Your Crap Archivist brings you the finest in forgotten and bewildering crap culled from Golden State thrift stores, estate sales, and flea markets.
Dune Coloring Book
Author: Michael Nicastre
Date: 1984
Publisher: Grosset & Dunlop
Discovered at: 57th Street Antique Mall, Sacramento
The Cover Promises: At long last, your child can dream along with the visions of David Lynch.
Representative Quote:
"You must take the pain to determine whether you are powerful enough to overcome fear itself," says the Reverend Mother.Just as cockroaches are predicted to just keep on keepin' on after the death of humanity, cheap-ass stupid coloring books are almost certain to continue to thrive after the death of print. That's not just because they're so cheap to produce, or because of the enduring, egalitarian spirit of their publishers, who believe that the level of skill required to create a coloring book is only marginally greater than that required to color in one. No, it's because crayons will never leave more than waxy smears on our tablets and e-readers, and science has yet to create a Nook light enough to be held in place by a refrigerator magnet. So, we'll always have lazy, hilarious, ill-conceived coloring books to gape at. Here's three! First up is a coloring book based on the movie version of Dune, the famous science-fiction novel that (no joke) was once given to me by a homeless man on the Boston T. Dark and complex, stuffed with torture machines and spice-world Machiavellis, Dune was hardly junior reader material even before professional nightmare-wrangler David Lynch got hold of it. What Crayolas would you choose to color a vagina-mouthed tumor-worm crawling through a carwash? Note the worm's silly T-Rex hands! It looks like it should be carrying a purse. Pediatricians work hard to teach kids not to fear getting a shot. Leaving this book in the waiting room would probably make that job harder: Here's an idea for a new crayon color: A raw, pinkish gray called Corpse Flesh. At playtime, when kids gather to act out their favorite scenes from Dune, the biggest argument is usually "Who is lucky enough to play the sickness-burning doctor to Baron Barf Face?" Here, the Dune Community Playhouse stages its production of The Book of Revelation: THAT IS A VISION THAT SHOULD NOT BE. Even the un-horiffic scenes aren't quite kid appropriate. How about the hunks of Dune, standing around, dishing about worms ... ... and urinating together? Now, that's more than enough Dune, at least until the creators of the Dune Coloring Book release their special Extended Edition. Until then, let's enjoy this color-along version of Mark Trail, the long-running comic strip that, like Marmaduke, is based on a single giant-animal joke: Here, it's that this hapless park-ranger type who is forever declaiming the beauty of nature never notices the terrifyingly oversized critters about to pounce on him. These include butterflies ... And birds ... And, scariest of all, woodland rodents: I bet a heap of Trail Mix will last that squirrel all winter. It's not only Mark Trail artists who have trouble with perspective. Consider this last image from Dune, which seems to be of a fairy-tale giant seducing Kyle MacLachlan. (I think happens in one of the Brian Herbert sequels.) Next: An even sadder coloring book about touring an Oakland bus yard. Plus: The world's third laziest dot-to-dot There's much that's weird about Color-In a Visit to the Bus Yard, published by the Alameda-Contra Costa transit district as part of some campaign to instill in kids warm feelings about the color of buses. (I got this for $.29 at the El Cerrito Thrift Town. Oh, and I forgot to mention that the wonderful Leslie sent me the Mark Trail book!) The first weird thing is the weird way that unidentified creators' high-minded inclusivity actually prevents kids from being able to color some of the characters: The message: Brown people are already brown, but white people can be any color you can dream of! Also, please note that the brown man's neck and arms are white for some reason. And that the one-eyed woman from Futurama is a child visiting this bus yard. And that the one-eyed girl's mom has no lower half. And that even though this book looks like it was drawn in sand with a stick, it's still much, much better than The Dune Coloring Book. The heart of the Alameda-Contra Costa Transit District is, of course, Oakland, so it's appropriate that the book's buses are kind of depressing: My New Favorite Thing in the World: The graffiti tag that says "Solo Guys," which, if you think about it, is a terrible name for a gang. The creators of this coloring book don't shy away from the hard realities of Oakland buses. They even over-emphasize it. The book's story -- kids of all races smile at buses -- ends with this page: The last line of Charlotte's Web: "It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer. Charlotte was both." The last line of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz: "I'm so glad to be home again." The last line of Color-In a Visit to the Bus Yard: "'No one lies to ride a sad bus,' he told the children." On the back cover, there's a fun-time activity fit only for completing while riding on one of those sad, sad buses: SPOILER: It's another bus. (There's even sadder dot-to-dots archived here.) --
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