Here’s me and Casey Jones hanging out at the New York Comic Con last February.  I’d recently had a dream where he and I were camped out searching for the Shredder in a rich guy’s giant backyard.  It was one of the best dreams I ever had and running into the guy who out-crazies Raphael can make February seem like summer.

I love comics too much.  My dad had a similar relationship to them as I did, relying on them to supply happiness.  I spent my childhood running away from the boredom of school and the pain of dealing with other people through  comic books, videogames, candy, day dreaming and running away.  There were no casual interests, everything became an obsession.  I’m surprised that drugs and alcohol haven’t caused me more trouble than they have.  Comics were the most important of all my obsessions, and I spent all the money I could find on attaining them.  I wanted to own them all and at one point I practically did before realizing that owning all the comics in the world wasn’t going to make me happy.  You can’t buy happiness but you can buy beautiful things and that’s something.

Mikhail insists that I number these lists in countdown form.  I don’t like it.  It might mislead readers into thinking that these lists are intended to be in a definitive order, which they are not.  These aren’t my top ten comics in book form in order of my love for them.  These are ten books that own, like and I hope aren’t overly familiar to the reader.

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10) Mad For Keeps (1958)

You’ve probably seen crumbling copies of those digest sized paperback reprints of Mad that printed decades ago.  Mad For Keeps is one of three large hardcover anthologies that Mad put out and it’s a lot less crumbled if you can find a copy.  This cover, an edited version of the cover art for Mad Magazine #30 is possibly the most iconic and frequently used image of Alfred E. Neuman.  It was painted by Norman Mingo, a master of watercolors who did most of the great Mad covers.  This volume collects some of the best stuff from the first few years of Mad, both as a comic and magazine.  There’s a funny little introduction by Ernie Kovacs even.  It opens with a parody of stamps, makes fun of Ed Sullivan and then there’s a letter from Alfred E. Neuman, published before it was determined that the name belonged to the “What-Me-Worry?” Kid.

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9) Lobo’s Greatest Hits (1992)

Lobo scared me when i was little because he lived in a world with no hope but now I think he’s pretty funny.  This book shows Lobo riding on his space motorcycle through space when a spacey VW Rabbit cuts him off and he follows it through a blackhole.   Lobo is then lost within some maze where he wanders into doorways that force him to relive past moments of his life, a pretty cool device to use to reprint old material.  At some point it turns into a choose your own adventure thing.  We get to see Lobo in his original pink and orange skintight outfit and his unexplained change to his biker look.  I don’t know if they explained why his facial make up (tattoos? Scars? Alien skin patterns?) went from looking beetle-ish to being all angular.  I guess that when Simon Bisley got to draw the character he did his best to make Lobo look like him.  Also, check out Simon Bisley’s death metal band.

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8) The Comic Strip Art of Lyonel Feininger (1994)

This is a great collection of the comics drawn by Lyonel Feininger for newspapers back in 1906 and 1907.  The Kin-Der-Kids was a newspaper strip drawn in a beautiful German expressionist style.  The kids get lost at see in the Kin-Der family bathtub and a whole bunch wacky shenanigans take place.  There’s a character named Mysterious Pete who flies around on a cloud with a sign sticking out of it that reads “Private Cloud, Keep Off!”  There’s Piemouth who won’t stop eating and also “Japansky, the Clockwork Waterbaby.”  Also there’s a dog named Sherlock Bones.

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7) A Raw One Shot #1, Jimbo by Gary Panter (1982)

This big giant newsprint comic is bound in corugated cardboard and I think that’s neat.  It collects some of the Jimbo comics from Slash Magazine and it’s black, white and red.  Gary Panter’s a super genius and Jimbo is an awesome comic.  Jimbo’s a punk, runnin’ around in a scarier version of LA in the early eighties.  Everything’s crazy and drawn well.  I love it too much.  Oh, oh, oh.

