Hobgoblin: Dianetics/Bazaar (Consumer Reports)

[Abishai100]

This is a Consumer Reports civilization vignette about celebrities, low-brow art, media-IQ, and propaganda.

It's inspired by the film Basquiat.



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A comic book doodler provided stick-figure renditions of Marvel Comics' Hobgoblin (Roderick Kingsley) who was then associated with Occultism-oriented folk-pop 'street-art.' This 'sarcastic art' was both rebellious and playful and was discussed in a Scientology/Dianetics conference in Virginia. Suddenly, folk-theatrics were becoming 'parts' of pedestrian philosophy, a sort of pseudo-juvenile Beatnik modernization. Art was simply low-brow. However, these quirky stick-figure doodles caught the attention of Disney (recruiting amateurs for some social experiment).



Disney recruited Tom Hanks and Tom Cruise for a film about these 'rebellious/juvenile doodles' as told through the lens of emerging education in youth regarding low-brow art. Hanks and Cruise both felt that consumerism streamlining catered to 'household-doodling' as a preferred-activity to mass-marketed art. This was, after all, the era of The Little Rascals and Peanuts and the Wuzzles. Everything had a hip, vibrant energy that was somehow 'untouched' by the forces of aesthetics.



An eerie wolfish-robot named Cyclonus, from Transformers (Hasbro) made a special habitat on one of the moons of Venus while his rival Rodimus was tooling around as an 'invisible archaeologist' of human civilization on Earth. Cyclonus flew to Earth and started to learn about Consumer Reports and discovered the Cruise/Hanks Hobgoblin film project and connected it to media-intelligence in human civilization. Consumer Reports was the real 'weather-monitor' in civilization. Cyclonus was rather intrigued.



aCyclonus then purchased countless NY Yankees t-shirts online and made a collection of consumerism-mementos. Sports, after all, were the hallmark of human civilization ritual, signifying the peace of games, aesthetics of customs, vitality of sports media-marketing, and basic merchandising. Cyclonus concluded that capitalism was a system of 'finery' and 'jewelry.'



His creative offering prompted an outburst in society and military when terrorists talked about the sale of a peculiar amount of Yankees t-shirts being sold recently and were obviously monitoring that. The American patriots known as 'G.I. Joes' contended with an evil terrorist organization known as 'Cobra.' A Dianetics Conference erupted as a battle-ground for multiple agents of opposing sides engaged in fierce fighting. Cyclonus was delighted. He picked up more copies of Consumer Reports.



aA new breed of terrorists were arising to make anti-social sentiments feel accessible to a wider population of people without ever becoming in any way socialist. They were, however, similar to fundamentalists of the past and owed much of their aesthetic-praise to the wisdom passed down from previous terrorists, like Michael Collins' early-IRA. Cyclonus noted that Consumer Reports was humanity's 'ideal record' of commercial traffic signpost-valuation. There was an air of 'fashion sentimentality.'



TRUMP: Do you read Consumer Reports, Carter?
CARTER: Of course, Mr. President.
TRUMP: Tell me what you think about pedestrian traffic ornaments...
CARTER: I think they're symbols of modernization/socialization (e.g., Facebook).
TRUMP: What's so special about those Hobgoblin doodles, do you think?
CARTER: They represent pedestrian interests in new age patriotism.
TRUMP: What's the difference between graffiti (art) and vandalism (pollution)?
CARTER: It's what you can 'reap' from the intention-evaluation.
TRUMP: So if it's "intended to be art" (and not vandalism), then it's art/graffiti.
CARTER: And art/graffiti is perfectly legal!
TRUMP: So perhaps there are 'spirits and gods' watching over Consumer Reports.
CARTER: Perhaps alien intelligences...
TRUMP: Let's go watch The X-Files on Netflix, Carter!
CARTER: Maybe I'll file a report about Consumer Reports next week.
TRUMP: This is the new age of media and chalk.

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[Abishai100]

Dianetics/Dollmaker



American consumerism should, in theory, generate in us an idealistic intention to re-present commerce-consciousness through the more 'fantastic' lens of 'history-holography' (e.g., Saturday Night Live, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, The Founder, etc.).



