movie, Princess Bride, Die Hard, Near Dark, The Lost Boys, License to Drive, UHF, Robocop, Batman, just to name a few.)

Now I'm looking back and it's 2007, 20 years since that school conversation with my sister in 87, 25 since before I started school and I can't believe I’m that far past those times now. I guess at the end of the day everything is relative. Time seemed to pass so slowly because I had hardly anything to compare that passage to. Now I've got a good 30 years under my belt, so when a year seems to flit by it's no big deal. Hell, a year is just the time I took off of school before going to college. A year is just the short amount of time I have to figure out what to get my friends and family at Christmas, or the time between visits to Chuck E. Cheese to play skee ball. Maybe I need to focus on stuff that I'm waiting for every year, stuff that never seems to come quick enough, like Halloween. Screw Christmas, I'm a Halloween guy. Maybe if every day I think fun Halloween thoughts it'll make the years start to drag by. Probably not, but it's worth a thought.

I guess I could also tie this into the release of The Monster Squad on DVD, um, 'cause like it's the 20th anniversary and all. Yeah, that's the ticket…

Recently, Kirk over at the Secret Fun Blog did a little travelogue deal on his trip through the south, in particular his trip to Atlanta and Athens. Well, while in Athens he made a stop at an awesome comic/stuff store called Bizarro Wuxtry, run by a cool guy named Devlin Thompson. Well, I've been jonesing for a visit to such a place for the last year or so since I started this site (I don’t have much of anything all that interesting right near me), and I figured that Athens being only about 45 minutes from here, I'd take a trek up to see the place for myself.

Holy-crap-buckets this place was awesome. I thought about taking a camera, but I figured since Kirk did such a great job with his, I'd just point over to his write up instead. Bizarro is everything I've been looking for in a store, plenty of ephemera, comics, magazines, toys, models, you name it, and it's probably in there somewhere. Devlin even had a super cool poster of Adrienne Barbeau hanging on the wall, you know the one…

…, so you know this place is legit. Seriously though, it's really a great place and freaking big too. There are like six rooms full of all kinds of stuff, stuff that I never see outside of conventions and eBay. It took my wife and I awhile to browse through the place, trying to breathe in all the different things; me muttering under my breath that I'm gonna go broke if I stay in here in here any longer, and my wife probably worrying about that very thing. Devlin's a really nice guy too, very welcoming and easy to talk to. I guess I'm more used to the cranky Comic Book Guy sort of shop keep that doesn't want you touching anything you aren't going to buy, so it was really cool to browse this place with no pressure, just some fun conversation (honestly, I can't remember the last time someone struck up a conversation about John Waters in which we actually got to talk about eating dog poop and running around with a sausage strapped to a penis.) I didn't pull in a huge haul, but to give you an idea here are a couple of things that I picked up that I've been looking for, for awhile…

Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine back issues. I've been wanting to check one out forever, and now I've got one from the 80s, which I'm sure I'll scan in and share at some point..

…as well as some Choose Your Own Adventure style books in other series like the Indiana Jones Find Your Fate books and the Super Powers Which Way books.

Anyway, I just wanted to point out this place for anyone in the Atlanta area that's looking for a great comic shop with a crazy atmosphere and a really nice shop keep.

Well, now's your chance. I'm putting up a big lot of vintage stickers on eBay right now, so if anyone is interested or knows anyone who is interested, you can click on the below picture to be magically whisked away to spending way too much money land. Seems kind of pointless to be announcing it here where you all probably realize that they'll eventually be shared in a more digital fashion, but I figured one extra outlet to the auction couldn't hurt. Besides, anything I get will most likely end up being pumped back into even more stickers to share here, so I guess there is a point in all of this. End my materialistic rant here.

Well, even if I'm not all that interested in the new Transformers movie, I can be thankful that a portion of the merchandising has helped to bring back a lot of memories. In particular I found an awesome set of pencils while browsing the $1 bins at my local Target. There was a little section of Transformers odds and ends (seriously mismatched stuff like Frisbees in one bin next to magnets, pencil cases, but it was all super cheap so I guess it doesn't matter) and I noticed this package of old school "mechanical" pencils…

Now I realize that they aren't technically mechanical pencils (they're labeled push pencils), but when I was a kid, before I became obsessed with the slim Pentel mechanical pencils, my only experience with a "mechanical" pencil were either the ugly yellow plastic pencils where you twisted the point to get the lead out or these push pencils where once you used up the tip of lead, you pulled out the plastic nib lead holder and pushed it int eh back of the pencil which advanced a new nib of lead. I guess these are like the stick shift of mechanical pencils.

Oddly enough, the one set of branded pencils that I remember the most from my childhood were Transformers pencils, Megatron pencils to be more precise. I think I ended up playing with the lead nibs more than actually using them for writing, and I was always jealous of the girls who had similar pencils because they were usually made of scented plastic (which is actually kind of weird when you think about it.)

The thing I hated about these pencils was when I'd loose one of the nibs, which were scientifically measured so that there would always be enough to keep the lead out and tight. When you lost one you'd have to fashion a new nib by stuffing a piece of crumpled paper in the pencil tube and you had to hope it didn't get jammed in there.

When I saw these in Target it made me think about how interesting it is that the kids I grew up with in my generation are now definitely out in the work force, influencing marketing decisions and such, because who else would have thought to merchandise this style of pencil? I haven't seen a set of these push pencils since middle school. In fact I was actually kind of surprised and a little sad that there weren't any figural erasers to go with these pencils, but honestly, even for a buck I probably wouldn't have bought them.

Thanks go out to Nala for pointing me to the Simpson's Movie site and their swanky flash avatar/character creator. Now My wife and I can go crazy Broadway style...

It's funny how things change over time. When I first started Branded in the 80's I wasn't sure how often I would post or what exactly, so I began to use drawings I've done to liven up the entries. Well over time I sort of stopped doing that, and because I've been spending the majority of my free time on this site, I haven't even really drawn much in awhile so I haven't even really had anything new to share.

Well I received a commission a couple of months ago from a lady at work to interpret a poem of into some black and white line work. Though it wasn't quite in the realm of what I typically draw my inspiration from, I think I did an okay job on it. If nothing else it let me stretch my drawing hand out a bit from the normal monsters and odd disturbing imagery...



This was also a first for me in terms of actually being compensated for my one of my commissioned drawings. I haven't really put myself out in terms of freelancing or anything more than as a hobby (I am well aware of my limitations), but on occasion I've taken the odd job, ever with the promise of payment, though so far, never with any type of follow through on the promise. Well I was more than adequately compensated for this drawing, enough so that I felt like I should put in a few extra hours by laying down some color on the line work. I think I've mentioned this before, but I don't do well with physical coloring (like pencils or paint) and prefer a more cartoon-y or comic book-y look to my drawings so I typically use Photoshop to get a cel animation look to the color. Here's the outcome for the above line work.