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6) Goodman Beaver by Harvey Kurzman and Will Elder (1983)

Goodman Beaver is naive and well meaning character who gets into odd situations, kinda like Spongebob.  He hangs out with Tarzan in one story and in another he’s trying to convince an apathetic Superman to not give up on humanity.  In another he becomes a policeman and the local young folks and although he thinks they’re being nice to him because of his Marlon Brando impersonation it’s really because they think his gun is cool.  Eventually Goodman was changed into a sexy lady character and became Little Annie Fanny which ran in Playboy for a real long time.

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5) The Short Life and Happy Times of the Shmoo by Al Capp (2003)

This collects the first and only major Shmoo storyline from the Lil Abner comic.  Most people don’t seem to know about the Shmoo now but when the Shmoo was introduced it turned it was an international sensation. There were songs and dances based on the Shmoo.  Prominent political figures would reference the Shmoo casually.  People started saying “Happy Shmoo Year!”  It was huge.  It rivaled Mickey Mouse.  You read this thing and you can see why.

Lil Abner accidentally winds up in the Valley of the Shmoon where the Shmoo dwell.  The Shmoo are the ultimate natural resource.  The reproduce lickety-split, have no bones and if you want to eat them they die on the spot from joy.  They produce milk, eggs and butter and they’re eyes make  ”the best suspernder buttons.”  Lil Abner brings the Shmoo back to the town he’s in and everybody’s lives are improved except for the crooked local business owners and eventually the world’s captains of industry.  The Shmoos crash the world’s economy and so the government send out “shmooicide squads” to exterminate all of the shmoos.  Two shmoos survive and reproduce and they return to the Valley of the Shmoon from whence they came.

Despite being a giant craze it also pissed off a lot of people.  Capitalists and Marxists both felt it was directed at them and didn’t appreciate it.

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4) Invasion De Los Elvis Zombies by Gary Panter

This is the Spanish version of Gary Panter’s Invasion of the Elvis Zombies.  I have no idea what it’s about beyond aliens that look like Elvis.  It is based on how Panter always thought that Elvis seemed more like he was from outer space than a human being.  It even comes with a flexi-disc that I think he recorded.  The art’s pretty.

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3) Madman: Two Trilogies by Mike Allred (1995)

I would stare at this advertised in the back of Madman Comics and wish I had fifty dollars to buy it with.  Later on I was able to get it for half of that on Ebay.  This is a signed hardcover book that collects the first two Madman comic series, Madman and Madman Adventures.  In the first one we’re introduced to Frank Einstein, a guy with amnesia running around in this costume who’s trying to figure out what’s going on.  The second series shows him going on adventures through time and adventuring with space aliens and is a lot more adventuresome.  Dan Clowes inked the first series or drew the backgrounds or something.  I forget because he’s not really credited.  Madman never got a movie like it’s peers, Hellboy and Sin City did but Mike Allred was a huge point of obsession.  For me his highpoint was Madman Adventires #3 and Madman Comics #1.  I liked when his inking was still a little scratchy.

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2) Sudor Sudaca by Jose Munoz and Carlos Sampayo (1986)

Jose Munoz is an Argentinian artist whose super inky, high contrast drawings have heavily invluenced Frank Miller, Dave McKean and other people who are better known to English readers.  His drawings are somewhere between Mike Mignola and Raymond Pettibon.  There’s a great mix of little lines, fields of blacck and giant sloppy but purposeful brushwork.  I have no idea what this comic is about but I love staring at it.

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1) The Great Comic Book Heroes by Jules Feiffer (1965)

I don’t have the dust jacket for this so it’s just a red rectangle but this is still an important book.  Jules Feiffer, the super famous cartoonist and illustrator wrote some great stuff about the meaning and importance of comics.  His writing was accompanies by reprinted origin stories of many of the major super heroes of the day.  This might be the first notable collection of super hero comics into a book and certainly the first time that someone respectable said, “Hey, this isn’t garbage.  This deserves your attention and respect.”  Thanks Jules Feiffer.