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An Asian woman registered herself as an Internet mail-order-bride (from Rajasthan) and came to America looking to settle down as an American housewife. Her name was Alpana, and she wanted to investigate new age street-art aesthetic catering to populism folklore and the true patriotism behind commerce ritual based society. She looked at depictions of Indian women from classical times and compared them to Wonder Woman (DC Comics) of the modern era. Alpana was very smart.



There was an eerie 'street-art aesthetic' which catered to anti-establishmentarian ethos/consciousness. It was found in places like Mad Magazine, Mad Libs, and Mad Money, totems of modernism metaphysics. New films explored fairy-like 'advanced humanoids' engaging with humans in space in a distant future and resembling 'modern cosmonauts.' Kids loved video-games immensely (e.g., The Legend of Zelda).



Alpana found these stick-figure doodles created by a pedestrian cartoonist named Ajay Satan who wanted to make a Batman-Leatherface color-pencil infant-like rendering, since comics-art (which was low-brow and consumer-friendly, like popcorn!) was very well-marketed in recent times (since the release of Christopher Reeve Superman films for DC Comics and Tim Burton's Batman films for DC Comics). Since then, Sam Raimi's Spider-Man films for Marvel Comics further illustrates this new age 'ethic' regarding the valuation/characterization of boundaries of intelligible-talk, censorship, graffiti, and 'tokens.' Everyone thought about the species-value of Consumer Reports, even kids.



A terrible anti-socian menace named Pigman threatened to create panic when he began stalking Internet mail-order brides from Europe and Asia and decapitating them. He'd take photos of their decapitated bodies and send them to the Washington Post with the caption, "More voters lost!" Pigman was apparently an adversary of status-quo etiquette and believed he was a 'prophet.' His victims and those who tracked him considered him simply as a new Charles Manson. Pigman also blogged on the Internet about high-school shootings increase in America in recent times. Pigman was a real sociopath.



As the valiant masked female real-life vigilante Batgirl took the stage, costumed as the DC Comics heroine-sidekick (real identities: Stephanie Brown, Barbara Gordon). Batgirl's actual identity was never disclosed but she managed to take underground labyrinths, where Pigman roamed, to trace his footsteps to his lair, the basement of an abandoned building outside Washington. There, Batgirl simply sedated Pigman with a tranquilizer-dart and tied him up and hauled him off to Arkham Asylum. Alpana (our beloved Asian-Indian emigrant/bride and social critic) tweeted, "Batgirl is the real Bonnie Parker!"



Batgirl merchandise began selling like wild-fire, and Richie Rich (Harvey Comics) made a co-production film starring Emily Blunt as Batgirl and Macaulay Culkin as Pigman; with Batgirl working alongside Richie Rich (portrayed by Leo DiCaprio) to catch Pigman. The film was directed by Wes Andersen, of Bottle Rocket and Rushmore genre. The film was mentioned in an editorial by someone in Consumer Reports which Cyclonus the robot read and concluded, "Consumerism is a highway for the layered-generation of toys...and trophies."



As Lancelot took the field against his mighty rival in Camelot, the warlord Mordred, Mordred accused Lancelot of unscrupulous dealings with Guinevere, but Lancelot insisted he was a loyal knight to Arthur. Lancelot and Mordred really despised each other, so this engagement, witnessed by Merlin, was recorded by the wizard who then traveled to our time (his future!) to present/produce a TV-adaptation of himself simply called Merlin (starring Sam Neill). Lancelot and Mordred declared a stalemate in battle and bohemian liberty, but Lancelot prophesied that someday, 'tokens of trade' will be elevated as more 'accessible' than ancestral testaments of divinity.

As patriotic comics took shape, and G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero (Hasbro) and Captain America (Marvel Comics) became million-dollar franchises/empires, people thought about the social value of pedestrian-folklore (e.g., Star Wars, Star Trek, South Park, etc.). People wanted low-brow chatter to complement a more 'festive' approach to intellectualism and evolution --- one based on the ritual of celebration (not formalization). Comics were the new 'radio.'

