From The Archives: My LEGO Pyramid

Somewhere in my teens, I grew bored with LEGOs. I briefly explored abstract creations with the specialized pieces of Technic and Classic Space, and created octahedrons using the classic bricks.

Eventually, I used a 50x50 base plate, and constructed a pyramid with bricks. Using almost every brick I had, I corbelled each brick so that half of each brick was attached to the one below, creating a stair-step angle. I had to calculate which row would have which color to maximize the use of bricks. I only used one cheat: a blue layer needed a brick, and I had to laminate slats to create the needed brick. I soon discovered that each side tended to buckle towards the middle of each side, which necessitated the use of braces along the bottom half of the pyramid.

Since this was a pyramid, I felt that the interior should have some sort of ritualistic purpose, and designed a complex structure inside. However, all that remains of this are some schematics drawn on graph paper. LEGO does offer a digital construction program on their website, and I might reconstruct this digitally.

Once completed, I stored it away in a cabinet with the remains of my other LEGOs. Roughly eight years later, I dusted it off, and wrote a paper for an architectural history class, investigating the use of LEGOs and corbelling techniques. I passed the class... and the original paper awaits rediscovery via Macintosh System 9.

What follows are pictures taken with my Treo cellphone, as I deconstructed the pyramid. Almost very brick is classic, although some were from Classic Space sets.

From the Archives: Buttons

Here are a sample of buttons I have collected up to circa 1994. This is not the complete collection, but just the best. Many were purchased when I was in my hippy rebellious stage in college (purchased from a counter-culture / progressive catalog based in Minnesota). Others were collected from comics shops, others were lying around the house, a few I actually purchased in stores or found at garage sales.

Since then, I have found many more, mostly via science fiction conventions. (The "Watergate" button is an example.)

If you are wondering, the "Mutants for Nuclear Power" button was pristine at one time. The stains are from water damage, not radioactive material. Now that I think of it, a luminescent button with that design would be pretty cool...

From the Archives: Self-Portraits From The Erlangen Comic Salon

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As you saw in the previous post, I attended the Comic Salon in Erlangen, Germany, in 1994. It was my first comicbook convention, and I guess I was a bit uncertain what to expect. As comics events go, this was quite interesting... the city embraced the show with the Lord Mayor having breakfast with many of the guests, the train station had advertising to promote the festival, and there were comics displays in the local bookstore window. 

Wandering around the convention hall, I soon realized that various guests were drawing free sketches for attendees. I quickly departed for the nearest stationery store and purchased a drawing pad. What follows are various self-portraits I commissioned from the guests. Many artists do not regularly draw self-portraits, and most hesitate before drawing. 

Scott McCloud visited Erlangen to promote the German editions of Understanding Comics and Destroy! He was situated up on a mezzanine, and seemed a bit forlorn. 

The next day, I visited him again, and had him draw an abstract version of himself.

This is a pencil sketch of/by Henrik Dorgathen. He won the Max und Moritz Preis for Best German-Language Comics Artist. Space Dog, a story told entirely in icons, had been published the year before, but I was short of funds, and Mr. Dorgathen graciously drew this quick sketch. 

This artist, unfortunately, is lost in my memory. He is German, but that's all I can hypothesize.

This is Hunt Emerson's self-portrait. Mostly unknown in the United States, he is probably best known for his adult humor comics, such as Casanova's Last Stand. 

Finally, we have Neil Gaiman, who is not known for his artwork (although he did create one of the first 24-hour comics). Since this was back in 1994, he was not yet a rock star, and the line, while lengthy, moved quickly. 

Don Rosa, on the other hand, had to hand out tickets for his Duck drawings. Of Will Eisner, Neil Gaiman, and Don Rosa at the Ehapa booth, Don Rosa was the most popular. (Yeah, that was typical of Erlangen.) Joe Kubert was also there, signing archive editions for another publisher, but he was only autographing his books.) The next Salon is in June 2010. I suspect the festival has gotten more popular, although the comics scene in Germany is still a bit nascent.