Anyway, just felt like posting this as an aside to the normal 80's junk I go on about.

Here's another quick bit of comic book ad fun from 1976 in which we see three kids diggin' on the U.S. Bicentennial with some sweet patriotic t-shirt swag. What struck me first was that the ad featured a pre Diff'rent Strokes Todd Bridges who is enthusiastically modeling that sweet rocket launch design T-Shirt.

Were kids really buying into all that Bicentennial hype? I mean, my parents screwed me by at least a year and nine months as far as the festivities of '76 go, so I obviously have no memories of proudly sporting a shirt with a weird redesign of the famous "Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima" image, which replaces the soldiers with what appears to be some kids, a nurse, a police officer and some dude in an orange leisure suit. I will say that, that girl is so into dudes that are all about the Bicentennial. The founding fathers had no idea what effect their efforts would have on that particular dudes sex…er, love life.

Marty Weil, who's got a really sweet blog dealing with all things ephemeral including interviews, tips and some intersting pieces, and I recently did a little conversation/interview thing about my burgeoning obsession with 80's stickers and stuff.  Go check out his site, there's some really great info and some fun collectors and collections profiled.

First off, I hope everyone had a great time opening swag or whatever this holiday.

I thought I'd take a second in this post holiday bliss and share a coloring book I stumbled upon while trying to find a couple last minute gifts for some of Carrie's nephews. Well, that's not exactly true, they were for me, but they made great "fake gifts" for the boys. See they're still at that age when they get their Christmas morning first (and because there is a divorce involved, first at many places) and when the adults are exchanging gifts they get kind of jealous, so it helps to throw a couple things their way to distract them.

I saw this coloring book in a Target $1 bin in Florida while I was on vacation this year, and ended up buying one this past weekend. First off, the coloring book amazed me because it's just a cheap one-dollar book, but it's also about the size I remember coloring books being when I was a kid, not the rinky-dink ones you find today. Then as I was flipping through it I realized that it was most likely drawn by someone my age that grew up in the 80's. See the book is basically a Transformers rip off called Robots 'N Action.


In fact one of the first pages has the outline of a very familiar symbol on one of the robot's chests:


For the most part though, the book has the rest of the characters with more silly, less trademark infringing symbols and such as this guy here who is a great representative of the bad guys what with his skull and crossbones symbol (that's actually more at home with Macross or Mechwarrior.)


This page features both a girl robot (very rare in every universe) and the good guys symbol, which appears to be a Chinese or Japanese character, though it could also be gibberish. It would be awesome if it were the symbol for say sushi or cat or something silly like that.


What struck me the most about this coloring book is that the characters are drawn in a very clunky looking G1 Transformers style, something that the newer shows and toys have updated (I say updated but it's really more that it's in a more modern Japanese style as opposed to the blockier style of the 70's and 80's, not as much of a conscious effort I guess.) So it's as if the artist (or artists) were trying to bring back a little bit of their childhood memories in these pages.


Though there is no story to back this up (there is no text what-so-ever in the book), there is evidence it's trying to copy Transformers in other ways as well, what with this odd close up of a glowing rock that could very easily be an energy source like energon cubes or something.


There is even a robot dog in the book that is a weird cross between Rush from Mega Man and Ravage from the Transformers.


My favorite pictures in the book are some very dramatic close-ups of some of the characters (this one looks a helluva lot like Ultra Magnus) that seem so weirdly out of place as no kid is going to know what the hell is going on. Is this a good guy? Is he bad? Who knows, but it's still dramatic as hell, if for no reason.


It also gets mighty confusing when there are pictures of characters with both symbols. Is he supposed to be a spy or is this just really quickly done work with little to no effort thrown in for any type of continuity or story? I'm going with the former because the latter is probably true and that's a shame since the artists went out of their way to copy the body style of the G1 Transformers.


In fact I think I know what the story might be. You see there are these evil robots that want to take all of Earth's rocks (ala the picture below of a Megatron looking dude), especially the glowing rocks like above.


But earth's cats have gathered together with the help of gentle fun loving robots (including the above girl robot) to save our planet's rock supply. If this isn't the story than both of the pages, above and below, just make me ask WTF?!?


The coloring book also has one of the worst games of connect the dots I've every witnessed and I'm pretty sure I've seen every Pee Wee's Playhouse that ever aired. I mean, c'mon, can you guess what this picture might be?


Also fun is this one weirdly agonizing and dark death scene:


Nowhere else in the book is there anything that points to actual battle, other than that picture of the one robot and the cat. In fact there are no pictures of two robots together on the same page. Also, even though there are some robots that can obviously transform (un-pictured there is a robot that has a car windshield, back window, side windows and a roof as a chest) there are no pictures of vehicles or anything else.

All in all this is a really weird and sort of fun coloring book, but it totally rips the Transformers off in a really horribly lazy way. I wish there was flavor story text. I'll bet my "sort of" nephews think I don't know my toy robots now.  If only they knew how much of a dork I really am...

I've decided to start a sub-blog to Branded in the 80's.  I love the concept that I've wrapped this website, blog and podcast in, but sometimes I want to write about other stuff that doesn't fit so neatly into the fold, so without further ado I present,

Buried in DVDs: The Electric DVD Collecting Boogaloo!

This is where I'll be talking up my DVD collection and any other film or TV related junk that I'm into.  Yup.  Same crap, different decade...

...or maybe the same decade, as the first post could have easily been on this blog.  Man I'm a genius.

I've been thinking about what I wanted to write about (and podcast about, I haven't stopped doing them, I'm just real lazy) now that the craziness of Halloween is past.  I've had a couple of things that have been simmering in the back of my skull, especially after reading the great blogs that were covering Halloween in a much more "thought out" way than my misc. ramblings were.

So I'm thinking about taking a little bit more of a focused whack at what I want to write about.  Of course, we'll see how that actually goes.  First, I'm thinking that I'm going to try and stick to a subject for a bit, like maybe two weeks or a month or so and just get out everything I can think of.  I've also been thinking about doing a weekly feature on an aspect of the 80's that I dig that is too big for one entry and spreading it out over the next year, so that in the absence of anything else to write about there will always be the weekly.

Anyway, I guess I'm just blogging out loud or something.

So I’ve been chomping at the bit for the eventual Halloween explosion in stores around here. I’m a pretty big fan as it is, but this year I just can’t seem to wait and I keep getting these urges to run out to various mega-marts looking for little bits of cheap plastic gory fun. For instance, Matt over at X-Entertainment stumbled upon these weird zombie finger puppets at Target and I found myself inexplicably driving up there the other day in hopes of finding the dollar bins filled with cheap scary goodness. Alas, only the finger puppets were to be found, though there was a display in the back with some orange and black flashlights, but flashlights just aren’t what I’m jonesing for.

