Super-Fun-Pak Comix, feat. Chekhov's Gum, et al

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Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/07/10/super-fun-pak-comix-feat-che.html

Tom the Dancing Bug, IN WHICH Super-Fun-Pak Comix features Kafkaesque Nightmare, Good Cop / Better Cop / Best Cop, and more!

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This one wins the “Extremely Depressing Sidebar” award of July.

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“Pimple on picture day”

Roger That!

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will they know when we cut-out and Burn that sidebar?

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Freedom Sidebar?

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Chekhov’s Gum… what flavour is it? Cherry?
I bet it’s cherry.

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Curious-- did anyone here actually go for one of those “Hey Kids, Win Prizes” ads that were in comic books? Like, do you know anyone who sold “Grit” or seed packets so they could get the walkie talkies, inflatable boat, or 5-speed-stick-shift-banana-seat-bike?

grit

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there was a kid in the grade ahead of me that sold the seeds. he had a family network he used to amplify his sales program. it was pretty amazing. a couple of kids tried it a couple of years later because they watched the first guy earn an electric guitar with an amplifier the first year and a bike the next year. they didn’t sell shit because they didn’t know how hard he worked his family to get sales.

that kid grew up to become an investment banker for aig.

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Sidebar is brill!
Chris Ware’s ACME Novelty Library books are full of that kind of stuff:
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So much for that electric guitar.

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Roger That!

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Cut out, but no need to send… we’ll know. (chef’s kiss)

Hadn’t seen those old back of the mag ads in ages. Can’t tell you how many hours I spent dreaming about all the cool stuff those old pyramid schemes used as bait… good times. And the typography!

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Bolling’s a GENIUS

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I suspect that latter ad is for American Seed Company since their address is only about an hour outside Lancaster PA. I wonder what would happen if you printed out that ad, filled it in, and sent it to either that original address or the one in Spring Grove?

For that first ad, the company was sold a couple times so the address in Williamsport is probably no longer active, but what if you sent that to their new address in Topeka, KS?

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My first thought was of David Graeber

I would not presume to tell someone who is convinced they are making a meaningful contribution to the world that, really, they are not. But what about those people who are themselves convinced their jobs are meaningless? Not long ago I got back in touch with a school friend who I hadn’t seen since I was 12. I was amazed to discover that in the interim, he had become first a poet, then the front man in an indie rock band. I’d heard some of his songs on the radio having no idea the singer was someone I actually knew. He was obviously brilliant, innovative, and his work had unquestionably brightened and improved the lives of people all over the world. Yet, after a couple of unsuccessful albums, he’d lost his contract, and plagued with debts and a newborn daughter, ended up, as he put it, ‘taking the default choice of so many directionless folk: law school.’ Now he’s a corporate lawyer working in a prominent New York firm. He was the first to admit that his job was utterly meaningless, contributed nothing to the world, and, in his own estimation, should not really exist.

On The Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs

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That sidebar gave me my first real laugh of the day. Simply dedicate your life to the hegemony and we’ll dole out meaningless trinkets until the day your calcified heart stops beating!

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Chekhov’s Character Arc.

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This is the end point:

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We had assemblies at my elementary school where these companies would sign us all up to sell wrapping paper or some other garbage. I’m not even sure it was voluntary, it never occurred to me to opt out. All I remember winning were little collectible bullshit characters, like little finger puppets or something. Somehow it became a manufactured fad to try to win them all.

I was at the most depressing, dark, angrily religious wedding in Virginia once for a friend of my wife’s, and during the reception the tipsy dad (who had bought the rights to control the tone of the wedding by paying for the entire event) was doing “meet and greet” and asked my wife and I what we do. We said “We’re freelance web designers.” With a bit of courage (which had soured to “asshole”) in him from the open bar he said “oh yeah, and how does that contribute anything to the world?” He’s a corporate lawyer. We were pretty stunned at the ambush, and it’s one of my lingering regrets that I couldn’t even get out “Aren’t you a corporate lawyer?”

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I never did because I’d read:

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Well, not as a kid, exactly.

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