From the Archives: LEGO "Wir Bauen" Idea Book

Yesterday morning, the grandkids (my nieces and nephew) came over to play.

Being the cool uncle that I am, I excavated my box of LEGO bricks from the basement.

When I was younger, I was a LEGO fanatic, having inherited the toys my three older brothers had outgrown. Every Christmas, I would get one big set (or some smaller ones). For those box-shakers out there, rattling LEGOS have a sound unlike any other! Sure, you know there are LEGOs inside, but what kind? And what are you going to build?

My friends were Space Lego fans (Star Wars influence, circa 1980), so most of my sets are from the early years of that series. (Alpha-1 Rocket Base, Starfleet Voyager (suh-weet)...)

I have lots of the older, traditional bricks (now known as Creator), and used them to build a massive pyramid on a 50x50 base plate. That was my swan song as a child, although I did use that model as the basis of a paper on corbelling for an architectural history class at university.

So, while I was digging around the boxes, I found some older manuals. The following pictures are from a magazine-sized book which was old when I first saw it. I have no idea what the original looks like, but as a kid it was both fascinating to look at and frustrating to contemplate. Here were little dioramas, little Legoland displays I could make, but the pieces were too exotic! (Clear bricks, those rare quarter-column curved pieces, flags!)

The text is German. "Wir bauen" translates to "We build". I love the illustration style, somewhere between photo and illustration. Note that brick edges have been highlighted to help builders decipher brick placement. This document is from the early 1960s, as LEGO entered that market in 1959. Possibly 1964, when instruction manuals were first produced. The staples were lost years ago, so I have arranged the pages thematically.

Enjoy!

From the Archives: Star Trek #7, March 1970

Ah... one of my favorite "bad" comics!

Star Trek #7, published by Western Publishing Company in March 1970. The issue has been collected in Star Trek: The Key Collection, Volume 1, published by Checker Book Publishing Group, LLC. Apparently there are known credits for this story, but I will be charitable and respect their anonymity.

"The Voodoo Planet", a twenty-six page story, involves the Starship Enterprise discovering an exact replica of Earth.

Here we see the Enterprise, as it approaches the planet on Page Two. Note the exhaust from the nacelles. This error is repeated later on the same page, and two pages later, as the ship travels over Paris on Page Four. (Perspective is badly drawn. Either the Enterprise is smaller than the Eiffel Tower, or the Enterprise is far in the distance, and the colorist could not use the limited palette to create a sfumato effect.)

Panels on later pages show the exhaust from the nacelles without color (unlikely to be contrails, as the ship would have no exhaust to create them). Only one panel shows the Enterprise without exhaust. Every other panel uses the exhaust, with speed lines, even though the speed lines would have been sufficient to denote movement.

So, Kirk and Spock beam down to what they think is Paris, only to find it deserted. There, they find a copy of the Eiffel Tower, several feet shorter, and constructed COMPLETELY out of papier-mâché. (Shouldn't they have used plaster of Paris?) Before Spock can theorize how a large 100+ foot tall Eiffel Tower constructed out of glue and paper could support its own weight without collapsing, an mysterious "laser beam-ray" strikes the tower, causing it to collapse. Kirk and Spock flee, barely escaping as the Tower crashes into the papier-mâché buildings which surround the Tower. (Although Google Maps shows that there are few buildings near the Tower, I will ignore this error, as this is a Voodoo Planet, and verisimilitude is not required to achieve the desired effect.)

Soon, news arrives from Earth via "relayed galaxy radio photograph". Not video, PHOTOGRAPH. In the 23rd century. Relayed across light years of distance almost instantaneously. The news? The Eiffel Tower has collapsed in Paris, at "exactly 12:40 P.M."!

