Greetings, Creepozoids!!

I know, I know… I told you all that last week would be the last installment of “The Don Remembers” for 2010.  But, reception to last week’s finale was so good that I just had to offer up one more.

And also I’m trying to prep for Horrorfind this weekend and needed to be able to whip up something quick and easy.

So, uno mas…

Back in the seventies and eighties, kids didn’t need much of an excuse to run around the house (or outside) in their underwear.  It was a simpler time – a time right before razor blades were found in candy, before creepy vans pulled up with creepier guys offering candy, before Diff’rent Strokes had that special episode with the Maytag Repairman wanting to share Dudley’s…candy.

While it didn’t take much to get our prepubescent selves out of our suffocating outer garments, coming up with a specific reason to entice us to do so didn’t hurt, either.

Introducing Underoos!

Underoos came about in the late seventies.  Marketed by Fruit of the Loom, Underoos were billed as “Underwear that’s FUN to wear!”  In order to make good on that promise, Underoos bought the licensing rights to several different, pop-culturally relevant (at the time) companies – including Star Wars, Marvel and DC.  That’s right – like MEGO was able to do just a couple of years earlier for their eight inch action figure line, Underoos managed to get both of the big comic companies to play.

The result?  If ever there was an understatement to a five year old, that tagline would be it.  They weren’t just FUN to wear, they were heckafrikkin’AWESOME to wear!

You see, the hook that made each set a must-have was that each combination of shirt and underpants guaranteed that you were dressing up as the character.  Liked Superman? The Superman Underoos were comprised of a shirt with his chest logo on blue while the underpants were the same color as his trunks.  Just grab a red towel from your mom’s linen closet, and you were now ol’s Supes himself.  Each pack of Underoos was literally an affordable superhero costume for you to wear year round.

I still remember my very first set of Underoos – Robin, the Boy Wonder.  I remember opening that package with an excited glee and getting those suckers on immediately.  Then, it was off to fight imaginary crime while I wore that yellow towel (it was the seventies – they had yellow towels) around my neck with pride.  The Joker?  The Penguin?  No match for my acrobatic, crime-fighting skills.  The Riddler?  His enigmatic word problems were child’s play (see, cause I was a child… get it?) to this masked avenger.  Hours of amusement, all based around a shirt and a pair of underpants.  That was all I needed.

Over the next few years, my collection of Underoos grew – Superman, Batman, Spider-Man… leading up to the crème de la crème – Boba Fett.  That was the golden goose, my friend.  Running around, collecting prices on heads while the chest plate of the galaxy’s most infamous bounty hunter adorned my young torso…

I just realized what that reminds me of.  Underoos were for me what the Red Ryder BB Gun was for Ralphie in the film A Christmas Story – except that it was cheaper and less hassle to get a t-shirt and a pair of underpants.  Plus, more variety to choose from when it came time to play in your imagination than with the Red Ryder.  Also?  Less likely to end up with a damaged or missing vision orb from two pieces of fabric.  Otherwise, the endgame was exactly the same – suit up and go adventuring until dinner.

Fruit of the Loom still puts Underoos out nowadays.  Unfortunately, they pale in comparison to the classic stuff of yore – instead of becoming your favorite characters, most of them just feature said character on the shirt.  Guess it’s just another example of how the stuff we love from Nostalgialand never comes back the same way we remember them.

Also?  They don’t fit anymore.  These things are riding up something fierce right now.

The Don… wants to apologize for that visual above.

I was originally going to write about how today was a monumental day because, for once, Faye from Questionable Content WASN’T being a huge rhymes-with-witch. (Well, I guess I did just write about that.) Seriously, I’ve never understood why she’s the most popular character in that comic.

That, however, was overshadowed by far more depressing and important news, as news of Satoshi Kon’s death began burning up the Internet. This 47-year-old master Japanese director was one of my artistic heroes from the moment I first discovered his work in anime, via the “Magnetic Rose” short from Memories. Paranoia Agent later became one of my absolute favourite television series.