Books. What a joke. Little rectangles of information.  As usual, it’s been days since I’ve left the house and Diksmell Fartdik is once more demanding that I write something for the Mushkunt Blog. I’ve forgotten what daylight and women look like. I haven’t spoken in days and I forget how to make my throat and mouth work together to form words. I’m like that movie starring Meg Ryan where she speaks wolf talk. I am an urban feral child-adult. Here are some of my books that are going to interest others.

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10) Disney Adventures featuring Macaulay Culkin

When I was little I owned all the issues of Nintendo Power and Disney Adventures. I would keep them organized and read them over and over. I loved magazines so much.  It seemed like I was going to work for them when I was little. I made zines and then I started Trashed Magazine and by that time the magazine industry was already dead.

So what’s left? Wasting my love of topical writing on this fucking website. Playboy was once a home for chaste titties but they also sent Shel Silverstein to Spain so he could do comics about it and paid Harvey Kurtzman and Will Elder a lot of money to produce the beautifully painted Little Annie Fanny comics. Who’s going to finance beautiful things now? Everything’s gotta be made cheaper and faster now.  I was supposed to be in magazines. Now what do I have? I have nothing. Rudyard Kipling believed that if Hell exists, that we are living in it.

Long story short, Macaulay happily discusses all the good times he was having with Michael Jackson at the time.

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9) Rat Catching by Crispin Hellion Glover

I interviewed Crispin Glover when What Is It? came out and he gave me copies of his books. That interview was scheduled to be in a magazine that got canceled but at least I got to meet him and he gave me these books.

I feel guilty about every interview I ever did that didn’t get used for one thing or another.

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8) Sex in the Outdoors by Robert Ros, M.D. and Buck Titon, M.S.

Boy, that rabbit’s really getting an eyeful. Did there have to be a guide for having sex in the outdoors?  Isn’t that what all living things have been doing since the dawn of time? The advice is all like “Don’t rub your dick on poison ivy.” And if you see a big bunny watching you sex then just close your eyes and hope he goes away because you are probably about to die.

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7) Understanding Human Behavior

If you ever get close to a human and huuuuuuuummaaaaaaaaannnn behavvvvvvioorrrrrrr. I’ll never understand the appeal of Bjork. I found this book in the trash.

That’s some crazy ownership tag in the front of the book. Don’t think about death too much, Wilcox.

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6) Masters of Metal by Lee Martyn

This book is ridiculous. I like that they have chubby Ozzy on the cover. He was moving in a Chris Farley direction at this point.

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I bet you didn’t know that Steve Martin was heavy metal. Now you do.

I bet you didn’t know that ZZ Top were metal either. Neither did they. Only Lee Martyn did.

(more…)

I ran out of free time so now I only blog about things that don’t involve me leaving my house. I wrote about favorite my records yesterday and I wrote about my Star Wars shit last week. Now I’m going writing about my favorite T-shirts.

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10) Megadeth “I Kill… For Thrills” Hooded T-Shirt

This is one of the most amazing metal tees I’ve ever seen. Not only does it feature Vic Rattlehead as a scuba-diver on the front with the slogan “I Kill… For Thrills”, there’s a photograph of him on the back with an audacious claim as to the technical superiority of the band.

Dave Mustaine’s a humorless asshole and that’s why I like him. I like the band because they’re like a meaner Metallica with only one member that anyone knows by name. Best of all is that this shirt has a hood. How many hooded t-shirts have you seen in your life? This is probably the only one. I want to design a hooded T-shirt.

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9) Cambodian Tin Tin shirt

The Vidiot went to Cambodia for a month and he brought me back this amazing T-shirt. Tintin is a much bigger deal in Europe and Asia than he ever was in America and bootleg Tintin merchandise abounds in both continents.

Here is a close-up pf the chest hit. “Danger! Mines!” Some weird characters, Cambodia. Hmmm, I wonder how successful that Spielberg Tin Tin movie’s going to be?