I don’t know, I even went so far as to pick up a set of the Polar Lights re-issues of the monsters in silly cars model kits. I’ve never really been a big model-making fan, as I hate model glue and never got the hang of painting them. I’m hoping between the fiancée and I we’ll be able to get them done up right.

On an unrelated note, I also broke my self-imposed rule about re-buying stuff from my childhood. I’ve never been comfortable with the idea of picking that kind of stuff up on Ebay, like Transformers or G.I. Joe figures because it feels like I’d be buying someone else’s memories or something. I have been thinking about doing another podcast (on 80’s school supplies) recently and I sort of want to write an article with pictures and stuff to flesh it out, but I don’t have any of the stuff I wanted to talk about. Well I hit a little antique/flea market store in this little abandoned looking strip mall in Lilburn a couple weeks ago and I saw some school supply stuff there and I struggled with whether or not to buy some. There was a brand new E.T. eraser still mint on card as well as an E.T. pencil bag. The pencil bag was pretty cheap, but the eraser was $5 and that seemed like a lot to pay for something that’s just going to go into a box and probably only looked at one or two more times. Well I ended up deciding against them but when I got home I looked on Ebay just for the hell of it and I soon found myself wrapped up in 80’s eraser heaven. I couldn’t help myself, I just started bidding on a few items here and there and the next thing I knew, I dropped $15 on erasers. Freaking erasers for crying out loud. Oh well, hopefully they’ll make a nice visual aid and it’ll prompt me to do the podcast before I turn forty or something.

This also reminds me of something else. At that flea market there were a lot of 80’s Burger King promotional glasses from the Great Muppet Caper, Star Wars, and like the Shirt Tales and stuff that were really cheap. But here’s the thing, what do you do with a 20 year old drinking glass that you know has been used a million times in someone else’s household? I mean I don’t think I could drink out of them, and I’m not sure if I would enjoy displaying them, but the pull to buy them was so strong. Would you be comfortable using them? I know logically there’s nothing wrong with them, it’s not like there are microbes stuck forever to the surface of the glass, but it still seems wrong. I don’t know….

So here’s another thing I think about all the time, drawing. I used to draw a lot more than I do nowadays but I still enjoy it from time to time, though I’m sort of directionless of late. Basically I learned to draw from reading comics and watching cartoons all the time but I never quite got to a point where I felt comfortable with it. The biggest hurdle I’ve had to jump is giving up my reliance on photo reference. I see it as a crutch that’s so important that I don’t know if I’d keep doing it if it were taken away. That’s why I’ve been doing so much work on these mascot characters lately; I’m sort of experimenting with taking the crutch away.

When I first started drawing, it was just a series of copies of Tiny Tunes stills that I found in magazines, that and copying out of the Sunday comics. I very quickly tired of this and moved on to copying from more detailed comic book art, mostly Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld (gag-cough-hack-what was I thinking.) Soon though, I tired of that too, especially as everyone around me was starting to do their own things. I started experimenting with using comics as figure reference that I would re clothe with my own characters, and once again the zest left that soon as well.

I just couldn’t kick the reference bug. My only comfort was drawing from photos because if felt much less like stealing from existing art. When I discovered stock photos, I was in heaven as this is exactly the type of thing they were made for. This only lasted a couple of years though as I sort of felt disconnected to what I was drawing. I was happy with the output but not the creativity of the imagery itself.

Anyway, I was reading John K’s blog today and I ran across a couple of posts where he was talking about his apparent inability to paint and how he sort of overcame that with software and stuff. It reminded me of similar hurdles I’ve had with coloring my drawings. I used to use Prismacolor pencils a lot but I sort of got tired of the time it too to get a paint-y look out of them. So my answer came in the form of Photoshop with the polygonal lasso tool and the fill function. Finally I could get color to look like something I love, cartoons. That was my big breakthrough, getting my drawing colored, because then it sort of came to life for me. Anyway, here are a bunch of examples of my drawing process. I wish I had my pencils, but I ink directly on top of my pencils and I never think to scan them in.


This started as a bored doodle of Joseph Merrick’s eyes while I was reading the bio on the Elephant Man. I came across a photo of his skull that’s kept in a hospital museum in London and was sort of awed by the scope of the bone deformity. I sort of went nuts in the doodle department trying to capture all the nooks and crannies.


So the inks and stuff were fun, but the picture wasn’t alive to me. It needed color and here is a very basic example, at least in my eyes what a little color can do to liven up a picture.


This next one was a psuedo-commission from a small film company Low Budget Pictures to do a poster for an upcoming movie. Chris the owner, writer, director wanted me to do sort of a comic book like thing with the image. Here is my initial line art. Pretty much, this is what my drawing look like all the time. Unless there are areas of black, which I try to put in a lot to give the image more depth, it ends up pretty hollow like this. I’m not a big fan of cross hatching or stippling (at least my cross hatching or stippling) and I’ve never used zip-a-tone so the drawings are pretty simple.


See here is where the drawing comes to life for me. Through my eyes this became an animation still without all the painting. This is one of the few drawings I took to a third level by adding effects to make it appear like a comic book cover (though without the depth of looking like it was a real comic book scanned.)


I used another picture I did for them as the logo box and I slapped on some lettering and viola a comic cover is born. I am real proud of the outcome considering the sparseness of the original line art.


Here is my favorite example of coloring. This was the image that I discovered the polygonal lasso tool in Photoshop with. I was sort of happy with the inks, but it felt like it needed color and at this point I was pretty much only adding red with sharpie marker. But that didn’t seem like enough. Also, it was drawn from a stock photo.


The color made all the difference in the world to me. I was amazed, not at my talent, but that something this good (in my estimation) could come from my fingertips and brain.





Here are my two favorites though. Both drawn from the same stock photo source obviously, but I wanted to do a little more than making a cell animation like drawing of this girl. So I tried my damnedest to make something a little more out of it. I tried to put a mini story in it.


Here is one panel (my fav) colored. And then here is the final product:


I think this gave a ton more life to the original drawings.

Anyway, this has sort of led me to thinking about my philosophy of art. My philosophy is “do whatever makes you smile.� That’s what counts. When it stops making you smile, stop doing it. The above stuff stopped making me smile about a year ago. It ended up not fun anymore and seemed more like work just for the sake of posting it on Deviant Art and not enjoyable. The mascot stuff recently though has been tremendous fun.

In the last entry I talked about deciding whether or not to filter a movie review through those mascot characters and I think I’m leaning toward that because it’s making drawing fun. Even if the finished product doesn’t get near the quality of what I was doing before, it’s fun and since there isn’t money involved and let’s be honest, it’s all pop stuff, it’s not like high art, so I’m not learning any life lessons by following a more serious trend. So there’s that which I’ve been thinking about all day.  Hopefully I'll have my first movie review done by Monday or Tuesday so I can test it to see if it's worth all the drawing (vs. the time it takes to do.  It's been fun, but if I can only do one or two of these a month it might not be fun anymore.)  We'll See.