If you’re curious to see some of Kon’s work, just hit up a certain popular video site for clips and other videos. I highly recommend “Magnetic Rose” as uploaded by user DimensionAnime. I’d link to the videos here, but, since the whole thing is uploaded by DimensionAnime rather than just clips, that wouldn’t be entirely kosher, and we like to be kosher here, if not in the rabbinical way. So please go find it for yourself. Then buy it!…if you can still find the home release, that is.

I’ll be raising a glass of something fizzy and unidentifiable in his honour tonight, while contemplating Kon-themed sushi (remember that, The Don’s lovely wife?) and hopefully organizing a Satoshi Kon anime marathon for the future. I feel extremely lucky that I got to see Kon himself a few years ago, when the movie Paprika made its U.S. debut at the National Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington, D.C. Kon answered questions, he entertained, and after the movie and panel were over, everyone left giddy and excited, touched by the presence of a creative genius. I guess those blurry, dark photos I took away on my crappy camera that night will be greater treasures to me than ever before.

Sleep well, Kon. Hope you’re enjoying the moon.

Meanwhile, M. Night Shyamalan and Uwe Boll continue to live and work in the entertainment industry. Truly, there is no justice in this world.

Greetings, Poopsmiths!!

We’re already over the halfway mark in August, which means this summer series is almost at an end (unless I hear voices erupt from the crickets out there to demand I keep this going in some form).  With that in mind, I wanted to make sure that I didn’t go out without talking about one of my favorite animation companies – Rankin/Bass.  These guys helped get me through my entire childhood.  And they managed to accomplish that feat in more than one style.

The double-surnamed animation company started back in 1964.  Their first attempt was a Christmas special for NBC about the famous red-nosed reindeer Rudolph.  Using an animation style that they would become most noted for over the next twenty years – stop-motion animation – Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer became an instant holiday classic, and Christmas specials like this one would become Rankin/Bass’s bread and butter for the next two decades.

Over the course of those two decades, Rankin/Bass produced over thirty seasonal specials, covering other holidays as well as Christmas.  While most were in the stop-motion variety, they would occasionally throw in a traditional cel-animated special as well.  But no matter what the style, Rankin/Bass specials always pulled in some of the grade-A talent of the time for voice-over work, like Mickey Rooney, Fred Astaire, Burl Ives, and Andy Griffith.

As a young boy growing up, Christmas didn’t fully begin until the networks started showing Frosty the Snowman, Rudolph, or ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas.  Sure, Charlie Brown is probably considered the king of Christmas cartoon fare, but surely the R/B stuff was part of the royal court.  And in some ways, they’ve even surpassed the Blockheaded One – A Charlie Brown Christmas airs once, maybe twice on CBS every year.  Rankin/Bass specials?  They get twenty-five days devoted to them every year on ABC Family.  Who’s the blockhead now?

Oh, right.

Now, while most other animation companies would be content to cater to one specific niche where children are concerned, Rankin/Bass did the unthinkable.  In 1985, right around the time they produced their last Christmas special, the cartoon-makers with a forward slash in their name changed tactics and decided to aim towards the “impressionable ten to fifteen year olds who loved action/adventure and would pester their parents to buy them any toy featured in a cartoon” demographic.

And so, Thundercats was born.

I just so happened to be at the very beginning of that demographic at the time.  So guess what?  Yup – first thing I did when I came home from school each day was plaster myself to the living room floor to watch the adventures of a small group of anthropomorphic, feline humanoids try to survive on a futuristic earth after fleeing their doomed home world of Thundera.

Along with He-Man and Transformers, Thundercats completed the trifecta of animated action/adventure in my ten year old life.  Homework?  What homework?  Who had time for solving math equations, writing book reports, or figuring out why gravity pulled you down when the forces of good and evil were in constant struggle three times a day.

Did I say three times?  I meant four.

