COMICS CULTURE SHRAPNEL from CBEM 302
Eventually everyone reaches the point where they look back on their childhood, become lost in a sea of nostalgia. In my case it's probably false - seeing as how I never grew up. I still get up every Saturday morning to watch cartoons, I still play with action figures. Heck, occasionally I'll even pull out my old Barbie dolls and dress them up. I remember I used to dress them up in the spandex jumpsuits I had and play superheroes. Honestly.
My recent wave of nostalgic recollection began when I visited the Fisher Price homepage and saw View Masters for sale. I still have mine, it sits on the shelf where I keep all my mass-market paperbacks. Right on top of some Star Wars novels. I own maybe a total of seven or eight discs - starting with Smurfette and ending with Toy Story. Looking at the former got me thinking about comics, because it was such a story. Twenty-one sequential images, with dialogue printed right onto the graphic. I always liked the Smurfette one more because I didn't have to take my eyes away from the pictures to read the captions printed on the disc. So I got to thinking - why don't they make more like this one? I would love to see View Master comics, and I think there's a good-sized audience out there. How many kids have one? How many kids should have one?
In all honesty, Ken Applebaum over at Savant Mag already wrote about this, though I admit no influence. I had been thinking about this for a few weeks now, and planned to write about it, well, now. He just beat me by a week. But here's my two cents. I want to see View Master comics. I want to see them working within the three discs, seven images each constraint. I know its possible. The stories would need to be brief, the images simple. Some of the images could be split into two panels, though this still leaves little room. It's a challenge which I'd like to see people undertake. Doesn't matter who - either big companies or fans. Various sites online explain how to make your own discs and even sell kits. Certain companies make custom reels. The products could be sold in comic shops, toy stores, conventions, online. And it would be a lot of fun...
Setting the View Master aside for now I got to thinking about 80's cartoons. The cheesy merchandising stuff. There were mainstays like Transformers and G.I. Joe. But then, who remember disturbing oddities like Lady Lovelylocks and the Pixietales or Lazer Tag Academy? I do, because I watched it, and will forever pay for my sins. As much as I'd like to fondly remember these (and I'm sure you are thinking of others) they were bad. Because most of them were created for merchandising purposes. Toys. Bedsheets. Comic books.
Oh yeah, I've read the comics too. Strawberry Shortcake, Muppet Babies, Transformers. Now think on this - a lot of the cartoons on TV now are based on comic books. Batman Beyond, Static Shock, X-Men Evolution. Okay, Batman is good, but the others leave an icky taste in my mouth. Is this some kind of cartoon karma coming back to haunt me?
It's fun to be nostalgic, but it can be really embarrassing. I suppose that means we're supposed to make the future better. I think. I've found that all these things from my past have inspired possible jobs for me. I want to make View Master comics. I want to work on cartoons. I want to run my own music video network (hey, where'd that come from?). It might not be a bad idea to dwell in the past once in a while.