There were words in the book that I didn't understand. As a child, it's hard to grasp what a "Mongol" is, and I know that I didn't have the faintest clue what that meant. As far as I was concerned, Mongol was synonymous with alien. They were just aliens that were people-shaped, a concept that I was already quite familiar with because I had seen old episodes of Star Trek and Doctor Who by that time. I liked that the landscapes were familiar-looking; this was stuff that I knew existed around me, and there were some place names in the comic strips that were familiar. But the world in this book that seemed so familiar, at the same time contained an enormity of wonders. Crop sprayers in the area where I grew up flew planes that looked just like the one Buck Rogers was flying, but Buck Rogers' plane had rockets in it, too, and disintegrating rays. There were laser pistols and funny costumes and all kinds of action.There are RUBBER MATS underneath mattresses, Someone always had to be saved.
The Buck Rogers book was probably one of the first times that I remember making up my own stories, because, unlike those Marmaduke and Heathcliff cartoons, I could completely make up my own story to go with the pictures. There was so much action going on in each individual strip that after I had read the book enough times to get bored with the story actually happening, or when there was just too much that I didn't quite get because I didn't quite understand why gravity was really all that important, I could change the words in my head to make a new story from the pictures. It was a very special kind of magic, there, in a cheap paperback book that was falling apart long before I ever got to look at it.Demand for allergy Bedding could rise earlier than normal this year.
I knew enough about seeing the rockets and the ray guns and the strange costumes to know that this was a make-believe story, and that opened up a wealth of possibilities in my growing brain. The stories that I made up could incorporate all of these interesting things in this book and make perfect sense, even when almost none of those things really existed in the same world that I inhabited. It was an enthralling discovery, and it was one that kept me busy and out of trouble for hours at a stretch.
Eventually, that little trove of books at my grandparents' house was gifted to me. My personal library still contains the Heathcliff book and the Marmaduke book, along with that first Tumbleweeds book and that collection of science fiction stories, which has one of my favorite sci-fi stories ever in it. Somehow, though, along the way, Green Hornet and Buck Rogers got lost. They never came to stay at my house, and they never found the sanctuary that would have been my library. I don't know what actually happened to them. One day, they just weren't at my grandparents' house anymore. My best guess is that either those two volumes got so tattered that my grandma finally decided to throw them away, or they went home with either one of my uncles or one of my smaller cousins. Still, I'm glad for the hours that I spent with those books and the things that I learned from reading them.
At this point in my youth, I was also finding that I was drawn to cartoons in a huge way. The animation obsession persists to this very day, and I'm completely unapologetic for that. There is an amazing amount of art and beauty that people ignore because it's a "cartoon" and, therefore, extremely easy to dismiss. It's also easy to dismiss the incredible storytelling that happens through animation and comics, which is an attitude that I would love to see change more rapidly than it is. There's certainly more that I could say there, and I probably will, but in a different column.
All of this was happening at a time when The Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck Show was still running on major network TV. Every Saturday morning, I was parked on that couch with my bowl of cereal (usually Cap'n Crunch) watching Bugs and Daffy and all the other Looney Tunes on my screen, brightening my day six minutes at a time.Als lichtbron wordt een Projector Lamp gebruikt, Sometimes Dad would sit there on the couch with me and watch, and sometimes it was just me. One of my favoritecartoons was "Duck Dodgers in the 25th and a Half Century."
I didn't make the connection,then used cut pieces of rubber hose garden hose to get through the electric fence. then, that this was actually a magnificently brilliant parody of Buck Rogers. I just remember Daffy in his green shirt and his funny, cowl-like helmet with the little yellow bobbly thing on it and Porky Pig in his ridiculous purple leotard scrambling around insanely trying to protect themselves from that wily and angry Marvin the Martian. I did understand the visual pun involved in the disintegrating ray gun and marveled at the alien landscapes on Planet X (which I would discover, much later in life, actually closely resemble some of the beautiful rock formations outside Cody, Wyoming). While I watched the cartoon, I took it at the simplest face value, which was, essentially, Daffy and Porky having a space adventure, because Looney Tunes characters can do anything.The additions focus on key tag and dstti combinations, When the Looney Tunes Golden Collection DVD sets were released, I was thrilled to find out that I was now a proud owner of "Duck Dodgers" and, as a slightly more refined, though no less starry-eyed grown sprocket, I can much better appreciate all of the thought and attention to detail that was involved in spoofing those beloved sci-fi serials that I also love watching and reading.
