Wonders from the Closet

I decided to organize my room today, as it had gone into disarray. Upon inspection, I did find the remains of my young mind.

If I had decided to go on and make a full poem out of that, I would have died.

But anyway, as the opening rhyme said, I went a-cleanin', and found some wonderful artifacts that I created in my youth. One is a school project that I poured my heart and soul into, and the rest are a bunch of comics I created (using the standard comic-creating tools of blue ink pens and looseleaf.) It's fun to read them again...and also painful.

Let's focus on the school project: it was a magazine, with stories that filled certain criteria. Even with that criteria, there was quite a bit we could do, and after the actual articles/stories we were supposed to do were finished, we could add whatever else we want. I remember winning the vote over whose magazine had the best extra content.

Looking at the cover, we get an idea of the content of the mag, which I called Magna:

"The ultra stuff magazine!"
"Astounding!"
"Tales by M. Berry!"
"Are you nuts? Sanity test inside!"
"First look - M.B.'s ultra Guide to Legendary Monsters Book!"
"Marvel Mayhem! A Jack Kirby bio!"
"Aliens! Bigfoot!We explain the wonderfully strange in this issue!"

Yes, I had the nerd factor to write a short biography on Kirby in gradeschool. I also had the nerd factor to attempt to write a encyclopedic guide to monsters of myth and legend, a project I pursued until I got to high school, and found no time to continue such a mammoth task. I give myself props for trying it, though (and even including a 'preview' of it in the magazine...I guess I've always loved writing about myself.)

Going though the magazine...there's the forward, there's the book preview, a Bigfoot article, a UFO article, a short story about the first meeting between humans and aliens, some profiles on Cryptozoology critters, the Kirby bio, the story of me crashing into a deck whilst skiing which enthralled teachers for three years straight!, a look at my dad's job, a short story featuring the observations of a robot (and the terrible, terrible opening line of the second paragraph "It is a year in the near-distant future..." WHAT?), a look back at my school years (it was the 8th grade) as well as a look into the future and how it is related to a tree I planted (and was uprooted by bastards), the sanity test, a stupid short story about some schizoid and the neighbor who observes him, and an article defending violent media (as best as an 8th grader who can't decide if it's the near or distant future can), and then the end. I even gave the publishing company names: Gemworks (which I used as my pretend company for years) and Salamander co.

The sanity test actually pretty accurate...peek some of the questions asked:

*You are at the supermarket, and you are stuck in a long line. Do you...
a)Wait in line patiently
b)Yell and curse
c)Shoot everybody in line

*After minutes of channel surfing, you find there's nothing on. Do you...
a)Find something else to do
b)Yell at the TV
c)Burn the house down

*The next-door neighbor does not return the lawnmower you lent him weeks ago. Do you..
a)Ask him kindly for it back
b)Yell at him to give it back
c)Burn his house down

*You keep losing to your gawky(I don't think I knew the meaning of this word) friend. Do you...
a)Congradulate him on his victory streak
b)Yell at him about the table's screwy physics
c)Burn the table

This may provide more entertainment later...I definelty want to get those comics scanned. I'm sure you want to read them just as much as I want to share them. Aren't you enticed by such titles as "Blackster in...Dedication", "Pogo vs. The Chocolate Man!", and "Kitt & Suna: Origins". Many of them even contain fake ads, shilling other stuff I had thought of (and...oddly, Wizard publications.)