That’s Tin Tin and Captain Haddock on the back of he shirt. They’re in the forests of Cambodia finding piles of human skulls and looking horrified, a warning sign about landmines is nearby. I love Tin Tin and wish this comic adventure through Cambodia actually existed.

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8) Handmade Devo T-shirt

I got this for five dollars off of eBay. It was made by some guy when he was still a teenager back in the eighties. He used the heat press equipment at his dad’s sporting goods store and cut and applied all of the decals himself. Originally the Devo face on the front had a forked tongue but I wore it once and the tongue came off so I will never make the mistake of actually wearing this tee ever again!

The sleeves were cut into a jagged zig zag and he also did something really cool with the collar that involved splitting it down the seem and applying stars to the inner part. This is one of my favorite and most awesome eBay finds ever. I still can’t believe that the tongue fell off.

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7) Sample For Unproduced Мишка Sweater

I know this isn’t a T-shirt but I love it nonetheless and I drew the illustrations for it. It breaks my heart that this is the only one of these sweaters in existence. This is based on the first drawing I ever did for Мишка and Mikhail & Brian assembled the elements into this awesome sweater.

The drawing was overly complicated and even after being simplified some on the computer it still got way distorted from my original illustration. But you know what? I like this distorted version on the sweater better. The reason that this never came out was because My Pal The Crook is a cheapskate. Please write letters and comments until this sweater gets made. Until then I am the owner of the only one that exists.

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6) Michael Barron’s Mom’s Sweatshirt

Michael Barron was my best friend when I was a little kid. He was the only kid who was skinnier, paler and nerdier than I was. When I was in high school I stole this out of his mother’s car and wore it around school a lot. We didn’t speak too much after high school but I did leave bizarre comments on his livejournal until he finally banned me.

After that I left bizarre comments on his girlfriend’s livejournal. Then I sent him an email telling him I was gay and that I considered him my true love and wanted him to come spend the weekend with me. He responded by telling me that he was certain I was lying but that everyone had always suspected I was gay. That was a few years ago. I still have this sweatshirt anyway.

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(more…)

Mikhail’s been screaming at me to write more for the Bloglin but I haven’t really left the house in the past ten days so I have to look around my apartment for content. Last time I wrote about my favorite Star Wars things. This time I’m talking about the favorite records in my collection. These aren’t my favorite albums of all time but they are records that are special, uncommon or funny. I’m calling this column, “Crap I Own: A Few of My Favorite Things.” And well here they are.

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10) V/A – My Pussy Belongs To Daddy

It’s important that all girls know who their pussy belongs to. Some might think that it belongs to them but nope, it belongs to daddy. This glassy eyed bovine cat enthusiast on the cover knows it, do you? Look at the cover girl’s walleyed stare. She looks like she’s on muscle relaxers or lightly mentally retarded. This is the photo they got of her where her eyes were open and she wasn’t drooling or trying to eat the cat. It’s funny to think that both the cat and girl on this album cover are dead now.

This is a novelty record of double entendre songs. Check out these titles. I especially like the song about Tony’s hot nuts.

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9) Georges Montalba – Fantasy in Pipe Organ and Percussion

This record was released several times under different titles and with varying cover art. Georges Montalba was a common pseudonym used by organists, but on Fantasy in Pipe Organ and Percussion it’s being used by Anton Szandor LaVey, the late and dearly missed leader of the Church of Satan. You can even read an article full of factual errors about this at the Village Voice website.

The music is frantic and then serene. Haunting and haunted at the same time. It mostly features the pipe organ with some skeleton dance xylophones and large and ancient sounding timpani drums. Crashes of noise give way to music that starts out melodic before growing and growing until it is pure tribal rhythm. You listen to this record and think, “God, the path of the virtuous is dull. I want to live in Anton Lavey’s world of false identies, orgies and pranks.” Evil was never so appealing or beautiful as it is on this record. If you saw Crispin Glover’s movie “What Is It?” you heard Lavey’s music over the closing credits. This isn’t a novelty record and this isn’t a John Wayne Gacey painting. This is one of the great uncelebrated albums.