Spock glances at his wristwatch chronograph (I guess classic design never changes), and deduces "That was precisely the outer-galaxy time here that the papier-mâché tower toppled on us!" Doctor McCoy conjectures, "Could it be some sort of weird, deep space voodoo I wonder?"

As the Enterprise flies over "Rome", the laser beam appears again, demolishing the Colosseum of Rome! The Enterprise triangulates the source of the laser beam, and rockets (literally, there's exhaust from the nacelles) to a nearby planet. The ship hides in a debris field of space trash and Kirk, Spock, and McCoy beam down for reconnaissance. (No redshirts.) There they find a primitive voodoo tribe (although the natives are only throwing spears at human targets, not actual effigies). The natives are subdued with hand to hand combat (the sound of the phasers would have been too noisy, but fisticuffs aren't?), and the control room of the laser fortress is entered. Before our heroes can subdue the villain, a small button is pressed and... the Sphinx is destroyed!

Kirk and Spock are subdued by voodoo dolls (action figures!) manipulated by the natives, the pain too excruciating to allow Spock or Kirk using their phasers on the natives! The villain? The nefarious Count Dressler! Leader of a small kingdom on Earth, Dressler was "the only fanatic in power who sought to produce hydrogen bombs when all Earth was negotiating to ban them!" (Kirk) (Wait... they still had H-bombs on Earth? After a nuclear holocaust? And independent countries? What was the United Federation of Planets doing all this time?)

Escaping in a ROCKET ship, Dressler lands on a planet "hostile to Earth's ways". (No, not Qo'noS.) Dressler mastered the natives, stole their secrets, and became their leader. (Wait... why didn't the natives just make a voodoo doll of Dressler?) Dressler, in typical supervillain fashion, then demonstrates his voodoo technique in front of Kirk and Spock. Instantly, the Tower of Pisa is toppled! While Dressler gloats, McCoy rescues Kirk and Spock, fisticuffs subdue the natives, and, without firing phasers, our heroes retreat back to the Enterprise.

There, they once again experience extreme voodoo pain (but not death) but with McCoy's pain killers, they can concentrate enough to research a solution. (My solution? Use the ship's phaser and level the laser fortress, killing the villain and a few natives, while preventing thousands of deaths on Earth.) Spock then discovers that a similar technique was used by a Vulcan clan known as "pain casters". Spock synthesizes the Vulcan herbs, and Kirk and Spock undergo the voodoo rite.

Free of the pain of the action figures, Kirk and Spock (again, no red-shirted security) subdue Dressler, and transport him back to the Enterprise. Kirk then decides, without any sort of trial or rule of law, with no regard to the destruction of priceless landmarks and human suffering, to exile Dressler to an unpopulated planet. (Hey... you don't suppose George W. Bush read this comic, do you?)

So... Spock discovers an incredible weapon which can be used across vast distances... and it is never heard of again. (Although, perhaps the Tantalus Field used a similar technology.)

From the Archives: Walter Lantz Andy Panda #4 (reprint)

This comic book is copyright 1959, 1958, 1957 by Walter Lantz Productions, Inc.

Here's one of my favorite stories from my childhood collection of comics. (Comics I collected before becoming a serious collector in 1984.) These comics are dog-eared, creased, sometimes coverless. But flipping through the covers to find the comics I wanted to blog about, I could recall many of the stories. Dennis the Menace, Richie Rich, Super Goof and other Disney comics,l Sad Sack... good stuff!

The following is one of my favorites, even though the character is not well known, especially in the Midwest, where cartoon shorts were non-existent, and I did not see a Woody Woodpecker cartoon until 1985 (in Austria!). Andy Panda is a Mickey-Mouse-type character. His friend is Charlie Chicken, who causes most of the trouble.

In the following nine-page story, Andy has a mice problem. Charlie plots numerous schemes, all of which fail miserably. As you will see in the story, Charlie finally succeeds...miserably!

The moral of the story?

Build a better mousetrap, and the mice will beat a path to your door!