May 12, 2010

• PhotoPost: Magazine Parodies from School

  A DIFFERENT KIND OF PHOTOPOST

  It has been almost six months since I've put up a PhotoPost. I still need my near sighted prescription glasses modified for my new eyesight, and am having problems seeing up close. I could probably rectify looking at the viewfinder somehow, but let's just say I want to feel comfortable when I go out for a "real" photo expedition.

  In the meantime, this will be a different kind of photopost. When I was in high school, inspired by Mad Magazine, I began to create my own magazine parodies with construction paper, cutouts and colored pencils. I took some shots of some of these parodies, which I still have, and which I used to lend to several classmates and friends back in school. Even though some of these are pretty beat up, (and date back to 1969!) they can be viewed as photos of the work, or if you would really like to read what's on the pages, click the photos below, and large full size images will appear in another browser window which can be read.

  I realize this kind of entry isn't really of interest to anyone except me, and maybe a few diehard oldtime readers, but I've always been a creative sort, and do have a sense of humor, which sometimes surfaces on this blog. I've posted several pages of the TV Guidebook parody from 1977, but the pages I'm showing here have never been online before. So without further ado:

  

  My first parody (left) is Teen Puke, a parody of teen magazines like 16 dated July 1969. This was created the summer between my sophomore and junior years of high school. I used crayolas for the color, not too professional, but hey, I was still a kid. I also created the first TV Guidebook parody, which mimics the old TV Guide, with articles and program grids telling "what's on."  

  

  Some of these parodies are complete, and some were never finished. This is a parody cover of the Reader's Digest from 1970, and it wasn't finished. Some of the completed sections included the ubiquitous joke pages, except I made sure none of the humor was funny. Although this is a bit grotesque, I did edit these for content, because my first reader was always my mother.

  

  The parody of the Reader's Mess above is somewhat out of sequence. This parody scrapbook, based on the one my sister made for Elvis Presley, details the collectible news articles, photos, 45 record covers, etc. of a fictional teen singing star named Mervin Ligley. It was created in 1969. These did take a lot of time, but I've always wasted my time doing creative endeavors whenever possible. During the same time, I and a couple of friends also designed our own automobiles, and created brochures for our nonexistant car companies. (Someday I'll post photos of those here on the blog too, I suppose.)

  

  The Mervin Ligley scrapbook is filled with all kinds of stuff. First I would create the news article, or the photo, or the autograph, and then paste them in the album. I also made fake high school yearbooks and wrote all the autographs.

  

  On the top right is a Photo Postcard of the teen star, with it's own envelope, and below that is tape where a real pin was once displayed. This was the pin the teenaged girl who supposedly created the scrapbook used to prick herself to prove she wasn't dreaming when she was told she was able to go to one of the star's concerts.

  

  As you can tell, as I got older, the parodies got more detailed. These two are complete magazines, from the summer of 1970, between my junior and senior years of high school. I really tried to stretch the envelope with the movieland gossip magazine "International Celebrity". It's as risque as I could possibly be knowing my mother and teachers would read it. The mag on the right is a parody of Time Magazine.

  

  Now, for those readers brave enough to sample some of the content, here is the contents page and a gossip column from International Celebrity. If you click on the image above, the full size image will appear in another browser window. It will automatically resize itself to your browser window, but by clicking again it will grow, and you'll have to scroll around to read it. It's probably no surprise when I tell you I edited our high school newspaper. I've always had a thing for layout, and even now I design all the pages of my personal website, AllthingsMike.

  

  More content from the International Celebrity magazine parody, which was a real big hit during my senior year when I passed it around school. Unlike with the internet, where we can post our art, and the world can view it online, when I was in high school, I could only make ONE of these, and it made the rounds. This was even before copy machines, believe it or not. This article contains excerpts from non existant best sellers. Old timers might recognize some of the books or authors being parodied. "The Sand of Time" is a parody of my own novel "The Sands of Time" and the cover art is actually what I have on the fake copy of the book in my library.

  

  The conclusion to the article Celebrity's Guide to the Bestsellers, including some adverts popular in gossip magazines during the time, like fat reduction, breast enlargement and lingerie ads. Hmmm. Nothing has really changed in that regard.

  

  Here is the cover of an unfinished Mad parody, "Mud", and the cover of my infamous TV Guidebook from 1977, written long after I got out of school, and filled with profanity and National Lampoon type college humor. (Mom was gone by that time and never read this one!)

  

  This is one of the articles from the TV Guidebook parody. I supplied a link above to one of my posted entries on this blog which includes some of the program pages, so here I present one of the articles, about then popular TV show Charlie's Angels. The article is pretty funny, if I do say so myself. You also get a sample of how neatly I used to handprint back in the day.

  

  Lastly, the inside back cover to the 1977 TV Guidebook parody and the TV Review of a show called "Cooking With Mike" in which I make fun of the fact I only knew how to make toasted cheese sandwiches and chile and drink vast amounts of alcohol back then. The line drawing of the critic for TV Guide (Robert McFarlane if memory serves) was done by cartoonist Al Hirschfield, and his signature embellishment of penciling in the name "Nina" in each of his drawings is the joke. The drawing in my parody contains dozens of Ninas. The "asshole" portrayed in the liquor ad on the inside back cover of the mag was based on a supposed "friend" of mine who really did steal one of my credit cards and ring up a grand worth of booze.

  Posted:  May 10, 2010 7:25 PM

  • 2:39 pm
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