So one of the traps I find myself falling into when talking about 80’s pop culture, especially movies and cartoons, is the mindless positive or negative slang adjective spouting. It’s hard for me sometimes to think of anything to write besides, “Man Transformers are cool (or awesome, wicked, radical, neat, sweet, hip, etc.)� I think this really bugs me because of A). how inane it comes off, and B). because of how hard it was to find intelligent film criticism of horror flicks. See I decided to introduce my friend to horror flicks because he’d never really sat down and watched one, which I felt was a shame. So I tried to remedy it the best way I could by coming up with a list of the 30 most important modern horror flicks that we’d watch for our regular movie night. It was a really fun project, but at the end he asked the same simple question that he asked before we started the list, a question that I couldn’t answer myself and was determined to find the answer to which was, “Why do people WANT to watch or make horror flicks?� See, I can answer that question for myself, but when it comes down to a “as a society� thing, I need help.

So where do you turn? My first instinct was the Internet because I wasn’t interested in shilling out dime one and because I wasn’t sure there were books on the subject. So after a weeks worth of exhaustive searching I realized the answer wasn’t on a website. Time and time again I kept running into the same frustrating brick wall of “Cool, Awesome, Fuckin’ Rad, Sucks, Sucks Nuts, Badass, etc., etc. etc.� That’s all people had to say, and after reading ten mind-numbing reviews on the same flick that all had more adjectives than intelligent criticism I felt like only twelve year olds were writing about horror movies.

Now granted, I don’t want to be harsh, but we are talking about the horror genre and horror fans tend to be kind of sophomoric, but c’mon, there’s got to be a Roger Ebert of horror out there somewhere right? I eventually turned to books and after coming across the exact opposite problem (all the books seemed to be pretentiously wordy and aloof to the point where a lot of the text was almost indecipherable without a handy dictionary and thesaurus, I mean damn it, I just want to know about a film like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, I don’t think I should need a masters in English Lit to understand criticism of it.), I stumbled upon David J. Skal who is the perfect middle ground that I was looking for. Someone who can get excited about the topics he’s covering without reverting to pure exclamation points and adjectives, yet not get so wordy that you feel like your reading Sanskrit.

Anyway, I fear that I fall into this trap on this blog sometimes, especially when I talk about movies and stuff. I kind of want to do nostalgia movie reviews (or something, I’m not sure it would qualify as a review) but I’m afraid that if I don’t filter the text though the mascot characters I created, than I’m going to come off just like those horror flick sites I hated. It’s hard not to let too much of my love for the subject shine through.

Mix this with another concern I struggle with which is “why do this in the first place?� I mean I’ve had a weird time wrestling with why people post blogs (or podcasts, vlogs, etc.) vs. the desire to do it myself. I understand stuff like web comics, and serialized novels, music, etc. because it’s either a service or a form of entertainment, which typically exists to be shared. But journals and opinions are typically something you keep to yourself, so I don’t quite understand the blogging culture that’s sprung up in the last decade, though I feel the draw to be a part of it.

So I think I’m in danger of losing the thread I was trying to follow here, so I think I’ll end it here. I will say that this was all spurned by whether or not to filter my thoughts on movies though an article-like post or a comic strip with Clumpy and Salty2 (squared.) Seems kind of crazy to do all that drawing when most of the comic will be text, but on the other hand I can lay all the blame of Cool, Awesome, Neat-o, etc. on them instead of me. Yup, putting my inability to write intelligently on two fictional mascot characters. That’s stuff I struggle with.

 I was so excited on Sunday.  Me and the woman were going to go out and have some lame fun at our local put put golf place, Pirate's Cove.  I was all set to take a zillion pictures and just have a lame (as the place is in disrepair) fun (as it's all on a giant pirate ship so who cares if it's falling apart.)  We bought our 36 holes of golf, picked out our balls and clubs, took some pictures of the clubhouse and all it's pirate themed glory and then ... my camera battery died.  Fuck Crap Shit.  We hadn't even started the first hole and there would now be no record of the event, and in turn no article here.  We stood in the sweltering afternoon heat and had to decide whether to cut our losses, beg for a refund, or stall while one of us went home to recharge the battery.  In the end, I had to beg an 18 year old girl in pirate garb to please just transfer these games to a gift card (which they do have) since they don't do refunds.  We lied and said that there was an emergency, that we got a call on our non-existant cell phone, that we absolutely had to go and that we desperately wanted to come back to finish our game.

She gave us vouchers in the end, but I felt like a dweeb.  If it hadn't been 20 dollars (an knowing that it's a good five years between visits to this lovely establishment) I probably would have just played and said to hell with it, but damn it I wanted pictures.

I feel so dumb.

So it's been a freaking full week in the house of Branded.  Between the water problems, buying a car spur of the moment, and our dog being sick it's been one stress after another.  Hopefully I'll be able to catch my breath this week.  Anyway, I plan on hitting another podcast this weekend (most likely the afore mentioned LJS review, plus some sweet news on the 80's cartoon DVD front.)  I think I might just throw order to the wind and do two, because on the one hand I have more to talk about than LJS, and on the other I just don't want these to be longer than a sitcom.  I surely don't have half the talent of the likes of Bronson Pinchot (Balki from Perfect Strangers for you non-TGIF newbs), so why should I ask more than 22 minutes of your time when Balki can piss of Cousin Larry by getting them involved in a sticky plot, help to come up with a zany soultion, say at least ten weird things about life on Mepos, and then top it all off with the dance of joy in under that amount of time.

If I'm not a sitcom in terms of time per interesting segments, I'm surely no 44 minute crime drama either, so I'm gonna try and keep 'em under 20 if possible, and hopefully just more often than once a month.

So I got a new car. It’s a long story that I’ve told too many times in the last day, but it was the most fun I’ve ever had at a car dealership. I not only got top dollar for my trade in, but I got the new car for practically half the MSRP in the end.

This is Sebastian my old car of 5 years. It’s my second VW Golf, this first was totaled and even though the car was in horrible shape I walked away without a scratch, so when it came to get a new car, I chose another Golf. This is the last I’ll ever see of him.

Here’s our new car, as yet un-named. It’s a 2006 VW Rabbit, which is just a Golf in Rabbit’s clothing (which is weird, because the Golf was just a Rabbit in Golf’s clothing considering it was a Rabbit first, whatever…) It’s everything that I wanted out of the Golf with all the stuff I’ve never had like Cruise Control and a CD player.

It’s a Rabbit alright.

And here it is safe at home. I need an Autobot sticker for the back window, but that’s about it.

So today sucks. Actually last night and today suck evenly. Last week we called maintenance when there was a wet spot on the floor where it appeared our water heater might be leaking. The guy came out and said that it was just some melted ice from the air conditioner and that it wouldn’t be a problem. So yesterday afternoon it started getting worse, so we called again. We had been hearing water in the wall between that hall and the bathroom so we mentioned that it’s probably not from our unit but maybe upstairs instead.