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8) The Rolling Stones – Their Satanic Majesties Request

This is my favorite Rolling Stones album by far. Most of their stuff from before the eighties is either life changing or entertaining but this…This…This is something else altogether. That title and cover alone are amazing. This is an original pressing with the lenticular cover art that looks three dimensional, Mick and Kieth and their pals dressed as wizards in a kingdom on another planet. Musically this is the most experimental and weirdest that the Stones ever got and a lot of people really hate this thing. This album and Frank Zappa seem to divide rock nerds a lot. I like both. She’s a Rainbow is beautiful. In Another Land is a weird one that I DJ more than any other Stones song.

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7) Village People – Renaissace

This is another one of those records that every record store clerk owns or has owned at some point. It’s the Village People’s punk album. That’s why they are looking so New Wave on the cover. The entire album sucks except for the final song, “Food Fight” which is a triumph of pop joy. It starts with someone yelling “Food Figghhhhhhhhhht!!!” and then a poppy riff about starting a food fight happens. According to Wikipedia a lot of folks consider this to be the worst album cover of all time.

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6) Livefastdie - Got Nitedo 7″

I treasure all of my Livefastdie records but this one was especially neat since they hand cut and colored these little pieces of paper to look like NES cartridge sleeves and then slipped them in with the cover art. These guys were heralds of what was to come and they never made a bad song. “Got Nitedo” is a song about how Camero’s friend came into school on Monday with his arm in a sling because he’d spent the entire weekend playing Kid Icarus nonstop and gave himself tendinitis.

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(more…)

Anyone that knows me, knows that I buy a lot of crap off of eBay. I have really curbed my spending habits this year, but I was still able to get some pretty cool stuff. I’ve kept the titles as they appeared on eBay for each item and tried to post the actual auction photos from eBay where I could. But ever since eBay has implemented a better photo upload system most of the photos are small and suck.

These are in no particular order, they’re just my favorites over the year.

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10) VINTAGE SPOOK MAGIC MONSTER SHOW SKULL MASK ADVERTISING

I paid way too much for this sign, which could also double as a mask, but I had to have it. It’s a pretty cool vintage relic for a spook show. Spooky.

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9) VINTAGE MYSTERY FUN HOUSE ORLANDO FL STICKER & BROCHURE

I grew up in Central Florida. Anyone else who grew up there around my age has probably been to Mystery Fun House. I remember going for the first time back in 1985 and being scared out of my mind. This is just one of those sorts of attractions that no words could ever do justice, which sadly closed down many years ago.

When I was digging through a bunch of old floppy discs, I found one that contained a ton of photos that I took while visiting Mystery Fun House. You can check it out on my flickr. This sticker and brochure are gold to me.

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8) Vintage Madballs Green Claw Monster- Mad Balls-Mad Ball

I bought a lot of Madballs this year. Mostly bootleg ones. This is one of my favorites of all time! I call this one the Lamour Supreme Bootleg. I actually put in a bid of $150 to ensure I won this beauty. Luckily, it only sold for around $30.

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7) Vintage Madballs Hanging Eye! Mad Ball – Madball

Here is yet another pretty amazing bootleg Madballs piece I got. There is a flesh colored skeleton hand pulling an eyeball out of the head’s eye socket. It’s so gross!

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6) Vintage 1980’s Clip Toys LOT Alf E.T. Smurfs Garfield

These fall into the category of “Hey! remember those things?!” My friend forwarded me this auction because he knew how much I liked bootleg E.T. items. Good find!

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(more…)

I think  I’m as much a fan of “V” as any other kid who grew up in the 80s. I’m no fanatic, but I am def stoked on the remake that premiered last night on ABC. (I actually haven’t seen it yet, but was excited by the notion of a remake.)

