too much junk

[davemerrill]

I acquired a set of big metal flat files over the weekend and spent Saturday night and a good part of Sunday rearranging everything in the studio area. Sunday night the Morgan Spurlock Simpsons anniversary thing was on and they interviewed a guy in England whose house is filled with Simpsons memorabilia and that's how I felt, I felt overwhelmed with junk. The plan was that the flat files could store my old artwork, the years of comics and work from college, and also posters and prints. This would free up the space taken by the work table, under which all the boxes of artwork were kept. The way this has worked out is, there's more artwork than the flat files can hold, I've lost wall space for two shelves worth of videotapes, I don't think we'll be able to get rid of the work table as originally planned, and I still have boxes of stuff - publications, zines, assorted toys and junk - that has to go SOMEWHERE. It's Tetris in real life! And while I do enjoy making order out of chaos, somewhere around 10pm, when you've been doing this all day, the sheer magnitude of junk starts to become overwhelming and you just want to set fire to it all and start over.

Obviously the plan is to put most of the VHS tape onto DVD, and I have been doing a bit of that. I filled a suitcase with converted, replaced, or otherwise totally useless VHS tape and took it to the Anime North staff meeting for free distribution yesterday. But that's a long process. Still, the journey of getting rid of a thousand boxes of junk starts with one trip to the thrift store.

I actually don't mind having a lot of stuff. What I mind is not having anywhere to put it and not knowing where everything is when it's put away, and not having space to work on things like artwork when I need the space.

Heck, we still have random boxes of stuff squeezed out of their hiding places from the living room reorganization last fall. Shain's dead old computer is just taking up space sitting on the floor. I have a box of Xmas lights and power cables that should probably be dealt with. I have two perfectly good speakers that should go somewhere. Of course we all know the solution to these spatial crises is held by the Great God Ikea, but that's not happening for a few months. I guess we will have to suck it up and live a cluttered uncouth lifestyle for a little while longer.

In other news, I did get the first Zero Fighter strip of 2010 up for you! (actually Shain put it up). If I had had the time and the space and not been surrounded by boxes and little jars of screws and stacks of VHS tape I probably would have redrawn this page in a few places, but dammit, deadlines are deadlines. NOT THAT ANYBODY'S READING THIS STRIP ANYWAY, sob sob.

I will say that it's nice to finally have something big enough to handle that enormous Grandizer poster and the Unico poster and the rest of the posters I've accumulated over the years. Of course now I feel like a goof for hanging on to posters that I don't have the wall space to use. I guess that's why I quit buying posters. Someday we'll have an enormous luxury house, and the walls will be lined with posters of stupid Japanese childrens robot cartoons. LIVIN' THE DREAM!!

Comments

[tohoscope.livejournal.com]

One, where did you get a flat file?

Two, what did it cost?

Three, how did you transport it? Those things are HUGE.

[davemerrill.livejournal.com]

In order of query: work, nothin', and a rental van from Home Despot. I saw it last week sporting a 'scrap' tag, and I was like, that thing is coming home with me, and made some enquiries and got permission, and then I moved an enormous amount of heavy stuff around and scraped some new scrapes in our floor and now it's getting filled up with artwork.

There are two of them and they each measure 47" x 36" x 16". It's a pretty big footprint for our dinky work room. But, it's awesome to have. I've always wanted a flat file.

[tohoscope.livejournal.com]

I've always wanted a flatfile, too. The last time I came close to getting a flatfile was when I was living in Mipple City. One of the local cartoonists was getting rid of one but I couldn't find anybody with a vehicle big enough to haul the thing away.

And I haven't seen one since...

[davemerrill.livejournal.com]

Way back when, I was working at a place that was getting rid of a "Lucy", the lightbox thing that would reduce or enlarge original art. If I had had a truck that thing would have been MINE. On the other hand if I did manage to snag it, I would have been hauling that phone-booth sized thing around for the next 20 years.

[efathefinger.livejournal.com]

I have to say the first thing I started trashing was common posters. I have a small pile of them and now use them to wrap presents. I've tried to do that with wall scrolls, but getting it to look good, even with hotglue, is tough.

[davemerrill.livejournal.com]

I have exactly one wall scroll, so that's not really a problem. Most of the posters I have are anime magazine inserts from the 1980s or posters from films like Adieu 999, My Youth In Arcadia, etc, that are printed on that great thick laid-pattern paper... stuff I don't really want to get rid of. My Cyborg 009 Legend Of Super Galaxy poster is on the wall right now. The Unico poster I begged from the manager of a Sam Goody in the mall, it's huge and on some kind of laminated stock. I have a B&W US release Castle Cagliostro poster that's just the NYT review blown up huge, I think I got it from Georgia State. My Message From Space one-sheet is in terrible shape from being pinned up and taken down for 20 years, but I will never part with it.

I did get rid of most of the unwanted poster art by including it in the prereg packets of early AWA attendees, or by selling at various AA tables, etc. Wrapping presents with them is a great idea, though.

[tochiro998.livejournal.com]

Consider my problem: file boxes FILLED with the magazine inserts from the prime years of anime mags 1982-1996, mostly sorted by show. Posters, booklets, postcards, 'love letter' paper, etc. And it's all here, baby, not in storage.

The Macross gimmes almost take up a box on their own.

I've given some of it away over time as surprise gifts (I think I sent you some things, IDK) but mostly it's my reference material for things that otherwise have no references. So you need chara illos for Nora just let me know :)

[davemerrill.livejournal.com]

I think what I need for "Nora" is a detailed explanation of why it was made and what they were thinking when they made it. I finally got to see it a little while ago, and it defies explanation.

Those insert things are like gold when it comes to reference photos, original artwork, goofy one-off gag cartoons, etc. But a lot of it did make its way into random pre-reg packets at the early AWA's, especially the stuff from shows I had no interest in.

[tochiro998.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's simple enough. Nora was from a series of hard SF novels, IIRC, and it was thought that given the wave of SF product coming out it would be a big hit. I think there was major push from a record label too.

Ya know, there's a lot to like, on a conceptual level. The chara designs are clean and pleasing, the hardware is serviceable, the attempt to make space a 'real' place where people live and work was a worthwhile effort, but it just came up zero. And Twinkle Nora Rock me! was even worse. *brrrr*

But at least it wasn't Gldeen. Gldeen made Greed look epic.

Assorted anime stuff

[(Anonymous)]

I pretty much gave away most of my posters to people who I'm sure now enjoy them more than I would have. I still have a few rolled up in the huge ass poster tubes that Vaunda Perry (God rest) used to send us stuff in. I think my prized possession is an Empire Strikes Back Coke-sponsored poster that I bought while standing in line to watch the film when it came out. Like Dave's MfS poster, that one's never goin' nowhere! That line was fucking HUGE!
To this day, I'm still amazed my sister and I managed to talk my dad into standing in line with us.

I used to get the strangest letters back from people who were amazed, simply astonished, that I wrote them letters on anime letterpaper and anime postcards that Mitsuyoshi used to send. Geez, guys, that's what the stuff is FOR, right?

RWG (right?)