Toon-stalgic
isn't all art about the past?
Ahh the past. It’s a place we all come from. In these increasingly polarized times, it’s important to reflect on the things we share, namely that we all bear the ceaseless brunt of gravity, toiling bravely against the unstoppable march of time, fated to become invisible plot points on an ever-extending expanse that dwarfs our existence into an incalculably minuscule fraction of unimaginable vastness. (Yes, I did spend yesterday afternoon watching youtube videos about the end of the universe.) But enough about me! This time of year, with the flicker of our seasonal rituals, brings those warm and sticky thoughts about the past. That little portal in our mind flares open, and boom! There we are wearing itchy tights on a gymnasium bleacher, singing “Here in my house, there are candles burning briiiiight...” Nostalgia! It fells us all. We are all time-travelers when the mood is right.
So I asked the Toonstackers to share cartoons about old things: favorite books, 90s paraphernalia, the joys and traumas of childhood, whatever makes them warm in the soul-space, a little panicked, hungry for a food they can’t find anymore, and ready to talk off the ear of a younger person.
As Stevie Wonder says, “I wish those days would come back once more,” and as Green Day says “Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go” and as Sarah Mclachlan says “I will remember you,” and jeez there are a lot of pop songs about remembering. Enjoy our toon-memberings.
-Amy
Ellis Rosen
Like any millennial, I’m nostalgic for the 90’s, but more specifically 90’s Xtreme junk food. I want my chip mascots to look like badass skater types who might beat me up. I want my soda to be a toxic shade of green. I want wild flavors with crazy names like “Winter Berry Blast,” “Cherry Bomb Punch Berry Blast,” and “Arson Murder Appleberry Blast.” We need more “Berry Blast” in general. These days snacks are all about pretending to be healthy. Well, guess what pal? Nothing you eat is healthy! Kale? That's just sugar probably! I don't know, I've never eaten it. But I would eat it if they renamed it “Kale Crime Berry Blast.” It makes me hungry just thinking about it.
Johnny DiNapoli
Dang, I loved reading as a kid. I read only the most esteemed literature, of course. Nickelodeon Magazine, Matt Christopher novels, the side of Honeycomb cereal boxes- that sort of stuff. Also, when I picked up a book, adults seemed to leave me alone, which I loved. What a life! Nowadays, I feel myself stuck between a world with not enough reading time and a Twilight Zone-y world with all too much time. Ah well. If anyone has any good book/cereal box recs, let me know.
Sara Lautman
One privilege of cartooning is that you have a place to put your shameless nostalgia. I riff on childrens’ lit a lot, which sometimes works and sometimes results in a sad self-own where I become agitated over people not getting some obscure Rats of NIMH B-side.
Amy Kurzweil
I think Proust and I would have been great friends. If he was around today, we could text each other nostalgic musings without ever having to leave bed. As for mice, I don’t have any mouse friends, but I did participate in the hamster craze of the ‘90s. I had three hamsters. One was named Cosmo (after Cosmo Kramer, from Seinfeld) and he was the best. After his tragic death, I got two more: Sugar and Spice. They were, ironically, not as nice. One day, Sugar escaped from those poorly-secured plastic hamster-scurrying tubes the pet store convinced you to purchase so that your hamsters would escape and you’d have to come back and buy more hamsters. Sugar lived in the wall for at least a week, then was discovered by a handyman painting in our basement. I scooped her up with the hamster ball and put her back in the cage with Spice. She never recovered. (Was it the cruel taste of freedom?)
Navied Mahdavian
Like most human children, I doodled a lot growing up. And like most human children, those doodles were generally pretty bad. Unfortunately, my mum doesn’t have quite the same standards as the mother in the above cartoon. Her home is decorated with my old paintings of oblong cherries, laminated clowns, and irregular and painterly rectangular regions of color (i.e. Rothko ripoffs). The late Roman poet Horace once wrote:
I have built a monument more lasting than bronze,
higher than the Pyramids’ regal structures,
that no consuming rain, nor wild north wind
can destroy (Odes III: XXX)
Here’s hoping for a forecast of consuming rain and wild north winds in Fremont, California.
Hilary Campbell
I find it really entertaining to romanticize past traumas :)
Brendan Loper
Being a freelance cartoonist isn’t all fun and games. I mean, sure it ain’t the ol’ 9 to 5, none of us are working for the weekend, none of us are working for benefits either. Sometimes I really think about giving it up, hanging up the Stetson, and returning to my data-entering, break room bantering self. But then I remember, I’m a wild pony born to trot the prairie, born to snort in the wind and toss back my golden mane. They don’t make no jobs for me.
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