Drawing Some Blanks

"Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery." - said Pepsi, Lady Gaga and Back to the Future II, each of which followed in the style and taste of their immediate predecessors.

But is there really any value or honor in impersonating or slightly altering an original product's idea? Sure, there is. Yes, it is antithetical to the vision we all have of ourselves as independent thinkers and innovators. But for every E.T. there's a somewhat less charming, yet somewhat entertaining B-movie like Harry and the Hendersons. The world needs cheap knock-offs, to keep things interesting. That's the mission statement behind the "original" Syfy channel movies.

For every gross original Hydrox cookie in America, there is a more delicious Double-Stuf Easter color Oreo cookie for us to pile into our mouth-holes by the bag-full. With all this in mind, I thought I would recreate create my own versions of some of the most popular video games of all time.

Editors Note: In the interest of journalistic integrity, I will admit to my actual reasoning behind these drawings. I had started to get too confident in my abilities to draw cartoons while looking at the actual cartoon characters on my computer screen. Therefore, I decided to challenge myself because I am a verifiable moron and thought I could succeed. I did not succeed....Instead I ended up with a few of my worst efforts in the world of art. I originally forgot to put ears on one of my video game characters, one of them is still missing an arm, and my continued inability to draw a believable hand is starting to keep me up at night. So I'll lie and say these were my cheap knockoffs of the original, brand-name characters.

Sonic the Humanoid

Sonic the Hedgehog was Sega's answer to Nintendo's Mario. They are similar in the way that Mario performs no plumber-ly duties in his game, and Sonic does nothing I have ever seen a hedgehog do. And I have seen a total of four hedgehogs on Discovery Channel shows! (none of which were blue)

Anyways Sonic attempts to foil his nemesis Dr. Robotnik's plans, while collecting rings and doing other strange things that Wikipedia reminded me about. Here was my recollection of what the old blue hair looked like before googling his image.

As you can see, I remembered Sonic, less as a hedgehog and more of a man with a blue mohawk, irregular sideburns and ski goggles. My failure at drawing the main character of one of my favorite games is a hard enough pill to swallow, but the icing on this crap cake is that I couldn't even draw legitimate circles for the rings above Sonic's head. The pointed ovals that I decided would pass at rings are just pitiful. I'm astounded that I actually stepped back from this drawing at first and said, "Hmmmmm, those rings will pass as circles. Why don't I color them in now and not try and fix them?" It's a good thing I didn't take Intro to Basic Shapes in college because that would have been a tough F to explain on my resume.

A Virtual Game of Catch

To be honest I rigged this one. If I couldn't draw a passable version of PONG, I would hope the person located nearest to me geographically would promptly put down their laptop, drive over to my house, chop both of my hands off and throw them in the nearest toxic-waste river because I clearly wouldn't deserve the gift of opposable thumbs, high-fives and anything else those extremities can do.

All I really did for this one was give it a more fitting name.

Super Mustache Bros.

I'm also very embarrassed of my failure to draw the most famous video game character in the history of video games. I play a fair amount of Mario Kart and have never owned a Cabbage Patch Kid. Yet somewhere between my foggy memory and my seemingly useless fingers, I drew a terrifying skeleton-faced Cabbage Patch lookalike who must have murdered Mario and stolen his outfit.

In all of the sequels and different video game versions of Mario playing sports there have been, I don't think he ever once gave the thumbs up, but I thought it would soften the soulless eyes I drew on him....it didn't. His lopsided eyes and yellow skin will haunt my dreams for eternity. I really don't know why I thought his overalls had the initials MBP (Mario Brothers Plumbing???), and I'm starting to think I likely did that due to a stroke I was having while drawing this picture. Either way I am thinking of writing a letter of apology to the Nintendo Corporation and paying reparations for any damages I have caused them.

Where in the World Is Carmen's Left Arm?

Parents always seem to feel terrible when they forget their children for a moment at the checkout line at Target. And I understand that. They probably should feel bad - forgetting a living, breathing thing, but remembering your bags of Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Kashi bars is pretty awful.

But I'm not a parent, so instead of being responsible for another human's life, I am only responsible for writing clever birthday messages on my friend's Facebook walls and maintaining some common sense.

Despite my forgetfulness, that common sense should include knowing that when drawing Carmen Sandiego I should double-check to make sure I drew both of her arms. My common sense clearly failed me, and I amputated Carmen's left arm in my picture.