The dude went up and checked it out and said that it was an overflowing drainage pan from the air conditioner upstairs, so he had a couple pf carpet guys come out to vac up all the water and take out the sopping pad underneath. Well they said to let them know if it’s alright. Well later that evening the water was back, and back a lot more. So we called, and they said that it was probably just residual water and not to worry about it but to call if it got worse.

Well I wasn’t about to just let it pool, so I broke out some old towels to try and soak some of it up. Carrie and I broke our backs sopping it up and wringing it out for a hour or so before we quit and went to bed. Well Carrie woke up at 3:00am and there was now even more water. This time when we called they curtly said they’d be there first thing in the morning. Well we didn’t want to wait so we traded our towels for sponges and sopped again for another hour or so.

Woke up this morning and it was back and yet again, even farther spread. So after three hours of calling they finally came and realized that a pipe was burst upstairs and now they are finally fixing the problem. Well sort of, we’re still waiting on the plumber. Also, on the way to work this morning my check engine light came on. Oh freaking happy day. Here are some pics of the great water escapade 2006!

So this is what our hall looked like this morning. It might not be obvious, but there is standing water, enough so that every step is like stepping in a puddle after it rains, with back splash and everything. Hike your jeans up boys, we’re going in…





If you look behind the water heater you can see the hole the maintenance man punched in the wall to find the drip.


Our super fun cramped living quarters!


The Super not fun noisy as all hell blower that really isn’t doing anything right now because the plumber hasn’t stopped the leak but maintenance insists we keep on.

Well see if Libsyn lets me upload a header photo for this blog entry, it was being all wiggy yestarday.  Anyway, I thought I'd take a second and talk about what Spam mean to me.

First off, I have never eaten even a single bite of Spam.  I am a Spamical virgin, never hast the gel encased spiced meat product crossed mine lips.  Why?  Because it looks gross to me.  This coming from the guy who eats squid, tentacles and all, like french fries, who pops smoked oysters (yet another scary caned 'meat' like substance) like potato chips, and who relishes in Dim Sum, which let's be honest is some of the most 'what the heck is the meat in this dumpling' kind of chinese food around.  So whereas I find it inexplicable (outside of living in Guam, the Philipines, the trenches of WWII era France, or Hawaii) that anyone would eat this stuff, I don't actually hold it against anyone who does.  Each to their own right?

Yet, I have probably purchased more of this canned meat wonder over the years than a family of four.  It all started for me in high school.  I was a weird kid and I liked weird stuff.  I liked wearing my backpack on the front so it looked like I was pregnant with my math book.  I carried around a giant super bouncy ball that I named Fidel, and when I pitched him up on top of the school roof in a fit of anger one day I switched to carrying around a little plastic grasshopper that a suction cup on his underside.  I stuck him to the face of my watch and left him there throughout the day.  And what's even more weird is that I dated in high school.  Anyway I was weird.  It was my way of rebelling.  Making people scratch their head and wonder was just about the greatest thing ever, at least at the time.

So one day I was in the store with my mom when I saw a new kind of Spam next to the deviled ham and tuna fish, Deviled Spam.  It was much smaller (in theory because deviled spam is super concentrated evil and must be taken in smaller doses) and in my mind I vividly saw it as the best necklace pendant ever.  So I bought it and threaded some string through the pop top and started wearing it to school.  The assistant principal even stopped me one day in the hall and said that I must be forgetful if my mom had to tie my lunch around my neck.  All was well until one day when I got off the bus one day.  I used to grab the hand rails and jump from the top step to the road, and on this day I was the last of our group to get off.  When my feet hit the ground we all heard this snap-pop and we all froze.  The pop top had opened and it was hanging by a sliver of metal while the can of meat precariously swung from side to side.  I carefully lifted the necklase off and them proceeded to throw it as far into the wood as humanly possible (I'm sure a family of chimpmunks ate well for a week.)

From that day on I started carring around a regular can of Spam on a leash.  It was much safer and a little weirder IMHO.  I did this until one day some wannabe-punk chick stabbed it with a clay knife in art class.  It was a pretty weird psycho moment where she just stodd there waiting for a reaction like I was going to cry or something, but I just casually tossed it in the garbage and shrugged.  Anyway, my obsession with the culinary grenade continued past high school as well.  For the first year that I worked after I graduated I bought one can of deviled Spam a week, naming and dating each can until I realized that I didn't have anywhere to store the damn stuff.  Besides, my father snuck into my room one day and ate the can named Comissioner Gordon, so I sort of got out of that habit.  I've already written about my comic con experiences with it, so I won't get into that.

All in all Spam has been a pretty significant part of my life, well arguably significant.  So that's that.

I've been thinking a lot lately about what it is I have to offer, either through this blog or generally nostalia-wise outside of my inane observations in my lame podcast.  Not much.  I mean this in the most literal sense, I don't have a huge collection of 80's toys that I can take pictures of, I don't have a slew of old VHS copies of out of print cartoons, and I don't have a ton of various other odds and ends that I've been talking about in the blog.  All I really have is an interest in these things and a butload of links to post.

So in that train of thought it occured to me that I might have been doing something evil in terms of posting about this stuff.  I was hot linking to other's stored media and I didn't even realize what I was doing was bad.  Luckily nobody called me on it considering like no one reads this blog, but I'm glad I caught it when I did.  It's funny how to me the lines between good and bad form can so easily be blurred on the internet in the interest of good will.  I happen to stumble upon something awesome like the Star Wars Planet of the Hoojibs record book and think, man I wish this was like in glaring blinking lights so that everyone else who loved this could hear it too.  So I linked the mp3 files.  My thought process is like this, as far as blogger goes, it's really up in the air as far as linking to a page.  Most blogger templates keep 'x' amount of entries on the page before it chucks them into the archive, so if I just link to the page it'll most likely be a longer search for who ever is looking for that particular post.  Now sometimes you can link to that post directly, but getting to that post isn't always obvious depending on the template the blogger uses.  Some pages, you just click on the title of the post (like on mine here) and it takes you to a nifty page with just that entry.  Swell.  But in the case of the guy running Check the Cool Wax, it's not that obvious, and therefore I linked to the files themselves.  Seemed like the soultion.

Well I checked back today and it turns out to get to the page for just one particular post, you have to click on the link embedded in the time text of when the post was put up.  So yipee, now I just link to the page.  Now I feel like I have egg on my face, and wish I had know this earlier.  What kills me is that this can so easily happen and make people out to be bandwidth stealers, when they just want to point to something, and most blogging sites are so hands off in terms of technical knowhow that you never need to learn about this kind of thing.  Any Joe shmoe (read: me) can put up a page without really knowing anything about the do's and dont's.

