Naming The Dead

For awhile The Electric Company magazine had a feature like this where every month they'd print the names of some random subscribers on a coloring page near the back of the issue. Every month I'd get my little hopes up that this would be the month when I'd find my name listed among the lucky, famous few and every month I'd get those little hopes dashed upon the rocks of continued anonymity. But I'd always fight through the pain and color the page anyway. What a trooper I was!

We Interrupt This Hallowe'en Countdown For A Special Columbus Day Bonus Post

The Word Of The Day

Random Witch #1

Cemetery Cats

And that right there was the entire Hallowe'en content of this October issue of Cricket magazine. But here's a bonus Wanda/Waldo page-

And the cover is pretty awesome even if the interior is not. All in all it seems like the Hallowe'eny-ness of this issue was kind of an afterthought.

Hope you did a better job in '82, Cricket magazine!

Paper Bats

Well, I'm just getting this one out of the way first thing...

I have a folder in My Documents where I store any seasonal-type scans I think might make for an interesting post when the right time of the year comes around and this little paper bat mobile has been in there for awhile now. I passed it over during the last two Countdowns because I just didn't think it was interesting enough to post, but now I'm kind of tired of seeing it every time I open up that folder so here it is making its long awaited Plastic Pumpkins Hallowe'en Countdown debut.

It's not terribly awful as far as paper bats go. It serves its function well. If you were looking to cut a paper bat out of a magazine and hang it from your ceiling by a strand of thread then there's nothing about this bat that will make you regret choosing it over all other paper bats. It's just not very interesting visually speaking. It's black and white and the illustration isn't particularly inspired. But it's a paper bat and it's Hallowe'eny and maybe someone out there will print this page out and think of something really awesome to do with it and that will make the whole thing worthwhile.

And now I'm off to have a small, private ceremony to mark the final deletion of this file from my computer.

Here's Waldo

In my vision of a perfect world I have a room in my house lined with filing cabinets all filled with the books and magazines and toys and whatnots that I want to scan and photo and one day post on this blog. They are all alphabetized and cross-referenced and indexed on some amazing computer program that will tell me exactly which page of which issue of which magazine had that article on chisenbop that I wanted to scan for 'National Nice Try Anyway Day' and in which drawer of which filing cabinet I can find that magazine. That way, when I promise someone that I'll do a post of Waldo Widdershin comics from Cricket magazine, than I can post all fifty-something Waldo Widdershin comics in my possession in one glorious and thorough Waldo Widdershin mega-post that will become the definitive go-to post on Waldo Widdershin in all of the internetdom.

In real life I have various piles of junk stored in various unmarked containers scattered throughout various rooms, closets, sheds and storage buildings. In real life I have to make do with posting the four Waldo Widdershin comics that were closest to the tops of innumerable heaps of paper goods. But I promise to post more as they rise to the surface...

Clown School

Cricket Crossing

Waving Goodbye To Summer

Oh, how I hate this time of year....

A week now the kids have been back in school. A week! If school had started before Labor Day back when I was a kid, it would have been my cold, dead body that they would have been busing to classes every morning. Summer is not a thing that I let go of easily. The sweat-drenched brow, the insect bites, the sunburns, the grass stains all over your brand new pants from rolling around on the freshly-mowed lawn. I wear these things like an Eagle Scout wears his badge-covered sash... only I skip the matching kerchief and the khaki-colored knee socks.

Oh, summer! I can't believe that you are almost over! I hardly knew ye and now ye are gone! What happened to all those hazy, humid summer days that I was planning to pass lazing idly by a gently flowing river or driving down some unexplored back road with the windows rolled down and the car full of dust? Well, I know what happened to those days actually... I spent them sleeping late and watching TV in the AC. But, I thought I had more time!

Oh, summer! Here's a little hymn in your honor-

-it's kind of crap, but it was from 1956 so what can you expect.

Oh, summer! You deserved a better hymn than that! I would write one for you myself, but last night's episode of True Blood is waiting for me on the Tivo so I just don't have the time.

Here's another song for you summer. It's a goodbye song written by some ungrateful little nerdliac who actually cannot wait for school to begin. I hope he got beaten up real good on his first day back-

That's all the songs I have for you summer. Starting tomorrow I'll begin a week long series of 'Back to School' related posts, but only because I have to and not because I want to. You'll always be in my heart summer. Except for during the month of October when I give my heart over to Hallowe'en, but up until then and then picking back up again right afterwards you will always be in my heart.

Oh, summer!! Why did you have to go and get all brown and mushy!?!

A Summer Full Of Weeks

Was I the only one who completely geeked out (and don't tell me, because I know that I am the only one who completely geeked out) on 'Weekly Reader' day? I loved 'Weekly Reader' day! Nothing made a school day brighter than filing into that bleak little concrete square of a schoolroom and seeing a fresh new pile of 'Weekly Readers' just sitting on the corner of the teacher's desk all shrink-wrapped and ready to inform and entertain. I was not the kid who would raise his hand and remind the teacher that she had forgotten to give out homework that day but I was the kid who would stay pinned in his desk until the 'Weekly Readers' were handed out... recess bell be damned!

And as true and eternal as my love for 'Weekly Reader' was there was one thing that was even better... 'Summer Weekly Reader!' Don't tell me because I don't want to know... was I the only kid to whom summer meant just two thing- amusement parks and 'Summer Weekly Reader?' I know I was more often than not the only kid in my class who admitted to subscribing to 'Summer Weekly Reader' on a yearly basis. I don't care if it did seem to others as if 'Summer Weekly Reader' would bring along with it the slightest taint of chalk dust and book-learning to blight a summer that was meant to pass with as few school-based thoughts as possible... I loved this Saturday morning infused cousin of the slightly more somber 'Weekly Reader.' I loved it so much that I saved onto my copies for over thirty years. Am I the only one who geeked out over 'Summer Weekly Reader' so severely that he still has them in his possession three decades after they first showed up in his mailbox?

Don't tell me... I don't want to know!

Egg Cream

I was originally going to clean this scan up a bit, but taking a look at it you can see that would have been several days work and I have a hard enough time updating this blog during the sweat-dampened days of Summer so forget that idea. Besides, I think half of the charm of this cover lies in how well-worn it really is.

Hello, Spring!

Lucky

16. Activity Time!

Don't let the unnecessarily complicated directions deter you... once you've gotten a handle on the whole "toward you, away from you" thing then these paper robots and space thingies are easy to make.

I expect dioramas, people!

6. Drawing Time!

Make a face on that banana. Do it! Use a Sharpie.

The Night Before

Electric Christmas

Christmas Surprise

Christmas Bummers