Analog Essay: Free Entertainment

Posted on by gabe

In these current times, you can find all kinds of entertainment everywhere, especially like where you are looking right now, the internet. It’s easily accessed, free from commercials, and you don’t need to pay to watch it, but it really isn’t free. Nothing is free if you place value in art.

Now what is art? Well, I can’t answer that, but I do know that not all entertainment is art. See, you the viewer, the audience, the consumer, it’s up to you to decide. You can listen to other people’s opinions, read reviews, but ultimately up to you. Do you like it? Were you moved or amused? Did you connect with it? Did you get something out of it? Does it have a soul? Well, if the answer to most of these questions is yes, then more than likely it is art to you, not just entertainment, and art has value.

Art is made by the expense of the artist or artists. An artist is trying to connect, relate, express, communicate something with you. They are putting themselves into the medium, putting themselves in front of you and if you value what they made or what they are trying to say, then you value art.

If you value that art, you should support it. If you like it, show everyone you like it, be proud of your opinion, tell everyone you know what you like about it, share it with them. They will thank you for it. You can also tell the artist, give feedback on what you would like to see more of, what you didn’t like, support their vision, their art. Show your appreciation by buying a piece of work if they are selling it, because you value it.

Art will die if it isn’t supported. Sure there will be all kinds of entertainment, but not art. Not the kind of art you love, the kind you connect with, the kind you want to share with everyone, If you don’t express yourself, your own opinions, your own appreciation, that art will die.

Once you value art, it isn’t free entertainment to you.

Artifacts from the Analog Age: Pop Rocks

Posted on by gabe

Advanced 70’s technology brought us one of the greatest 80’s candy ever made. You hadn’t lived until you felt the sensation of things exploding in your mouth.

The interest kind of died down a little bit until you heard the story that someone actually died while eating pop rocks and drinking a coke. That’s when your parents told you that a candy was “dangerous”. That’s also when you ran out and found as many Pop Rocks as you can and drank them with a coke.

It was disappointing to not explode…

Artifacts from the Analog Age: Printer Paper

Posted on by gabe

Yes, as some of you might remember, printer paper was very different then the paper we are familiar with today. Today, you can feed almost anything into a printer, but in the Analog Age, the paper was fed through all the really noisy dot matrix printers one line at a time using a wheel with little spokes on it. The paper was a complete long sheet with perforations for each page. The sides also needed to be removed.

It was kinda a pain in the butt, but you could make neat stuff out of the hole strips…

Artifacts from the Analog Age: Rubik’s Cube

Posted on by gabe

Yes, that infamous cube was released 1980, right in the middle of the Analog Age.

I remember they were all over the place, kids would bring them to school, my parents would see them in the stores, you would hear stories about people solving them in like 2 minutes. There were tons of books written about them and there was even a Saturday morning cartoon about that cube complete with a theme song by Menudo.

My grandparents bought me one as a little gift when they came to visit once. I was really bad at it. There’s something very frustrating about it when you just can’t see any patterns of how to move the colors to the positions you would like.

That’s when you would cheat…

San Diego Comic-Con

Posted on by gabe

If anyone is going to the San Diego Comic-Con this year, I’m going to be on the Kung Fu Panda panel. It’s called “Nickelodeon: Penguins, Lemurs, and Pandas, Oh My!”. It will be tomorrow at 2:30 to 3:30 in Room 5AB.

Also, keep an eye out for exclusive Life In The Analog Age cards. They have a secret message for a very special exclusive treat.

They look like this:

I’ll see ya there!

Welcome everyone!

Posted on by gabe

Welcome to Life In The Analog Age! This is my all ages cartoon/webcomic all about the world that existed before the internet, and life in general.

Do you remember that first day of school when your mom made you wear those stupid looking pants, or the time when you got picked on for no reason, or that first kiss, the feel of your backpack filled with books, the smell of your mom’s cooking, those quiet sounds outside your window every night before falling asleep, that’s Life In The Analog Age.

Join me in trying to recall those feelings, those little things you might have forgotten, the times that were just a little slower paced, the life that you had before you were a “grown up”.

This is the start of these cartoons and comics, updated very often, so don’t miss a single one! Subscribe to the RSS feed or the Youtube channel.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you enjoy Life In The Analog Age.