Similarly, there's all this hubbub about music copyright infringement in podcasts and vlogs and stuff.  Now I took the time to think about this before doing my own podcast, to me that was a little more obvious.  But what about all these kids who are videotaping themselves rocking out to some band in their room and posting the video on Youtube?  To a 13 year old kid this is fun and easy.  I mean how many people did the same thing when they were younger if there was a camcorder in your house?  In the strictest sense, this is illegal and bad form.  But on the other hand, it's harmless energetic expression.  Hell it's what leads to that same kid directing music videos and movies.  Normally it wouldn't be a problem, but the technology to share video and sound is so advanced and easy that it's hard not to screw up.

I mean how many volgers think about getting permission to film when they're walking the streets of their city filming themselves in front of stores and junk?  What if the TV is playing in the background of their vlog?   What about talking pictures in Disney world and you get a close-up of a tourist and you post it online, not for the tourist, but for Cinderella's castle in the BG?

I'm so getting off topic.  Anyway, I fixed all the links I've put up to link to pages not files.  The question I have now is, is it wrong to link to an image, not actually putting the image on this blog (all images I have here are pulling off my own bandwidth), but just linking to it?  Does this steal bandwidth or is it basically the same as linking to a page?  I mean pulling up my page doesn't automatically use bandwidth from another site if I just put up a text link to an image right?  If you clicked on the link to get to the image, would it not be the same as clicking a link to get to that page as well?  I hate being internet dumb.

So I'm all excited.  I went in for the first eye exam I've had in 6 years.  My glasses were getting really scuffed up and annoying, so I figured what the hell and went into America's Best.  I was drawn by the two for one deal, and really wanted to try something new with having the benefit of getting something safe (frames wise.)

So here they are (the something new that is.)  I've wanted something in that Buddy Holly meets Elvis Costello meets Rivers Cuomo meets anyone the jocks called poindexter back int he 50's realm for awhile and this was the best America's Best had to offer.

I like 'em, though the finacee is on the fence. 

In other boring news, I'm putting together my friend's birthday present today.  I'm burning him this huge punk cd collection, but I want it to be sort of an authoritative collection, so right now it's standing at 24 cds.  I'm also including a a copy of Please Kill Me so that he can read about the bands he's listening to.  Right now the collection looks like this:

1- Chuck Berry, Gene Vincent, Eddie Cochran, Link Wray, Dick Dale comp.
2- The Velvet Underground & Nico
3- MC5 - Kick Out the Jams (Live)
4- Alice Cooper - Billion Dollar Babies
5- The Stooges - S/T & Funhouse
6- New York Dolls - S/T
7- Ramones - S/T
8- Patti Smith - Horses
9- Dead Boys - Young, Loud, Snotty
10- Television - Adventure
11- Richard Hell & the Voidoids - Blank Generation
12- Johnny Thunders - So Alone/Wayne County - Fuck Off EP
13- Blondie - S/T
14- Black Flag - The First Four Years
15- Minutemen - the Heat and Fire albums
16- Circle Jerks - Group Sex
17- Bad Brains - Black Dots
18- Descendents - Milo Goes to College
19- Dead Kennedys - Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegatables
20- Henry Rollins - Get in the Van spoken word disc 1
21- Suicidal Tendencies - S/T
22- Husker Du - Zen Arcade
23- X - Los Angeles
24- The Runaways - The Best Of

I've also been super dorky recording an intro to each album that I'm going to burn as the main track.  Man  I'm lame.

Wow, two posts in one day.  Anyway, I thought I'd expound a little bit on the last entry in terms of how I think and what I do to keep myself occupied. I make lists, and no sissy short ones, either.  Long elaboratly detailed crazy lists that typically don't have endings and need to be kept up weekly, sometimes daily.  I do this when I'm bored, or when I feel like I need a new project or whatever.

The in print DVD list below is a small example of this behavior.  That list took me four hours to compile, copying and pasting all the links, formating it in Libsyn's blog engine, and then editing and fixing bugs.  You can also see examples of this in the "Links" section to the left with my DVD collection and my library (I say my but I mean ours, as my finacee Carrie is silently included in both, though my section of the DVD collection is pretty much the majority of what we own.)  Anyway, since I'm a big fan of hitting Best Buy on new DVD Tuesday the DVD collection list is one that I am frequently changing.

My favorite and probably most intensive list is my Complete Great List of Movies I've Seen.  This is a word document that I started three years ago when I was bored at work.  I had been flipping though my old copy of the guide to VHS and DVD 1997 edition one day and I started highlighting all the flicks I'd seen, much in the way that the Ione Sky character highlighted words in her massive dictionary in Say Anything.  After I was finished with that little boredom project, I figured since there was only a handful of years between the end of that book and the present, that I'd put it all in a word doc.  So I spent the next month transcribing movies in alpha order, trying to fill in the gaps as I went along.  I hit www.imdb.com and started flipping through their database to get some and then I also picked up a new edition of the VHS and DVD guide to help as well. 

When I was finished with the basic list I had become so addicted to working on it that I decided to overhaul it, going through and marking all the flicks I owned.  But that wasn't enough, oh no.  I also had to put notations for all the flicks that I saw in the theatre, then I marked all the flicks that I wanted to own buy hadn't yet.  That lead to marking all the movies with a series of coded notations which showed who I saw the flick with.  When that was done I also added the number of times, roughly, that I'd seen each flick.

Basically what I ended up with was a large piece of who I am in seriously anal statistical form.  After I calculated the numbers for each notation, I got a weird picture of who I was in relation to the ginormous amount of films I'd seen and with who.  For instance, even though I have a regular movie night with a friend (that we've been holding for roughly four years) and who I've known for like 15 yeas, I've still seeen twice as many flicks with my fiancee even though I've only know her half as long. 

Hi, my name is Shawn and I make lists.  Really freaking large ones.

No nostalgia today.  It's been a long hard week at work (I'm counting half of last week because I've been covering for someone basically pulling a double shift, except instead of 16 hour days, I'm still only allowed to work 8, which just seems to make it double hard (so hard in fact that I write really long run-on sentences like this one.)

I basically feel exactly like the picture to the right (or above, I never know how this will format) just a screaming monster human who only sees red.  Yeah, that's very rage-y.  I swear, coming into work feels like going into battle, with one problem after another hitting me like on-coming waves of enemy soldiers and I solve them by beating them to death with my bare hands.  How's that for anger in simile form.

But the ray of sunshine that is brightening my life right now is that today is the last day of this for at least a month.  So hooray for me, yeah me, school is good, SAN DIMAS HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL RULES!  (okay, so there is a bit of nostalgia here...)

So this is pretty much just a gimmie entry.  I had a pretty full day; sat at the park and fed the geese (getting a few snips to the fingers in the process, damn hungry Canadian freaking geese), ate at a pretty pricey Japanese buffet, Badayori, and then went out to pick up fixins for some Breakfast Tacos (from Robert Rodriguez's 10 Minute Cooking School on the Sin City extended DVD), so I didn't really have a bunch of ideas swimming inmy head to write about.

