More printing by Paper Moon Graphics: a collaboration by Matt Groening (Life in Hell, The Simpsons) and Steve Vance, printed in 1988. These tied in with a set of postcards they also designed, doctored photography with retro costumes and design, punctuated with ironic and anti-establishment slogans. Lots of fun!Again, this was convenient stationery for cranking out a note to a friend. I suppose it was intended to be office stationery, you know, before we had Post-Its and good stuff like that. Being that I went straight from high school into the military, I never worked in an office, not for several years. Therefore, I had to seize this product by the horns and force it into my own life, make it work for me.
This stationery brings to my mind a brighter, livelier time when I was less politically active or savvy and more in love with an explosive, vibrant zeitgeist. The '80s were a fantastic time to be alive, especially if you couldn't probe too deeply behind popular news sources and information and were drawn to bright colors and loud noises, like me. Just owning this paper made me feel cooler, and distributing it to my friends (who probably got sick of the joke around the third letter) made me feel like we were in on something, like the corporate thumb would never push us down... or something vaguely rebellious like that. It was the snarky humor that sustained us, as well, that drew us together and bonded us. Finding artifacts like this, Ken Brown's retro/absurdist postcards, and Tom Tomorrow's comics (before he turned political) in the college paper were real prizes, little glowing gems that gave us to believe we were right and we were not alone.
2 comments:
Amazingly well said! I am sitting here smiling gazing at a very yellowed single sheet of Paper Moon's "Confessions of A Crazed Shopper" stationery. Decided to Google and found your wonderful blog. Thank you - your description of those days is spot on. Here's to all the works of wit and whimsy that keep us going through the years!
Thank you so much! I also tried to Google the company and only learned what happened to it, as well as to the artists involved. I'm pleased someone found me through my attempt to find, and then record, this information.
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