TRUMP: I like this guy Merlin.
CARTER: He's a terrific history-mythology character of academic rigor!
TRUMP: They use him for fantasy-adventure fiction as well...
CARTER: Media makes for all kinds of 'avatar-marketing'.
TRUMP: The other day I noticed a guy named 'Ajay Satan' blogging about Shiva-Leatherface.
CARTER: Interesting...
TRUMP: He was a 'self-proclaimed vigilante' (Satan) writing about Shiva and Leatherface.
CARTER: The Hindu god of destruction (Shiva) and the fiction horror-film avatar (Leatherface)?
TRUMP: Yeah, Ajay was writing things like, "Shiva will test Leatherface's resolve regarding dependency!"
CARTER: Dependency on that heavy chainsaw he may have gotten from Home Depot; as a 'consumer.'
TRUMP: Anyone can walk into a Home Depot hardware store now and pick up a chainsaw...
CARTER: This is the age of 'state police.'

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[Abishai100]

Dialing Dr. Irving (Washington/Julius)


This one's inspired by Jerry Maguire (Tom Cruise).


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Americans cared about consumerism trophies or toys and allowed kids to purchase rifle-cap guns, water-handguns, and toy-crossbows. These kids would grow up to comment on the aesthetics and ethics of graphic media, the NRA, and Steinbeck-philosophy. They wielded toy-guns and watched The Cowboys (John Wayne) on TNT.



As iconography of pedestrian trophies gained in appeal and marketability, comics art emerged as a sentimental preference for colloquial editorials (about vigilantism, etc.) and low-brow aesthetics. These comics were graphic, cartoonish, even childish, but they were very easy to read and follow, almost like Karaoke. A Yale professor named Ajay Satan, an idealist, wanted to blog about Nazi-comics and how such imagery circulated in society could create undesirable controversies regarding the compatibility of social groups/circles in art markets/bazaars. Ajay read Consumer Reports religiously and considered his studies reflective of a modernism metaphysical fascination with colloquial etiquette and convenience-based 'architecture'.



Ajay compared classical photos of Brigitte Bardot with new age photos of Gisele Bundchden and considered how/why media changes/evolves with shifts in street-culture, and art had become more graphic...and pornographic. Ajay wanted to suggest that the evaluation of images in pop folk-art such as Wonder Woman (DC Comics), Supergirl (DC Comics), and Spider-Woman (Marvel Comics) represented a species analysis of the aesthetics of flesh. Everything was consumerism...



After Ajay Satan obtained tenure at Yale, he began teaching a special Comparative Literature course on the intersections between Marketing and Metaphysics and its impact on Folk-Literature. His course was titled Celebrity Campfires: Advertisement Histrionics. Ajay was on his way to win the Nobel Prize, but for the time being, he was quite humbly content with a fancy new Cleveland Browns NFL team-jacket he was gifted by celebrity Tom Cruise who loved Ajay's Internet-blogs about new age intellectualism. Tom and Ajay formed a pet-comics project with artist William Gibson called Archangel Comics.



TRUMP: This is a grand media circus, Carter!
CARTER: Everyone loves shopping...
TRUMP: This is the Facebook/Wikipedia Era.
CARTER: Who would be the AntiChrist?
TRUMP: I dunno, a movie-star or an Internet-hacker/terrorist.
CARTER: Isn't there a middle-ground?
TRUMP: With the AntiChrist?...no, I don't think so!
CARTER: Are you a fan of Popeye and Mighty Mouse?
TRUMP: I prefer the bolder Batman and Danger Mouse.
CARTER: Are you a fan of pulp crime-stories?
TRUMP: I like Miami Vice and The Hardy Boys.
CARTER: I like Tales from the Crypt and Archangel Comics.
TRUMP: Did you know Ajay Satan married his hometown sweetheart?
CARTER: Oh, yes, a beautiful Persian woman (Catholic-convert) named Elisa.
TRUMP: Is she a Browns fan?

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[Abishai100]

Jason of the Lake: Westinghouse


This is a media-IQ folk-tale inspired by Jumanji.

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A diligent comic book writer named Ajay Satan was tooling away at his private residence, brooding about Occultism-folklore in modern media and comics such as Lucifer Morningstar (DC Comics) and Hobgoblin (Marvel Comics). Ajay Satan was a big fan of Jason Voorhees films (Friday the 13th) and wanted to adapt the Hobgoblin (Roderick Kingsley) 'aesthetic' into a Jason tale in a lake by an autumn-colored forest drawing in a fireman-huntsman who may be able to rescue a young Asian woman named Aisha who decides to go camping after traveling to America as a tourist. Ajay was thinking about this story-project all the time, and it was like he was Bartleby himself.