I decided that this would be a good time to cull the memory banks for the first bit of nostalgia that I could bring up and ↑,↑,↓,↓,�,→,�,→,B,A,Start the fabled and oft used Konami Code. I'm not sure if "start" is officially part of the code, but it's what I always hit after typing it in, so it's part of it in my memory.

I guess this entry really isn;t about the code as much as it's about the NES game system and games in particular. I had an Atari 2600 that I bought from a garage sale growing up, but it never really hooked me like the NES did. Sure I loved Chopper Command, the horrible port of Pac-Man, Bezerk, and Combat, but it was the NES that had me so engulfed that I'd frequently find myself spitting out obsenetites at Koopa Troopas and that damn over-heat function in Excitebike. I remember playing Super Mario so much that I could baically not look at the screen when I played. Getting the 100+ lives was a snap (what the hell did the lives count thing turn into after 99, a key and crown, a melting ice-cube?) And I used the Zapper gun enough that something inside broke and you didn't have to aim anymore. If you pulled the trigger and pointed at anything the damn ducks would be falling out of the sky in Duck Hunt.

What kills me is that even though I played a fair bit of games on the Nintendo 16-bit system and enough Golden Eye to make my trigger finger bleed on the N64, I pretty much fell out of love with Nintendo over the years. Mostly because the style of games that I love, side scrollers in particular, are a thing of the past. I was a kid at just the right time for the NES, and it pretty much fulfilled my every video game need. I am so not a fan of 1st person shooters, cut scenes and X-Station Play Boxes. I bought a Game Cube, mostly to play the ports of old NES games (my collection of games is pretty much limited to the Mega-Man collection, the Namco Museum and Animal Crossing for all the classic NES games you can get and play.)

I guess I'm sort of looking forward to the Wii, though only because I've heard rumors that you can access the entire Nintendo back log of games for free via the internet, but if that's not the case, I guess this will be the first time I'm not growing with Nintendo. And let me tell you, the Wii system looks mighty scary to me, mainly because the game control looks really wiggy (a remote control and a weird thumb joystick/trigger thing with no wires.) Did Nintendo not learn fromthe Power Glove? Man my arm got so tired from using that thing that I thought I'd cry. It was torture. So now you have to weild the remote like a sword in Zelda? What if I move my hand to scratch my ass with the controller? Is Link going to freak out and try and cut off his pants?

I stumbled upon a site recently that was sort of like opening a Pandora's Box of interesting sounds. Scar Stuff is basically a site dedicated to all things Halloween record related. It's actually a lot more than that, but that was what I was looking for when I found it and it is a treasure trove, let me tell you. This guy deserves a medal or Halloween sainthood at least. I spent a weekend snagging records and then following the links on his page (said Pandora's Box) to other out-of-print vinyl that's been made available digitally. If you have time, and the thought of hearing a record narrated by Boris Karloff who introduces sound clips of the Universal Monster Movies, then check him out and start celebrating Halloween a little early.

So I'm on vacation all this week and I don't know what to do with myself. I think I'll try and do a podcast sometime, maybe tomorrow. I want to talk about 7-11s since I've been thinking about 'em lately.

I took all of today to clean and rearrange the apartment. I even went so far as to buy a letter/bill caddy and I mounted it on the cabinets by the phone. I felt so productive. I also threw out all the cardboard boxes that have been piling up from amazon.com and ebay. The apartment feels all roomy and clean. Hence the "breaking free of the old skin" drawing to the right, a stupid reference, but I'm lame and I want to try and post all the drawings I've done up on the blog eventually.

So long story short I'm not wicked smart when it comes to websites and junk like that.  I am interested though and I love projects, and this is my current project.  This site and this podcast/blog, etc.  So in the long battle in getting this site whipped into some sort of shape that resembles something I would make, I have won another small war.  I now have my own domain name.  Two actually.  This site can forever and ever (or at least until I don't renew the domain name) be known as www.brandedinthe80s.com.  Le sigh.  I also registered www.smurfwreck.com which I've pointed at this site as well and hope to get something fully created by me up there in the future.  As it stands I'm very happy with where I'm at though. 

So it's Easter and the fiancee and I decided to hit the local park to walk our dog and sort of be lazy.  We stopped and bought some lunch at the local farmer's market and set up a tiny picnic by the pond watching the ducks and geese frolic (you can see some pictures on my flickr account, link to the left).  Anyway while we were eating we noticed this kid who was holding a duckling and we got so pissed off.  I'm never sure about this but we both remember something about the danger of handling a baby animal and how the mother might reject it afterwards.

So later I was taking some pictures and the kid came up to me with the duckling and I told him not to touch them and stuff.  Well he told me this really sad story about how one of the mother ducks was trying to drown it.  Turns out it was true.  I guess it got mixed up in the wrong flock of ducklings and both the parent ducks were trying to kill it.  I was less pissed at the kid seeing as how he was trying to save it and all, but I was still concerned.  Well he kept trying to place it with other flocks as they'd swim by and one of them did take it in and didn't try and kill it.  So I guess there's your Easter good deed for this year.

Like I said there's some more pictures up on my flickr account if you're interested.

Click here to send me an email.

I just wanted to update the blog page and say that I've updated the blog page...  I mean the html and stuff so that it look all crisp like it does now.  As I'm sure you can tell from the first post, I'm no tech wizard, so I'm proud that this is where it is.  I've got some links to the left, my deviant art page, my books, dvds, and and some photos, and um yeah.  So I wonder how this will mess with the rss feed to iTunes?  Hmmmm...  Anyway, the art to the right is a silly monkey pirate logo that I designed for my friend.  I'll also probably have a new podcast up by tomorrow, I'll see how I feel when I get back from the Ween show tonight.

Click here to send me an email.

So what is Branded in the 80s and who is that goofy looking kid on that big wheel below (and why isn't he wearing any pants?)  Well, I'm that kid and it was Christmas morning so excitement trumped getting dressed properly.  My name is Shawn Robare and I've been thinking about writing a full on mission statement about this site for awhile as I think the title can be misleading, relying too much on an encrypted personal mantra. 

I was born in a country and on the crest of a decade that is easy to dismiss.   For the most part the 80s in America appear to exist in a hyper-reality filled with idiotic consumerism, over indulgence and some pretty bad music.  The decade was the nexus at which point pop culture and corporate branding, both at an apex, merged into one gargantuan beast that changed the direction of entertainment and the general perception for most of the planet.  The obvious path this leads to is one of retaliation, a sarcastic mix of adulation and self-loathing.  This sort of idea that's equal parts loving and mocking of something flawed is a hard one for me to swallow.   I get it and I can admit that it's sometimes funny, but I think it tends toward being too easy and usually a little bit callow.