Because just when I thought my pre-pubescent life already had enough excitement to take the edge off of starting to discover girls, those geniuses running that cartoon company that sounded like a smelly fish had struck gold again.  Taking the exact same formula that made Thundercats such a huge hit, Rankin/Bass modified the ingredients – setting it primarily in space and making the humanoids birdlike instead – and gave it a similarly-structured moniker.

And so, Silverhawks was born.

Let’s be honest – it was a blatent rip-off of Thundercats.  Almost all of the voice cast from the first series was carried over to do voices for the new series.  The characters and situations they found themselves in were very similar to what came before.  And the big bad – Mon-starr, had a transformation sequence – with spell chant! – almost exactly like his Thundercat counterpart Mumm-Ra.

Of course, none of this mattered.  My pre-ADD-discovery brain latched onto this new offering with spirited glee.

It wouldn’t be long after Silverhawks debuted, however, that the house that Arthur and Jules built would start to run aground.  By the late eighties, this powerhouse of animation that had managed to persist like a juggernaut over the course of twenty years was finally starting to lose steam.  So, of course, the only solution was to triplicate the same exact formula that made them a hit twice before, only this time it was – gasp – underwater!  And once again, the name was just a smoosh-up of what animal they were combined with some other random word.  It was like they weren’t even trying anymore at this point.

And so, Tigersharks was crapped out of Satan’s rectum.

The sound that immediately followed was the death knell for Rankin/Bass.  Tigersharks, thanks mostly to the fact that no one ever really heard of the show, much less watched it, met a quick and painless death.  Sadly, Thundercats and Silverhawks followed suit right around the same time, and just like that – a wonderful animation company went the way of your favorite uncle who just happened to drink a little too much sometimes.

Despite their unfortunate demise those many years ago, Rankin/Bass is still around.  Revived at the beginning of the new millennium, they are currently owned by Warner Bros. – who do the company proud by making horrible sequels to their holiday classics.  In the meantime, at least we still get to see the fruits of studio lowercase today – between the aforementioned re-airing of all their Christmas specials on ABC Family to having the entire Thundercats series on DVD (and occasionally on Cartoon Network).  Even the first season of Silverhawks made it to DVD.  Unfortunately, it’s the only season out to date due to poor sales.  But, that can only mean good news:

At least Tigersharks will never see the light of day again.

The Don feels the magic, hears the roar… crap – it’s the other kind of cougar.

As mentioned in last week’s article, the webcomic Dreamless came to an end recently. Not, as the saying goes, with a bang, but with a whimper. The final page shows the story just coming to a halt rather than providing an actual satisfying ending. The writer is trying to drum up interest for a sequel, so I assume this was done intentionally to ensure fans come back to see what, if anything, happens next. I have a bit of a vendetta against stopping a story when you’re not even sure if you’ll ever continue it, so, like some commenters on the final page and elsewhere on the Wide Webs, I found the ending quite underwhelming. I’m having trouble gathering up enough interest to even write about the comic here, honestly, but I promised to write this, and so I shall. No one will fault you if you can’t find the time to care about reading something I’m having trouble caring about writing!

You might remember from my review, shortly after Dreamless began in 2009, that I was massively enthused about the comic’s story and its mysteries. Ah, those innocent, carefree days of yesteryear! But instead of becoming more interesting as we learned the characters’ backstories, the story began to seem more bland and bare-boned, accompanied by occasionally sloppy writing. As the comic went on, I pretty much stopped caring about the angsty characters and was mostly reading to see Sarah Ellerton’s beautiful art work. It didn’t help that the comic’s writer makes a habit of insulting the audience in the site’s comments. Pretty difficult for me to stay invested in a story when I know the creator views the readers as dungheaps with wallets.

Still, though, the comic is short, fewer than one hundred pages, and it does have some spectacular art, so I’d say to check it out if you want quick, throwaway entertainment. The first third of the comic will draw you in, even if you feel cold to the story by the end. If you go in with low expectations for the later pages, you’ll probably come away with more enjoyment than I did.

