THE GOBLIN NEWSLETTER 22

Some things just shine out as right. Strategy, tactics, planning aren’t involved. These things are brought about by pure gut instinct. These things should be matched with other pragmatic elements to go with, so that you & others aren’t relying on these flights of fancy, but you should also make room for these risks because you never know. Risks are necessary. Back when we lived in Eugene, I bought a sticker vending machine from the VFW hall. This machine was priced absurdly cheap, so I had to get it. Compelled. The machine sat unused in our mudroom for a year before I realized that I could make cards for them! I caught non-sport cards mania hard back then. I was able to find lots of original Garbage Pail Kids cards for cheap. Garbage Pail Kids had been relaunched in 2003 & I was ready to start re-embracing that kind of goofy, sick humor again in 2005 or so. After a co-worker offhandedly compared my work to the cards & I didn’t disagree, having decided that comparison was okay with me at that point. The stars were aligning for me. I was the first kid in school to get Garbage Pail Kids back in 1985. Garbage Pail Kids spoke directly to me in a way that the novelty music of the Dr. Demento show & the softball humor of MAD Magazine failed to, they were more of a pointed attack. They hit harder & there was a visceral feel to the art that hit me. I wasn’t aware of the connection of Garbage Pail Kids to Underground Comix & Art Spiegelman wasn’t on my radar at that point. My general outlook when I was nine was that the world was dumb & everything needed lampooning to be taken down a few notches. The world is still dumb, but I don’t have a problem with that, the world is dumb & very complicated. So I started to make cards, this coincided with me just drawing more & not being precious about my art. I was more interested in releasing a lot of work. I went back to the VFW hall to see if they had more vending machines, they did! They had a lot of them. I started getting local businesses to host the machines & when I opened up another spot I would go & buy another machine. I eventually had six machines & was making cards & stickers for them constantly. It was good, I had a seemingly endless pile of quarters. Lots of people were collecting the cards & sticking up my stickers for me. It was especially fun to see this in the relatively small goldfish bowl of Eugene, Oregon. This happened because I was open to it happening.