Tag Archives: Atari 800 XL

08/18/2018 · 8:18 am

Journey

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Filed under Animation Analysis, Bad Influences, Comix Classic & Current, Faint Signals, Movies You Missed, Nostalgic Obsessions, Saturday Movie Matinee, Thousand Listen Club

Tagged as 1980, 1980s, 1983, 1990s, Atari 2600, Atari 800 XL, Bands I Useta Like, Blotto, Bret Easton Ellis, comic, corporate crap, Disney, Glee, Great Videogame Crash of 1983, Jonathan Cain, Journey, Moog, MTV, music, Neal Schon, New Jersey, sellouts, Steve Perry, Steve Smith, strips, Tron, TRON: Legacy, video games, Wendy Carlos

05/21/2017 · 11:17 am

Yea, I say unto you, I was in the right place at the right time for two major moments in American history. You must believe that what I’m about to tell you is the truth; it will seem like so much legend and myth.

The first: I was gifted a copy of E.T. (the game) for the Atari 2600, on Christmas, but that is a tale for another article.

I HAD TO PRETEND I ENJOYED THIS.

The second, and more significant: I talked my father into buying me Pac-Man for the Atari 2600, one of the most notoriously disappointing games of all time. Second only to E.T.,of course.

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Filed under Bad Influences, Faint Signals, Idiot's Delight, Nostalgic Obsessions

Tagged as 1980s, 1982, 1990s, Atari 2600, Atari 800 XL, corporate crap, Donkey Kong, E.T., Frogger, Great Videogame Crash of 1983, Howard Scott Warshaw, New Jersey, Pac-Man, smartphones, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Tod Frye, Tron, video games, Yar's Revenge

04/16/2016 · 3:39 pm

Windows of America

In college, I split-majored, in both graphic design and illustration. I’m a cartoonist, but when I graduated high school, that wasn’t a common part of art-school curriculum. In illustration, I learned the most important aspect of rendering; figure studies. After all, there will never come a time when human anatomical knowledge is unnecessary. The skill to draw any part of the body you inhabit will never hold you back.

However, I was naive in my choice of studies. I was so eager to learn all that I could, I didn’t grasp that graphic design requires the left (analytical) side of the brain, and illustration (creative) requires the right. For a green teen, it was too much; I burned out and then dropped out. I couldn’t jockey back and forth across the hippocampus day after day. While trying to ink the sewer grate for the cover of the second Mike The Pod Comix, I had a psychotic episode and hurled my sketchbook down the dorm hallway.