Is this going to be a trend, that every webcomic I review is one I eventually grow to dislike? I sure hope not. It’s already happened (well, is happening) with Misfile, the very first webcomic I ever reviewed on Spwug (here, here, and then a post where I confessed to falling out of love with it here). And now it’s happened again with Dreamless, the second webcomic I reviewed here. Luckily, I don’t think that’s the case; it’s just bad timing all around. If I ever start hatin’ on Girl Genius, I hope someone puts me out of my misery.

Greetings, Anawanna Campers!!

The fun and colorful eighties had already bore witness to several unique and awesome innovations by the time the decade started to wind down in preparation for the drab and angsty nineties.  By the time we reached the twilight years of the era famous for hair bands, half-hour long, animated commercials for toys, and the conclusion of the original Star Wars trilogy, another fantastic invention came into being – one that fit in perfectly with the polychromatic decade – thermal color changing!  And when it comes to cool, color changing items, there are two that immediately spring to mind:

Hypercolor T-shirts and Color Changer Hot Wheels!

Both creations came about during the mid to late eighties and functioned based on a simple, yet complex concept – when the item was at room temperature or cooler, it was one color.  But, when you applied heat or in some way increased the temperature of the item, it would change colors!

I seem to recall that the Hot Wheels vehicles were the first color changing products I owned growing up.  By that time I was in my early teens, and my Matchbox and Hot Wheels collecting had significantly waned and been replaced by my action figure collecting.  But these things were different.  After seeing the commercial for a toy car that changed its hue under cold or hot water, I knew I had to have one.  Once acquired, I spent quite a bit of time… not playing with them.  No, instead I got way too mesmerized by the pure sorcery on display as continuously ran them under an alternating warm and cold tap – an act that, out of context, may appear as though I was trying to pry spy secrets from their die-cast lips.  Of course, it wouldn’t be long before I either “broke” them, got bored with the fact that there actually wasn’t a little wizard in the paint schemes making the greens turn yellow and the purples turn red, or discovered something els– ooh, Real Ghostbusters action figures!!

Hypercolor T’s on the other hand… those things mattered for a little while longer.  See, as is the case with any new fashion trend based out of pop culture – you weren’t cool unless you owned one.  Of course, in my case I wasn’t even cool when I owned one.  Que sera sera, I guess.  All the way into the locker.  Sadly, I couldn’t see the color change while I was stuffed in there.

Aside from a revisit to the emotional scars of my youth, Hypercolor shirts were frikkin’ awesome!  Not as reliant on that life fluid that pours out of faucets, all you had to do was put your hand or another warm object on the fabric – and the outline of that object would remain for seconds in a different color on the shirt.  Of course, after the initial wave of awe over this mystical garment wore off, there was only one way teenaged owners of said shirts could put this innovation to any use.

If you said “Probably something obscene”, you would be correct.

It would not be out of the realm of possibility to see sixteen and seventeen year old girls running down the halls with light blue hand prints over their budding buxoms on their purple Hypercolor T-shirts.  Nor, would it be inconceivable to imagine some young dude getting on the school bus with an intentionally oversized Hypercolor top – just so that he could plant a couple of yellow hands on his otherwise green-clad derriere.  Yes, ladies and gentlemen – teen creativity at work.  And just think – those folks have become us, and we are now running the country.

Or writing silly nostalgic pieces for geek culture web sites.

The Don can change colors as well.  Just make him laugh while he’s scarfing down a bag of Doritos.

This time, my art-thirsty friends, we’re looking at a webcomic featuring video game jokes.

“But there are so many video game webcomics out there!” some may cry. “Why would I be interested in checking out this one?”

Because it’s damn funny, that’s why! You silly kids and yer questions….

Katie Tiedrich’s site, AwkwardZombie.com, features a weekly webcomic that mostly focuses on Nintendo games, along with some World of Warcraft, Phoenix Wright, Borderlands, and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, among others. You’ll also get healthy doses of Tiedrich’s slice-of-(fantasy)-life pie.