Brightside: it should be easier to find out where in the world she is now, as long as I follow the blueprint set forth in The Fugitive with their capture of the one-armed murderer.

Songs for Cheap Knockoffs
- "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap" - AC/DC
- "Cheap Sunglasses" - ZZ Top
- "Cheap and Cheerful" - The Kills
- "Dream Police" - Cheap Trick
- "The First Cut Is the Deepest" - Cat Stevens

The Monster Mash-Up

A mashing together of facial features...

With the seizure-inducing rise in the popularity of EDM (Electronic Dance Music for those unhip to abbreviated music genres), mash-ups have been more prevalent than ever.  Whether it's Girl Talk, Ludachrist, or a group of monsters at a graveyard smash, the recycling and mashing together of two or more tracks has created a genre all its own.  Mashing became mainstream when the style of Run DMC played with Aerosmith's "Walk This Way" creating an entirely new sound, and introduced whole new world of music fans to the horrifying face of Steven Tyler.

As a multi-time listener of "Monster Mash" and one-time video watcher of a Girl Talk song, I couldn't be more qualified to create the perfect mash-up.  But instead of mixing together two songs, I thought my lack of talents would be better suited to mashing together the lyrics of popular songs into the cover art for new fan fiction books based on my takeaway from a few songs.


RAPPERS DELIGHT:

I started off with a rather simple and unimaginative pun about the song that many consider the inaugural rap song.  Most of the lyrics to this song are nonsense when looked at contextually, but they are also a great combination of sounds, syllables, alliteration, and whatever "up jump"-ing the boogie means.  By looking at the novice-ly crafted cover art you would likely imagine the story of this song is all about a vastly asymmetrical man with strange hips learning to jump railroad tracks in clown shoes.  And you'd be exactly right.  After a tragic gift-wrapping-competition accident and steroid scandal at FAO Schwarz left young Wonder Mike with a much larger right leg and hip, he was stuck with a tough choice.   He could resign himself to a life of being ridiculed for his lopsided appearance, or sell his "bodyguards, his two big cars that definitely ain't the wack, his Lincoln Continental and a sun roofed Cadillac" to pay for re-corrective leg and hip surgery.  Before listing all his assets on craigslist, Wonder Mike decided to jump to the beat of the Funkadelic boogie "Hit It And Quit It".  Much to Wonder Mike's delight, he was amazed at the hang-time of his jump.  And he lived happily ever after as the greatest hopper to ever hop in the local train-hopping group The Sugarhill Gang.

VISIONS OF JOHANNA:

Cut to the mother folker of descriptive and random phrases, Bob Dylan.  In "Visions of Johanna," he decides to sing a spattering of non-linear or logically feasible moments that remind him of Johanna, and it results in a classic tune.  But really what they hell?  Did he throw a handful of random adjectives and imagery at the page and call it poetry?  Or are jelly-faced women really sitting around sneezing all day due to ironic Smuckers allergies?  Anyways the visions I ended up with all looked terrifying.  I decided Mona Lisa having the highway blues would translate to a painting of woman wearing sunglasses and smoking a cigarette.  The center of my picture was supposed to depict Johanna playing the harmonica, but what I accidentally drew was a hideous skeleton woman with disappearing legs biting into a brick.  The ghost of electricity howling in the "bones of her face," was interpreted by me to mean a frumpy ghost that comes out of an electrical socket.  And my "handful of rain" might as well change the lyric to "And Louise's disembodied hand tosses blue skittles, tempting you to defy it."  None of this picture makes any sense, or is good in any way and in fact, the majority of it is horrifying, which is why I added what I apparently thought were believable blood drips.  I've turned this song into an unrelated series of poorly constructed horror images, sounds similar to what I imagine American Horror Story is.

EMPIRE STATE OF MIND:

As you can already tell this cover art is a tale as old as time.  An adolescent Jayson Z (this is his real full name right?), begins to feel certain changes to his body.  Some extra hair here and there, a deepening voice, and the explosion of New York City items and icons growing out of his skull each time he lists one of the 99 problems he has in his life.  It started off relatively normal with the growth of a Yankees hat (whose logo was clearly forgotten by the artist) and a street sign for State St. (the location of his described "stashbox").  But the trouble began with the Empire State Building flare-up.  Suddenly, doorways and low ceilings became impossible for young Jayson to traverse.  Depression soon set in for Mr. Z, as his reputation as a freak and pariah grew similarly isolated like his newfound hero the Elephant Man.  One afternoon after agreeing with a colleagues complaint about more money typically equalling more problems, Jayson grew a troubling tombstone out of his head.  The tombstone referenced reggae legend Bob Marley, whom Jayson's family tried explaining was born and buried in Jamaica, not New York rendering his skull growth more inexplicable.  Tragically, this revelation blew Jayson Z's mind, and he was pronounced dead 13 seconds later.