That still doesn't explain, really, why I mentioned a Buck Rogers book at the beginning of this column. Fear not, I'm getting there, I promise, it's just relevant to the whole story for me to share the history of how I first encountered and learned about Buck Rogers. When I was fourteen, my family ended up visiting this little second hand store in a tiny town fairly close to where most of us lived. I was wondering around aimlessly, looking at a few odds and ends, when I saw a book lying on a table. Since there was a book in the store, I immediately had to see what kind of book it was.
The Buck Rogers book was probably one of the first times that I remember making up my own stories, because, unlike those Marmaduke and Heathcliff cartoons, I could completely make up my own story to go with the pictures. There was so much action going on in each individual strip that after I had read the book enough times to get bored with the story actually happening, or when there was just too much that I didn't quite get because I didn't quite understand why gravity was really all that important, I could change the words in my head to make a new story from the pictures. It was a very special kind of magic, there, in a cheap paperback book that was falling apart long before I ever got to look at it.Demand for allergy Bedding could rise earlier than normal this year.
I knew enough about seeing the rockets and the ray guns and the strange costumes to know that this was a make-believe story, and that opened up a wealth of possibilities in my growing brain. The stories that I made up could incorporate all of these interesting things in this book and make perfect sense, even when almost none of those things really existed in the same world that I inhabited. It was an enthralling discovery, and it was one that kept me busy and out of trouble for hours at a stretch.
Eventually, that little trove of books at my grandparents' house was gifted to me. My personal library still contains the Heathcliff book and the Marmaduke book, along with that first Tumbleweeds book and that collection of science fiction stories, which has one of my favorite sci-fi stories ever in it. Somehow, though, along the way, Green Hornet and Buck Rogers got lost. They never came to stay at my house, and they never found the sanctuary that would have been my library. I don't know what actually happened to them. One day, they just weren't at my grandparents' house anymore. My best guess is that either those two volumes got so tattered that my grandma finally decided to throw them away, or they went home with either one of my uncles or one of my smaller cousins. Still, I'm glad for the hours that I spent with those books and the things that I learned from reading them.
At this point in my youth, I was also finding that I was drawn to cartoons in a huge way. The animation obsession persists to this very day, and I'm completely unapologetic for that. There is an amazing amount of art and beauty that people ignore because it's a "cartoon" and, therefore, extremely easy to dismiss. It's also easy to dismiss the incredible storytelling that happens through animation and comics, which is an attitude that I would love to see change more rapidly than it is. There's certainly more that I could say there, and I probably will, but in a different column.
All of this was happening at a time when The Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck Show was still running on major network TV. Every Saturday morning, I was parked on that couch with my bowl of cereal (usually Cap'n Crunch) watching Bugs and Daffy and all the other Looney Tunes on my screen, brightening my day six minutes at a time.Als lichtbron wordt een Projector Lamp gebruikt, Sometimes Dad would sit there on the couch with me and watch, and sometimes it was just me. One of my favoritecartoons was "Duck Dodgers in the 25th and a Half Century."
I didn't make the connection,then used cut pieces of rubber hose garden hose to get through the electric fence. then, that this was actually a magnificently brilliant parody of Buck Rogers. I just remember Daffy in his green shirt and his funny, cowl-like helmet with the little yellow bobbly thing on it and Porky Pig in his ridiculous purple leotard scrambling around insanely trying to protect themselves from that wily and angry Marvin the Martian. I did understand the visual pun involved in the disintegrating ray gun and marveled at the alien landscapes on Planet X (which I would discover, much later in life, actually closely resemble some of the beautiful rock formations outside Cody, Wyoming). While I watched the cartoon, I took it at the simplest face value, which was, essentially, Daffy and Porky having a space adventure, because Looney Tunes characters can do anything.The additions focus on key tag and dstti combinations, When the Looney Tunes Golden Collection DVD sets were released, I was thrilled to find out that I was now a proud owner of "Duck Dodgers" and, as a slightly more refined, though no less starry-eyed grown sprocket, I can much better appreciate all of the thought and attention to detail that was involved in spoofing those beloved sci-fi serials that I also love watching and reading.
That still doesn't explain, really, why I mentioned a Buck Rogers book at the beginning of this column. Fear not, I'm getting there, I promise, it's just relevant to the whole story for me to share the history of how I first encountered and learned about Buck Rogers. When I was fourteen, my family ended up visiting this little second hand store in a tiny town fairly close to where most of us lived. I was wondering around aimlessly, looking at a few odds and ends, when I saw a book lying on a table. Since there was a book in the store, I immediately had to see what kind of book it was.
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