Pie? Dang, I must be hungry.

AwkwardZombie.com does a fine job of pointing out those little fallacies and game-holes we all like to lovingly poke fun at, augmented by its caricature art style. (Usin’ big thinky-words done maked me look SMART, y’awll!) The most recent comic–as of this posting, at least–is having a laugh at The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks. It especially sang to me since I’m playing through the game right now and have similar occasional frustrations. Click each picture here for fullsize goodness, as Spwug’s cramped formatting makes for some squashy-lookin’ pics.

This comic speaks truth! WHY can’t you control Zelda normally when playing her? WHY do you have to draw a shaky pre-set path for her to follow? WHY does the path always need to be altered to avoid new dangers as soon as she starts walking it? WHY IS A CHILD LIKE LINK ALLOWED TO DRIVE TRAINS ALONE ALL OVER NEW HYRULE??

I complain because I love. I do mean that. Spirit Tracks has been my crack for months now. It’s just got a few things that could be improved upon, like every other game in existence. Moving along…!

A big chunk of the comic’s earlier content came from Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Lots of people picked to live in a house! Insert further “Real World” spoofing here! But yes, comedy and mayhem do ensue when your roommates consist of Roy, Marth, and Link….

…As well as Mewtwo, and cameos by the rest of the gang, including Snake, Otacon, and Pikachu. Poor Otacon. No one ever really cares, huh? Well, except Naomi, and we all know how that went, don’t we?

What you’ve already seen is what you get with these comics, and that’s just dandy by me. There’s no ongoing story to try to catch up on, no deeper meaning to discern (unless it’s “do something dumb in your video game, and it will get mocked on the Internet”). It’s just fun, cracky comics, starring the big and small guns of video gaming! Simple and entertaining. After a hard day in the real world, who doesn’t want to come home to see that on their computer monitors? What are ya, emo or somethin’?

Warning to the anti-emo: the journals below the comics are sadly sometimes prone to the self-deprecating “Waah, waah, I can’t draw, I suck, yet I keep making comics that I want you to keep reading even though THEY SUCK” comments that irritate me so much. But I’m happy to add that those are mostly found in earlier comics. The journals have largely become less negative and more neutral or positive in more recent times. Of course, there are rare moments where self-deprecation actually = comic humour!

I’ll leave you with a The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess comic that made me grin. I love Tiedrich’s snarky Midna in her Twilight Princess comics! Then we’ll chase that with a few more, mostly Zelda-related, comics. The artist really seems to love her Zelda jokes, and it shows!

And if you’ve ever raised an eyebrow at all of attorney Phoenix Wright’s underage “assistants”, you’ll give a chuckle and a knowing nod to this comic.

Another “PREACH it, sistah!” moment from Twilight Princess (and also Ocarina of Time). I remember shooting an arrow at a Big Poe in Ocarina of Time just as the sun came up, only to see my missile rip right through the spot where the Poe had been floating one second earlier. ARRRGH!!

And one final comic from Ocarina of Time. Yes, Navi, I’m pretty sure that counts as “cruel and unusual punishment” under Hyrulean law.

That’s all for now. Till next time, hop on over to AwkwardZombie.com and catch up on its offerings!

According to Merriam-Webster and other dictionaries, the definition of “art” is “a: the conscious use of skill and creative imagination especially in the production of aesthetic objects; also: works so produced b (1): fine arts (2): one of the fine arts (3): a graphic art”. Sounds pretty abstract a concept, right? Left up to the individual? So, then, what you consider art is your opinion, and your opinion only. There are absolutely no facts about what art is.