I grew up and came of age in an environment that was equal parts depressing and amazing.  When I sat down and decided on a name for this project I wanted it to honestly reflect my passion and fondness for my childhood experience, and when I think about my childhood it brings to mind all of the corporate pop culture milestones I grew up with.  For me, nostalgia can be a pretty odd beast, especially when it comes to mining through the proverbial junkyard left in the wake of decades of pop culture.  This wasteland is a resource though; it's a veritable Rosetta stone that can help unlock the personal mysteries of my youth.

Little Orphan Orange Otter Pops mean so much more to me than frozen sticks of water, food coloring and high fructose corn syrup.  Looking at an Otter Pop is like looking through a window into a specific memory.  I'm sitting on a ground-mounted distribution transformer, you know, one of those hideously ugly drab-green cubic monstrosities that pepper the suburban landscape; the ones that you aren't supposed to sit on or play near.   My ass and thighs are burning through my thin Maui brand surf shorts, and I'm having a conversation about skateboarding with my best friend Peanut, discussing the viability of perfecting an ollie or attempting my first rail-slide that doesn't end with skinning my shins raw.   I'm letting my Otter Pop melt, breaking up the ice crystals with my teeth through the packaging to expedite the process as I always loved drinking them as a kid.  The ice hurt the fillings in my teeth if I ate them straight up.



This is what it means to be Branded in the 80s.   I hope that through a steady deconstruction of childhood pop culture I can discover more about who and what I am and how I fit into the world.   I mean, a healthy dose of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe had to have an effect on my good-natured morality.  But what does it mean in the context of the same cartoon series eschewing in a decade of intense action and adventure animation.  Isn't that sort of content supposed to have a negative effect on me as well, desensitizing me and teaching me it's okay to utilize violence to solve problems?   If you ask me I think this sort of thing is worth investigating.



So what kind of content are you going to find on this site?  Most everything is broken up into the various columns that you can find on the left sidebar...

Peel Here is a column where I wax nostalgic on my enormous sticker collection.  Because of the range in branding that stickers represent, the column leads to all sorts of discussion on 80s pop culture.


In the Cartoon Commentary! column I deconstruct specific episodes of the various cartoons I grew up with, as well as taking a microscopic approach to understanding the process of animation by exploring individual cels from my authentic collection of hand drawn & painted cartoon artwork.


Buried in DVDs is the section of the site I've set aside for dissecting the various films and television I love and love to hate.   I also use this column as an excuse to make upcoming release announcements for the various movies and shows I’m looking forward to on DVD.


Under the Vintage TV Guides of the 80s banner you'll find some page by page deconstructions of Fall Preview issues that were released during the late 70s and 80s.  It's a great resource for finding some old forgotten gems that have never seen syndication or release on home video.


I also have a very large digital collection of the Essential Hostess comic book ads from the 70s & 80s, complete with ad by ad commentary.


For the past four years I've also taken part in the seasonal "Countdown to Halloween" blogging events.  Under the Halloween banner you'll be able to access the archives of my creepy contributions.


I also have a couple of 80s themed resources on Branded.   One is a collection of Saturday Morning cartoon ads that ran in comic books throughout the 70s and 80s.  The other is a comprehensive list of 80s cartoons available on DVD in the US and Canada.
  

In addition to the above columns I'm also involved in producing two podcasts:

This website began with the inception of the Branded in the 80s podcast where I remember what it was like to be a kid, featuring personal recollections and commentary on subjects ranging from fast food to toys.


Recently I also helped re-launch the Saturday Supercast, a podcast that serves as a love letter to animation of the 60s, 70s, and 80s.  With co-hosts Jerzy Drozd and Kevin Cross, I help deconstruct cartoons, taking them apart to see what works, what doesn't, and how they fit into the over medium.


You can find some examples of my drawings on my flickr page.

I also succumbed and created a silly facebook page, though for the life of me I don't know why.

I'm also on Twitter.

Hmmm, what else to write.  I know, I'll make one of those "things about me" lists that the bloggers seem to be so fond of...

I do all the cooking in my domestic domicile.

Ever since I drank a fifth of tequila in one sitting, even smelling it can make me puke.

I used to collect comic books.

I currently have more DVDs than dollars in my savings account, which stands to reason.

I love making lists.

I love updating the lists that I make.

I was born on the 7th day of the week, on the 17th day of the 7th month of the 77th year in the 20th century.

I provided some artwork for a DVD that you can rent on Netflix.

I've never been out of the country or visited the west coast.

I love me some Slurpees, but I'll accept most any frozen drink in it's place.

I can't stand the taste of cloves.

The only fight I was ever in was also with a kid named Shawn.

I used to carry a can of Spam around as a pet in high school until some retarded (not literally) chick stuck a knife in it.

I don't believe that they make horror movies like they used to.

I prefer practical effects over CGI in film any day.

After seeing the Phantom Menace in theaters 4 times I vowed never to pay to see another Star Wars prequel ever again, but I bought into the Episode III hype and I've hated myself a little ever since.

I suffer from an intense arachnophobia.

My favorite holiday is Halloween.

I have a strong belief that toys will suffocate if you keep them mint in box or mint on card condition.

I think Wolverine looks best in the orange and brown suit (or in the all black suit as Patch.)

I have issues staying focused on hobbies, usually completely dropping/selling off the previous one to fund the next one.

I enjoy being disturbed.

I think that Kill Bill Vol.1 and 2 is best viewed as one long movie, not two.

I adore calamari.

I'm semi-obsessed with cephalopods.

I suck at remembering birthdays.

I will wear clothes until they are practically falling off my body rather than buy new.

Anthony Bourdain is a personal hero of mine, though on the opposite end, so is Alton Brown.

Though I was born in Texas, and lived most of my life in the south, I feel like a northerner.

The first album I ever owned was a Best of the Beach Boys record.

I was a metal-head in elementary and middle school.

My favorite music is usually centered around punk rock, so either glam, rockabilly, new wave, hardcore or of the 80s underground.

I believe that hatchbacks make wonderful cars.

I really, really like 1971 Mach 1 Mustangs.

I'm a watcher and collector by nature, and my biggest fear of dying is not being able to see what happens next, or continue my accumulation of crap.

I try never to miss any Ween concert that comes through Atlanta.

I hate the sound of my voice on tape.

The spicier the food the better, both in terms of heat and interesting flavors.

I can use chopsticks to eat rice.

I hope to one day own at least one episode of ever TV show I've ever loved on DVD, which is a whole lot of TV shows.

I was naturally blonde until I was about 4, then my hair turned brown.

I used to have a reoccurring nightmare of a giant hotdog being forced through a barn.

I picked the lock on a hotel mini-bar once.

I haven't lived in a house in 17 years, since I was 15 in fact.

I love monsters, especially the Universal incarnations, and specifically the creature from the black lagoon and Frankenstein's monster.

I've exhibited my wares (self published magazine and this very website) at a comic convention which was one of the big things on my "To Do Before I Die" list.