SUPER BOWL SHUFFLE ft. SAMURAI MIKE:

A 60-foot tall middle linebacker by day, and a hyper-violent Samurai by night - stopping offenses and villains cold.  He didn't come here looking for trouble, but he's sure to put an end to it.  The graphic novel based on a Mike Singletary line from "Super Bowl Shuffle" will be available in paperback and hardcover this summer.

Non Mash-up Songs to Mash-up to:

- "Hit It and Quit It" - Funkadelic
- "Monster Mash" - Bobby "Boris" Pickett
- "Suicide Is Painless" - Johnny Mandel
- "The Difference Between Us" - The Dead Weather

Let It Blow

Now that we've finally escaped the polar express vortex, and the snow (at least here in St. Louis) has melted, it seemed like a fine time to commemorate the recent blizzard with some paper snowflakes.  I remember vaguely creating this staple of craftery back in grade school, and knew it would require folding some paper and making some precise scissor cuts.  The thing is I have no memory of how to fold the paper and where to cut.  I thought it would make for a much more interesting post by chronicling my guesses at this process.  And since no two snowflakes are the same, I couldn't fail I did my best to resemble something snowflake-ish.

My first attempt I folded my paper slightly and made cuts into the paper in shapes I thought might come across as a version of frozen sky precipitation.  Obviously, this did not work.  I cut a vague shape out of the paper without completing any cuts, as to avoid catastrophic results.  Calling this haphazard and unfinished try a snowflake is comparable to telling old friends at your high school reunion you are currently applying to med schools when all you have done, medically speaking, recently was look up hangover cures on Webmd.  This attempt shows that I had absolutely no confidence or belief that I could make a craft routinely accomplished by toddlers.  Lesson Learned from first attempt: Finish what you started, whether that's paper snowflakes, a real estate license test, or a booze cruise tour of your local water treatment facility.

I folded this one differently and with new cuts too!  Annnnnnnd it still looks awful.  Apparently my brain thought cutting arrowheads pointing a couple different ways = snowflake.  Lesson Learned from second attempt: Arrows don't always point in the right direction.  This can be confirmed by any ghost who met their demise in a bow and arrow duel, assuming they enjoyed their actual life over the specter life (note to self- The Specter Life would be a great reality show if I could get an odd couple of some all star ghosts.  I'm looking at you JFK and Dom DeLuise..).

Oh look this one turned out like a terrible, terrible mask that I clearly enjoyed and allowed to distract me too much.  Lesson Learned from attempt three: You should probably give up annnn-SQUIRREL.

I just balled this one up like a snowball, made a few cuts, and called it a day.  The unfolding and reveal showed that a ball of paper doesn't exactly mean snowball which in turn doesn't mean snowflake.  Lessons Learned from attempt four: The meaning of prefixes and the transitive property!  If A doesn't equal B, and B doesn't equal C, maybe you should just go sit and the corner and cry until you can devise a way to complete such a simple craft, and then just look up some pointers online anyways.

Make room the Louvre, my new work of art is on its way!

It's unfair to measure my snowflake against the grade A flakes you can find on the internet.  Standing on it's own, mine kind of looks how it's supposed to - it's fun, it's cute, and it probably even looks good in glasses and suspenders.  But if you pull back and compare it to these snowflake pics I found online, you see that my attempt is the Urkel and these online submissions are the Brad Pitt - George Clooney - Ryan Gosling super love child combo of snowflakes.

It's not even fair looking at these.  No toddler created these, and that should be my fair competition in this craft.

Songs for Making Sweet Sweet Snow 
- "Family Matters Theme Song" - Family Matters (this can be easily confused or substituted with any of    the other T.G.I.F. lineup songs)
- "Cold As Ice" - Foreigner
- "Hazy Shade Of Winter" - Simon & Garfunkel
- "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out" - Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band