I touched on the unique and beautiful art style of the upcoming The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword in last week’s E3 article. Since then, new information has come out regarding the visuals, like in this article from Kotaku: “Skyward’s unique visual style, which looks like a halfway meeting between Wind Waker and Twilight Princess, was inspired by Miyamoto’s love of impressionism [art], and the skies in the game are a tribute to [French Post-Impressionist artist] Cézanne.” Wow! When I saw the screenshots linked in my previous article, I remarked that the game looked like a painting. I didn’t know at the time that this was because the graphics were inspired by paintings. Now, whenever someone whines about the art style, you can them an “uncultured pleb”!

This reminded me of Roger Ebert’s latest assertion in April that video games “can never be art”, despite his having no qualifications to speak on this topic since he doesn’t actually play video games. (I want to point out this link to Ebert’s blog freezes my browser every time I load it, so click at your own risk. It won’t factor into my article since it’s not relevant to art, but it’s not exactly getting on my good side here, either, Ebert.) In this article, he backtracked a little and said MAYBE games can be art, but never in our lifetime, and they’ll never, ever be “high (read: real) art”.

Other sites have already addressed Ebert’s crap-stirring topic over and over again, and make for entertaining reads, so I don’t need to go into that here. I’m quite fond of Cracked.com’s take on the whole debate, for the record. Oh, and don’t miss a response article from Ebert all the way back in 2007, in which he repeatedly and openly insults novelist Clive Barker for daring to disagree. The comments on these other articles also do a good job of raising up valid instances of video games as art. I know I’ve never cried at a funeral no matter how much I loved the deceased, but I definitely shed tears at the endings of Link’s Awakening, Secret of Mana, and Ocarina of Time, for example. To me, that is art. It does not have to be art to someone else. What art is is left entirely up to each and every individual.

Art begets art. There are professionally-rendered Mario statues and paintings of Princess Zelda. There’s Video Games Live, bringing game music to the orchestra pit…and orchestrated music IN video games is not an unheard-of occurrence. And now, we have The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, which has an orchestrated soundtrack and is created to look like an Impressionist painting. Are statues, paintings, and orchestral performances no longer art if their source material is a video game, Ebert? Or are video games themselves art because of the creativity and imagination that goes into them per the dictionary definition, as well as elements normally associated with art, such as orchestrated music and art movement visuals?

When you come down to is that what art is, is left entirely up to personal opinion. I will never consider a good 95% of modern abstract creations to be art. You took a paintbrush, dipped it in black paint, flicked it on a canvas, and named it “Despair”? I could do that in thirty seconds! Your work doesn’t belong in a museum that paid millions of dollars for it; it belongs at the thrift store. Or in the garbage. But the difference between Ebert and I is that he presents his opinion of video games as fact, while I make it very clear right now that my perception of abstract modern art is only one writer’s opinion. And, also unlike Ebert, I won’t tell you that you’re wrong to think otherwise, as he did game designer Kellee Santiago in his blog. (Though I might look at you funny if I find a print of “Despair” hanging in your house. Partly because I made it up. I’ve seen a painting in the Museum of Modern Art in Washington, DC that was virtually identical to my example, but I don’t remember the name.)

Oh, and let’s end on a high (high art?) note. This thread gives me hope for humanity: intrigued by the new Zelda title’s graphics, at least one gamer has taken a (renewed) interest in Cézanne’s work. I doubt this will be the last person to seek out classic art in the face of new art!

And that’s my opinion.

Next week, you’ll probably have to fend for yourselves, as I’ll be buried neck-deep in things outside the Internet. Enjoy a week off from me!

Greetings, Ghost Monsters!!

The 80s were an impressive decade as far as animation was concerned.  Television viewers were literally flooded with a wealth of animated programs of all shapes and sizes.  And practically anything that was on the pop culture radar got its own cartoon, from video games to sitcoms to musicians.  If you were a hot commodity, you would soon find yourself in two-dimensional, cel-shaded glory.

Animation was becoming more prominent in movie theaters as well.  Though the 70s showed that an occasional non-Disney cartoon could dip its toe in the theatrical realm, it wasn’t until the 80s that we would see it start to become much more mainstream.  From rock prodigy on display with Heavy Metal to after school favorites getting the feature film treatment like Transformers and G.I. Joe, cartoons were starting to gain a wider audience.

