Thursday, August 22, 2013

Old Comic Book Ads

I sketched out the poster of an American Seed advertisement from one of Danny's old comic books, including the pictures of the kids who (supposedly) sold the packets. I'm not entirely convinced, "Chipper" ever existed, but if he did, he has a pretty good story to tell his kids. He was the face of those damn seeds for years. What really struck me, copying it out, was how wordy the ads were. I mean, sure you have a child's attention so you want to make your selling points loud and clear-but it just goes on, and on. You could miss an entire planting season by the time you finished reading the copy.

Drawing the prizes was fun. Croquet sets, a portable typewriter, model rockets, a cassette recorder-I feel so old. I was never tempted to go into business selling merchandise advertised in the pages of comic books, but I think I'd have preferred the cash rather than prizes. You know the bikes were probably not Schwinn, so why bother? You couldn't be cool on a Huffy (well, I couldn't).

I don't know if I'll do any more ads. I have one more Woody Woodpecker cover sketched out and ready to be coloured, though I'm not sure if I'll tackle that tomorrow after oral surgery. It depends how good the pain meds are. I'm really not looking forward to this as my jaw is really messed-up, but I have no choice. I have the first appointment at 7:30 AM. I hope the surgeon is a morning person.

I'm still not sure what to do with the windows in kiddo's room. Danny's allergies are such that I'd prefer to avoid curtains, valances, etc. and just leave the blinds as they are. I wondered if instead of a valance, if I could make something out of foam board, cut it to look scalloped like a curtain, and then affix it to a curtain rod. I have a vague memory of fabric covered stiffened valances that were popular in the 70's. They had to be cleaned, and re-stretched once a year, I think. Does this sound familiar? Then again, maybe I would be better off with a fabric valance I could just pop in the wash once a month. Oh dear, I don't know what to do! I really want him to enjoy his room.

We went to the art store for (more) supplies, and Danny found a gigantic pad of newsprint for something like seven bucks. I let him get it, and he ran that gigantic pad of paper up the stairs as fast as his little legs could carry him to go draw secret maps, and machine inventions. I feel a little stupid for not doing that earlier in the summer, but better late than never, eh?

OK, I'm going to go watch cat videos or something until I can fall asleep.

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