I've been trying to make a list of things that have made me happy throughout the years - and no, this isn't an Oprah Eat Pray Love thing...I just think its just a good thing to have on hand. Not everything on it is going to hold up, but I have a theory, (and its kind of statistical...which is funny because I failed statistics in college) that if you can turn everything that made you happy once into a data point, you can draw some kind of line of correlation through that storm of dots... and maybe when you find yourself in the cold hard-edged future where they are processing old people for foodstuffs, you can look at this list and it will help you figure out what next new-fangled doo-hickey you would like to operate in the factory of your future career. Cuz the times, they is a-changeling, kiddies! toot - toot!!
There are so many embarrassing things I have loved. Things that don't hold up at all. And then there are the things that miraculously do hold up.
If there is one person I would have ever wanted to be in my life, John Malkovich style, it's Far Side comic illustrator Gary Larson. He had my dream gig. Fill a diary with weird, one panel sketch ideas and eventually produce a weeks worth of them, with one being in color. Holy crap. I can't draw. But I would break a pygmy's neck and drink whatever fluid that sprang forth from it if it gave me the power to draw HALF as well as Gary. God, I read that comic with equal parts jealousy, awe and reverence. Gun to my head, I have to choose Bloom County, Calvin and Hobbes or Farside...(Hell, let's throw Marmaduke in there as a goose egg)...I would probably choose Farside. It was just so weird and I admire the limits of a single panel. Calvin and Hobbes was a wonderful comic, but it at times it could get a little arrogant...yeah, I get it, a child's imagination is soooo precious. And he's so philosophical! Bloom County was a cool rabbit hole to fall through, but it went away and came back and it wasn't the same and I'm afraid if I go back and open up that big blue anthology, all I will see are turds..turds laughing at me from every panel! ah! "we've been waitin' for you Caroline" they would leer.
These are just quibbles, all of those comics (Marmaduke not included...now Sally Forth! There was a..) are masterpieces. Farside had its inscrutable moments. And to be honest, the very last panel where Wizard of Oz is referenced wasn't, (in my opinion), the greatest way to end it. But I never felt like Gary was fucking with me or putting on airs. All of it came from the heart. In the mid Nineties, he did the impossible, He animated his comic in a halloween special. Since then it's only been available on VHS at trade shows...at least until 2007, when he released a DVD. It's kind of pricey for what it is: $45 for a 75 minutes of TV specials. And I couldn't remember if it was any good. All I remember was that there was no dialogue, and every vigniette flowed into each other like some kind of Fellini film on mescalin. I decided I didn't want to risk spending that kind of money on something that I barely remember, but then I found this clip from youtube.
It still holds up! I'm putting this dvd on my "fuck it" list - a list of items I will buy when my ship finally comes in and I make some dough off them snuff films I've been pouring my heart into recently.
There are so many embarrassing things I have loved. Things that don't hold up at all. And then there are the things that miraculously do hold up.
If there is one person I would have ever wanted to be in my life, John Malkovich style, it's Far Side comic illustrator Gary Larson. He had my dream gig. Fill a diary with weird, one panel sketch ideas and eventually produce a weeks worth of them, with one being in color. Holy crap. I can't draw. But I would break a pygmy's neck and drink whatever fluid that sprang forth from it if it gave me the power to draw HALF as well as Gary. God, I read that comic with equal parts jealousy, awe and reverence. Gun to my head, I have to choose Bloom County, Calvin and Hobbes or Farside...(Hell, let's throw Marmaduke in there as a goose egg)...I would probably choose Farside. It was just so weird and I admire the limits of a single panel. Calvin and Hobbes was a wonderful comic, but it at times it could get a little arrogant...yeah, I get it, a child's imagination is soooo precious. And he's so philosophical! Bloom County was a cool rabbit hole to fall through, but it went away and came back and it wasn't the same and I'm afraid if I go back and open up that big blue anthology, all I will see are turds..turds laughing at me from every panel! ah! "we've been waitin' for you Caroline" they would leer.
These are just quibbles, all of those comics (Marmaduke not included...now Sally Forth! There was a..) are masterpieces. Farside had its inscrutable moments. And to be honest, the very last panel where Wizard of Oz is referenced wasn't, (in my opinion), the greatest way to end it. But I never felt like Gary was fucking with me or putting on airs. All of it came from the heart. In the mid Nineties, he did the impossible, He animated his comic in a halloween special. Since then it's only been available on VHS at trade shows...at least until 2007, when he released a DVD. It's kind of pricey for what it is: $45 for a 75 minutes of TV specials. And I couldn't remember if it was any good. All I remember was that there was no dialogue, and every vigniette flowed into each other like some kind of Fellini film on mescalin. I decided I didn't want to risk spending that kind of money on something that I barely remember, but then I found this clip from youtube.
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