Speaking of theatrical releases, there is one animated movie that still stands out and resonates with me to this day – one that I am proud to own on DVD.  It’s not one of the more well-known titles to come out of the 80s, but I think it’s one of the best.  And with the recent news of a certain famous author’s memoirs finally being available to publish this year, I think remembering this film is more than apropos – The Adventures of Mark Twain.

This film opened in January 1986 to a very limited release (seven cities, to be exact).  It was directed by Will Vinton, who was best known for being the creator of Claymation (and within that art, The California Raisins).  Using the techniques he harnessed from honing his clay-playing craft, Vinton crafted an incredible clay-animated film that chronicled the final days of Mark Twain as he rides an airship to the stars in order to go out with the same comet he came in with.  Along the way, he acquires three stowaways – Tom Sawyer, Becky Thatcher, and Huck Finn.  As they make to their way to Twain’s final destination, the ex-Clemens regales the children with stories taken from his own writings, as well as imparting lessons to the three before he leaves the world for good.

What stands out most about this putty-crafted spectacle is how mature it is for an animated feature.  With a combination of humor and dark subject matter (dark enough to be widely banned), Mark Twain presents itself honestly, showing both sides of the author’s conflicted psyche.  Through a series of vignettes framed by an overarching storyline, we get to see the humor that Twain saw in things, as well as the demons he bore witness to during his depression.  Mark Twain is a very deep film, exploring and celebrating one of America’s best authors by offering a fresh and creative manner for sharing his works, as well as offering a glimpse into his soul.

Despite the controversy the movie sports, I was fortunate enough to be able to see this in theaters.  Already in the process of learning about Twain in our sixth grade Gifted class, our instructor was able to take us on a field trip to our local theater to see this wonderful film.  How our little town was able to procure a print of the movie when it was very limited in its release, I haven’t a clue.  All I do remember is that some deal was worked out and a representative for the film actually came out as well to answer any questions we had.  I remember watching the movie afterwards and enjoying every minute of it.

It would be a long time before I would even get to see this film again, but it never fully left my mind.  The imagery and substance on display continued to resonate with me long after.  Then, in January of 2006 (just in time for its twentieth anniversary!), the movie was finally released to DVD.  I snatched it up immediately and watched it in the hopes that it still held up in comparison to what I remembered.

Sure enough, The Adventures of Mark Twain is every bit as moving and profound as I remember.  I still find myself laughing during the truly funny moments, and I still find myself deeply affected by the dark and creepy moments.  A shining tribute to a great author as well as a highlight in the art of Claymation, this movie still succeeds at resonating with me.

And now, I leave you with the truly disturbing scene that caused its ban, yet still manages to communicate an incredible wealth of intellectual depth:

The Don is but a thought.

Greetings, Pyleans!!

Of all the bits of nostalgia that have been running through my head for consideration as my first “Don Remembers” article, one stood out immediately among all others:

Colorforms.

These little, mono-colored pieces of pliable plastic were like a gateway to endless hours of creativity when I was a kid.  Created in the mid-fifties, Colorforms are pre-cut vinyl shapes that would stick to a flat sheet of cardboard that was coated with a slick sheen.  Each shape would usually have some sort of design, like a person or a car, and could stick to the illustrated background through static cling.  Children could create any scene they wanted by placing the Colorforms on the background, peel them off, and reuse them later by setting up a completely new scene.  Originally, they started out simple, but over the years they began to include licensed characters from different television, movie and comic properties.  By the time the 80s rolled in, almost everything from the band KISS to Marvel Superheroes to Jem had truly outrageous Colorforms.