Ajay placed a fireman named Kurt in the forest Jason was haunting, and Kurt wore an orange raincoat to match the autumnal colors of the eerie forest in New Jersey (USA). Kurt would be a fireman but also a huntsman, walking around with a handsome mid-sized rifle which he wanted to use to shoot one adult male deer. This would be Kurt's first-ever animal-hunting trophy quest.



Ajay would then place Kurt walking around the forest and discovering that Jason Voorhees is there too, wandering around with his signature hockey-mask and axe. Jason was a zombie who resurrected from the dead after drowning as a small boy in a camp near that autumnal New Jersey forest. Now, he was a force of evil, and Kurt's duty was to chase him and kill him or burn him to ashes before Jason reached the campsite of a beautiful vulnerable Asian woman from India named Aisha. Jason was ugly and bad.



Autumn offers us brilliant oranges, so Ajay Satan made his entire vignette an 'orange county.' This story would capture American interests in traffic-paranoia and ghost-story traditions. The emergence of horror-cinema paralleled a new age social interest in graphic and expressive and convenient ('brain-candy') entertainment. This was the era of Pez, Fisher-Price, Tales from the Crypt, Mario Brothers, and Creepshow. This was a 'colloquial intellect' evolution away from the era of Quasimodo, Sherlock Holmes, and Romeo. This was all about MTV, Swamp Thing, The Muppets, and Godzilla. Jason would find his unwitting Asian camper in complete isolation, conveniently able to kill her with his axe; and kids would love this horror-comics presentation of camping fears!



Ajay had Kurt show up in his orange Volvo and park it outside the camping area of the autumnal forest. He'd wander around trying to find a deer to hunt. Meanwhile, Jason would rip out the wires from the Volvo so no one could escape while trying to flee. The Volvo would be a symbol of the futility of civilization in protecting us from the monsters of nature and hell.



Kurt would be sitting in his campsite and making his characteristic pencil-drawings of beautiful superheroines, gargoyles, and comic book avatars such as Hobgoblin and Venom. Meanwhile, Jason would be wandering around as the real menace of this imagination-experiment by Kurt to retreat into the forest peacefully to meditate, draw, and hunt.



Aisha was a precocious immigrant from India who was traveling cross-country from Napa (California) and wanted to camp in that autumnal forest. She even wore a sari to make herself feel like a 'fairy' or a 'mystic.' She had no idea Jason was skulking around there, so she looked...ironically beautiful.



Kurt was busy at the moment doing a Spider-Man coloring book section with color-pencils. He thought he heard someone swing an axe in a tree but he wasn't sure so he kept drawing. What he heard was Jason chasing a terrified Aisha. Would Kurt continue to just sit idly and color and draw?

A celebrity (Tom Hanks) was in that forest too filming a scene of his secret-private home-made movie about Rumpelstiltskin. Hanks was dressed in an orange old-world robe to match the colors of the forest, and a wood-structure set design with table and chair were arranged by his helpers and fellow-thespians. Hanks noticed Kurt walking around trying to hunt a deer. Hanks called out to him and said, "Leave the deer be, huntsman, and join us for some cider!"

Kurt sat down and got drunk and made two silly color-pencil drawings of Hobgoblin and Venom that Hanks loved, and then Kurt wandered away. However, Jason wandered into Hanks' movie-set 10 minutes later and killed him and noticed the drawings Kurt made of Hobgoblin and Venom and noted that Venom resembled him. Jason became fascinated with Venom and considered him a father-figure. He decided he'd be the 'Venom of the Woods.'

All of these adventures were collected into a memoir by Kurt who escaped alive after burning Jason to ashes but not before Jason managed to kill the poor Aisha, a real forest victim/martyr. Ajay Satan had completed his story and when he submitted it, celebrity Tom Cruise (friend of Tom Hanks) loved it and wanted to see it published in his new pet-comics project/company Archangel Comics (co-owned by artist William Gibson). Gibson, Satan, and Cruise would form an unlikely creative alliance and illuminate why modern folk-merchandising and pop-art (e.g., comics) represented a very modern interest in 'colorful bazaars' (e.g., Starbucks, IKEA, IMAX, Nickelodeon, etc.).

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