Does anybody still read Archie comics? Are they still making NEW Archie comics or are they reprinting the old ones in another "digest". Last time I saw they were still making Archie comics I was at a Borders superstore and it was a mini magazine in a giant stack of magazine debris on a table in their "Seattle's Best" coffee shop. I never understood why they allowed that to happen. It wasn't a library. They expected you to BUY what you are reading and getting stained with your double latte mocha fappisneezeass chimo and getting crumbs with your nutcheese danish, No, most Borders had stacks of books and magazines laying there as if nobody cared. Hmmm. Maybe part of the reason why they don't exist anymore?

So, If you read any Archie digest in the past few years, they would always name the short jokey features with some quick rhyming title. "Hooker Looker" or "Incontinence Matt Cat" or "Antidisestablishmentarianism Jizzm" . It was all fun to see what that wacky Jughead was up too. Yeah, I know, there was Hot Dog. Yes I know he had his own comic book series that I bought when his magic house turned Archie into a dog. Yes, I know I was a sucker for such shenanigans. Meanwhile, what the hell is this?

OH! Toilet Paper! It looks like the stuff you get at turnpike rest stops and gas stations and stadiums. Cheap, does what it's intended for, and you can clog a toilet with it with one mighty beefsteak. Nah. Why would they need to run ink at the end of the roll to let you know your roll is almost out? In most public rest rooms, to pardon the pun, you were S*IT OUT OF LUCK if you ran out during a particularly messy Taco Bell visit. You scrounged around for the sports page or better yet, used the sink as a bidet. I never did that. Really.

So here was the paper I had just mentioned in my last blog. It was printer plotter paper for Radio Shack's CGP-115 Printer Plotter. It used the exact same size of paper that Atari released for their computers. It was a little printer that actually DREW each word out with tiny little pens. If you wanted to print a "document", it would take forever... I'd imagine these were used as point of sale printers as that seems like all they were good for. Yes, you could make doodles and other crap, and I'd imagine now, with backwards technology, somebody somewhere has a way to make these print pictures. Wanna look? Alls I found was it's the Atari 1020 and it looks like it prints out a fancy Spirograph. It was more fun with a ballpoint pen and those plastic gear rings that somehow all got lost like Lite Brite pegs. Wow. Dating myself. Moving on.

Wow! Value priced! It doesn't seem like much but to someone who was famous for "dime's worth of gas up his ass"  when I was working for 3.35 an hour and couldn't take one of my co-workers home in a snow storm because I didn't have the gas money...it was a lot. Yes, I know. You've got to be kidding right? Well, my Monza got about 25 miles to the gallon....but I was rich enough to do doughnuts in the parking lot the next morning on a snow covered lot... The sins of the past. 4.95 for a box of paper? Yes, this was an investment for me.  I had to miss a late night salad or decadence dessert at a participating Dennys or two boxes of Mister Doughnut doughnut holes which could be left in a frozen Cleveland winter's Monza back seat and taste OH SO GOOD with all that FROSTING! I think this was just before I got the CD habit and started wasting my ka$h on the "Boing Boom Tschak"

  I was a HIPSTER even at 16 years old man. Hey man, I was like COOL man. Driving around in a "little brown nugget" with no tailpipe and lots of McD's wrappers in the back seat and aforementioned Mister Doughnut hole boxes. I was "one cool dood."  Mr. Fat Hanz is showing some of Mr. Gross Arm Hair to get all you female viewers hot and disgusted.  Since I had bought these, I just set them on my desk because the box was heavy. So, I made it into a "The Writer Is IN" or "The Writer Is Out" or "The Writer Is Away" or "The Writer is giving himself way too much credit for calling himself a writer and he's really a dumbass for putting a sign like this up because nobody but himself will see it. " Yeah, the stuff we did before the internet. In a few days it will be my 20th year on the net. "Mommas don't let your babies grow up using smartphones..." Oh, too late. It's funny that I still have these and the sign is still in tact. Like I'd ever get through all this paper? Like there was a market for a time for worthless accessory printer plotters? Like, really man. *cues TRUCKIN and packs a SHHHH Check it!*

And in the grand tradition of this junk blog, aiming to talk about one thing but digressing into another, here's the "Writer Biter" or "Blogger Vagina" or "Alternative Taco Bell Paper" I talked about. Yes, one of the many Archie comics spin offs, the short lived "Jughead's Pal Hot Dog". Imagine a nard like me going into "Collectors Warehouse and Poster Pit" at the corner of Ridge and Pearl in PARMA looking for the latest "Married With Children" issue and stumbling across this in the comic book stand.  OMIGOSH! Became part of the lexicon! The weird ray turned Arch and Reggie into pooches that looked like their human counterparts! Wow. They also grew collars! Amazing that ray!  A dog with a Reggie pompadour! Meanwhile DOGS into HUMANS! Mysteriously Hot Dog's friend didn't change with his collar. Does anybody care? Hot Dog has albino hair. See, the "RAY" made it happen so Archie and Reggie would be legal and that the DOGS see, knew how to speak the queens English! OMIGOSH! Add a few more pounds and a few more years and the human Hot Dog bears a sticking resemblance to.... SHHHHHH! *check it* (Thanks Beastie Boys.)  

GET SOME!!!!!!!!

......yah. 

 

Just like Columbo, "Just One More Thing Sir..." I'm sure if you're interested in seeing this exciting comic book for yourself, you can go to a collectors blah blah blah and blah blah. "Hart Doug. Er.. Doug Hartley" Gee, maybe if I wore a collar I'd have Betty come over and introduce herself to me and think I'm the cute bashful tongue tied type. Not a chance. Ahhh, the simplicity of Riverdale.  If you read comics, no doubt you wanted to draw them so you sent in your drawing to one of these mail order schools. This was in comic books for years. They also had pamphlets they gave away in supermarkets. I never hoped to draw "Cubby." I did however get "Tipsy" many times in my youth. Hey! I wonder if the Pirate was an inspiration for Johnny Depp? It looks like his nasal passage could hold many doubloons. No, I didn't have any hope of drawing back but I was just as stupid as the next Hart Doug so I enrolled in a mail order writing course. They sent me a book called "Writing for Children" which made the point of taking a course MOOT. It had all the instruction I needed.  Plus, my "instructor" didn't send back an assignment for six months and by that time I was writing every day on my first "Hack" radio gig on WBWC. OMIGOSH! Like what time is it man? *Koo Koo Koo Koo Ka Chew*

-Ric