This is where my childhood comes in.  I remember my first set – Battlestar Galactica. I was a huge fan of the Olmos-less original series.  I would spend hours setting up different battle scenes.  Sometimes Starbuck would get ambushed by Cylons.  Sometimes Boxey and his daggit Moffit would have their own solo adventure.  The best part is that while some of the Colorforms depicted single figures, others would be body parts that you could piece together to make poseable characters.  See kids?  This is what we did before home video game consoles were in every household.  Well, this and Atari.

Eventually I would get other sets like Star Wars or Mork and Mindy, and that’s where the fun would really begin.  Wanna know what would happen if Mork from Ork had to take on Vader while Han Solo and Starbuck were caught in a crossfire between Cylons and Imperial Stormtroopers?

Simple – K.I.T.T. would show up with Pac-Man and rescue everybody.  Duh.

The Don once crossed Batman with a Gremlin.  He doesn’t like to talk about it.

Greetings, Quintessons!

We’re all geeks, right?  I mean, that’s why we’re here…

*tumbleweeds*

But, I mean… we all like geeky things – toys, games, television shows, movies, food… it’s our bread and butter and it’s the reason why sites like Spwug exist.

*crickets*

Okay, staying on topic.  I find that as a fellow geek I’m always seeking out other outlets and communities for my passions and interests.  For the movie and TV geek in me, I visit (and blog for) CHUD.  For the comic book geek in me, I read Wizard.  For the action figure geek in me, I read Toyfare.  And for the disposal of nosy neighbors, I always pick up the latest issue of Chump Dumper Weekly.

Recently, I discovered the perfect magazine for a very specific geek niche – 1980s cartoons.  Created by English Renaissance man (he’s English and a Renaissance man, not an English Renaissance man… or maybe that’s true too…) James Eatock and launched in 2007, cereal:geek is a one hundred page magazine completely devoted to all things animated that came from that golden decade of DeLoreans and synthesizers.  Though the not-very periodic (there have only been five issues since 2007, with a sixth due out in June) is a bit pricey ($15, but you can find it for $12), it is completely ad-free.  That one hundred pages I mentioned?  All content!  That plus the fact that each issue doesn’t come out that frequently makes the higher price tag worthwhile.

Speaking of content, let’s dive into that.  The issue I picked up back in March (though it says second quarter, 2008 on the front) caught my eye for two reasons – one, it had The Real Ghostbusters on the cover; and two, the issue was dedicated to how horror themes were often used in a lot of the cartoons that came out of the 1980s.  Horror and animated series from my youth?  Sold!

But that’s not all!  The articles themselves were not only written by Eatock himself, but also by an incredible array of writing talent.  There are also contributions from folks in the biz, like Larry DiTillio and Robert Lamb, both of whom wrote episodes of the original He-Man cartoon.  And the articles themselves are like nothing I’ve ever read before.  Each one doesn’t really read like the type of piece you would find in a typical magazine.  Instead, the entire mag reads like you were sitting down and having a geeky conversation with your friends, discussing the merits and faults of the cel-drawn properties you grew up with and loved.  Every entry was a geekgasm in print form – from an in-depth analysis of the opening to the original Transformers cartoon to the usage of Cthulhu in The Real Ghostbusters to what an Indiana Jones cartoon might look like, the articles presented in cereal:geek are of the things real geeks talk about.  Throw in some stunning, original artwork of different cartoon characters every couple of pages, some interviews with people like Frank Welker, and you truly have a mega-magazine well-worth the quarterly cost of twelve to fifteen dollars.  And though it’s published in the UK, there are two ways to get it here: through the Previews catalogue at your local comic shop, or from the grahamcrackers.com website.

Final thoughts?  There has literally never been a magazine that I have ever read cover to cover… until now.  And this one-hundred-page, ad-free slice of gold is the exception.  It’s such an incredible celebration of a an extremely popular slice of geek culture that after reading it I was inspired to think that this is exactly the kind of spirit I would like to see the halls of Spwug become imbued with.

That’s a vision I plan on making a reality.

The Don remembers when Cookie Crisp had a wizard for a mascot.  That’s right – a wizard.