things that I collect, things that I make and things that I like.
I just ran across these two photos while putting away some postcards I had bought this weekend. It got me thinking about all the things that went on in the parking lots of shopping centers in the past like pony rides. These photos are from 1967 and really transport be back to my childhood. I remember all the hours spent looking at the toys and junk and the Gilbert Five and Dime and going to the Rancho market to buy comics for 20 cents.
With the great project of Fantagraphics reprinting all the Peanuts strips, I thought I would pull out some of my Peanuts items. My favorite Peanuts item is the Fort Worth Press newspaper carriers bag. I have a friend who had one hanging in his garage for years and I always coveted it. So when one showed up in an auction I could not resist buying it.
A couple years earlier, I had bought a couple of newsstand signs with Linus on them. I love the great image of Linus holding the flower and he was the character I always related to as a kid.
Next up are a series of signs for Dolly Madison and some wrappers from various Peanuts baked products. Schultz did not license out the characters a whole lot so finding vintage Peanuts product items is not an easy task. I am still looking for that cello Razzys package with Lucy on it. Someday....
In one of many endless debates about what makes good art, I have found that some old school Graffiti artists are calling into question the validity of the new breed of Urban Sticker/Stencil artists.
"90% of the stickers we see are pointless (and no, thatÂ’s not a good enough point.). Most of the time, they look like ads." say the pundits at streetartblows.com. So they have a campaign of stickers (notice the irony in that) proclaiming "Keep your art to yourself next time."
On their website they talk about how "street art has become the annoying little brother to graffiti" and how "designing a poster or a sticker with your image on (sic), having 500 made and putting them up is not a challenge......quit stepping on graffitiÂ’s toes, there are new challenges and new directions you can to go in."
It all seems like a lot of over analyzation of a bunch of kids bucking the system and doing things to have fun (although illegal). Graffiti didn't start out as an artform and to try to regulate good and bad on the street seems a little silly.
Just a little over 2 weeks until the Comic Con International in San Diego. As a kid my dad would drive me down there so I could buy comics, now I have my own booth with my Mr Toast comics & stuff. It feels like things have come full circle. Still have some stuff to finish up including a bit more touch up on this banner I made over the weekend.
In the 1960's and early 70's, General Mills sponsered a bunch of cartoons including King Leonardo, Tennessee Tuxedo & the Go Go Gophers, Rocky & Bullwinkle, Underdog, Hoppity Hooper and the Space Kidettes. While it would have been amazing to see a giant image of Bullwinkle on the front of Cheerios, he still made some great appearances on the backs of those boxes. So here is a gallery of some of those classic box back appearances.
A couple years ago, I was lucky enough to get a collection of concept artwork that included a lot of stuff done for Post cereal. I have posted some of this stuff before, but todays post is about a cereal that was never produced, Fantasic Frosties. In the mid 1960's, just as Marvel superheros like Spiderman were energizing the imaginations of kids, these concepts drawings were done. In the files with the art were some pages torn out of comics with poses circled. It is too bad the cereal was never made, it would have been pretty amazing.
Co-author of Krazy Kids Food, Taschen 2003.