Back in college I decided to start collecting “V” memorabilia amongst all of the other crap that I already collected. There wasn’t too much of it out there, so I would pretty much buy whatever I found. I got this cap gun back around 1997 at an FX Collectible Shows. At the time I think I paid around $30 for it. I haven’t really researched it on eBay much after the fact to see if I got a good deal or not, but I think these are still pretty rare.

This is the little creep that started it all! Started what? I am not really sure, but it started something.

I first saw this little guy at a flea market in Orlando. My good friend Chris Brennan bought it from this dude for $5. I think we were pretty amazed at how bootleg it was. While obviously a bootleg ET, we liked the fact that they went so far to name it “SPACE FRIEND” I found my mine years later off eBay. I think I paid around $10 with shipping.

That is all it says on the header card. Not “Made in China”, no manufacturer, no Copyright… Just SPACE FRIEND.

So here he is, my little Space Friend. I love you Space Friend.

I can’t remember when I first found out about Hugo The Man of a Thousand Faces, but Hugo was definitely before my time. Produced by Kenner in 1975, Hugo has to be one of the weirdest toys that I own.

Hugo is basically this half doll/half puppet that comes with a lot of weird accessories such as: scars, wigs, appendages, and other growths to turn him into Hugo, Man of a Thousand Faces.

One thing I do know about Hugo is that he’s really difficult to find complete in a box, and if found, he isn’t going to be cheap. I have seen Hugos go over $200 on eBay, but I was lucky enough to score this guy elsewhere.

While in college, I would frequent a particular Orlando Goodwill. It was a  huge store that even had a Goodwill discount center next to it. I know, weird right? A discount portion of Goodwill?! Anyway, I found Hugo sitting on this shelf there one day for just 50 cents! I even kept the price tag on it for all of these years as proof. Haha.

I think you are supposed to use spirit gum or something to attach all the scars and such, but I used a bit of sticky tact. Spooky!

I think my favorite part of the box is the examples of Hugo’s many faces. Each one making him look like a creepier serial killer.

Fun Hugo Fact: Hugo was used as a prop on the Pee-Wee Herman show. Which is funny considering that the Hugo’s disuise  in the top right corner of the packaging looks a lot like Mickey’s disguise from Pee-Wee’s big adventure. The color of the shirt and everything! Am I right?!

I bought this little bad boy when I was working at this pop-culture store called POPULUXE in Orlando, Florida. I sort of freaked out when my boss Brian had brought it in. Years earlier, I found this little rubber alien toy at a flea market. I had no idea what it was, I just knew it was badass! After seeing the illustration, I knew exactly what I had, a loose Ooze-It! (I can’t find the loose version, I think he might be over at 350 Broadway in the display case)

Patent Pending, eh? I wonder if the Ooze-It Corporation ever go the patent for a little rubber alien dude that when you squeeze him slime comes out of his multiple orifices. I wonder?

Mine is sealed, but boy do I wish I could open this lil creep, fill him up with toxic slime, and watch him ooze!

“Ooze compound sticks to hair, rugs, and fabric” Oops…

You might recognize Rude Ralph as a prop in our Summer 09 Lookbook.

Rude Ralph is a oversized madball knock-off from the 80s. Yank Ralph’s eyeball he makes 4 rude noises! I think I have about 3 of these bad boys but I finally found one (MINT IN PACKAGE, MINT IN BOX, NEVER REMOVED FROM BOX, NEW OLD STOCK, and MINT IN MINT BOX). I was so stoked to get this, even though for the most part, the packaging is mad bobo (whats up with font!?), there are some notables!

Look at this sick illustration of this lil creep playing with Rude Ralph! What is that jacket he is wearing? Some sort of hockey team jacket!? Of course he is!

Then on the back you have the ill photo of the RUDE RALPH PROTOTYPE! Even the eyeball is different! If anyone has the prototype or any information on how to find it, I want!$!$!$!$