Calendrical

Is "Calendrical" even a word? It probably isn't. That's not a good way to start this off, considering I've already put it off for a week pretending I'm going to get around to taking pictures or scanning in my calendars. But no more excuses! Fuck art; let's kill.

The problem with calendars is that they're around for a whole year. That means if you get something that's only funny or interesting for a week or so, you only like it for 2% of its life. Plus, if you try to make an individual choice with your calendar, you've got challenges. You can buy the coolest calendar at the mall, and you've still basically got a mall calendar. There's no guarantee that everyone else at your work didn't get the exact same calendar. And since they all go up at the first of the year, you can't even get cool points for being first.

So what I do is look for a calendar for a previous year that matches up with the new year. Like, for 2003 I got this one from 1958. You should click on that link; it's pretty funny. Now, 2004 was a little more challenging, because it's a leap year, which obviously cuts down on the possible years I can pick from. It matches the years 1824, 1852, 1880, 1920, 1948, and 1976. The older years are sometimes available on eBay, but they're always either calendar plates (like the souvenir Dukes of Hazzard plate that's guaranteed to increase in value) or 3x5 index cards advertising thread companies. I got one of the latter for 2003 (it's from 1890), but I didn't really get much use out of it.

I ended up purchasing three options for my 2004 calendar. The first one, from 1948, is from some weird morning show in Ohio somewhere. The "Morning Matinee" maybe? Something like that. It looked interesting at first, but every month featured a picture of two people I don't recognize in some wacky pose. I guess if you watched the show, it would be pretty neat, but it didn't do much for me. Except that I think the woman was the host, and the man was her wacky sidekick, because half ofo the pictures put him in some wildly subservient role to her. It was . . . peculiar.

The next calendar I got was also from 1948, and it advertised the Corduroy Rubber Company of Grand Rapids, Michigan. I was hoping for crazy 1940s advertising, but instead I just got a bunch of scenic pictures. It was still interesting, because I have some family in Grand Rapids. My mother reports that she remembers the Corduroy Rubber Company in particular.

Speaking of family, I did receive a family calendar for 2004. It's mostly used for keeping track of birthdays. See, my maternal grandmother had 13 children. Then that generation got married and frequently had four or five children. Then that generation (the generation I'm in) had a bunch of children. And I think there's already a representative or two from the next generation on. So there's, I think, sixty or seventy people there. Possibly more. Anyway, a lot of them live in Grand Rapids still, so you can see how this paragraph does, in fact, relate to the last one.

And now on to my actual 2004 calendar, the one I chose above all others. It's a Marvel Comics calendar from 1976. That would be the "Mighty Marvel Bicentennial Calendar," and it's mid-seventies cheesy as only a four-color comic book can be.

Check out that cover. You've got Spider-Man and the Hulk on drums, and Captain America on fife. The original of that picture has someone bandaged up, but these are superheroes so they get to be undamaged. Incidentally, that's the picture that's now my Damn Hell Ass Kings logo. It used to be the weird pipe-smoking devil hand-shadow that's now hiding behind the word "Montykins" at the top of this page, but change comes to us all. I think it's funny that people browsing DHAK will assume that I'm a superpatriot American based on that logo. Don't get me wrong, I'm not out burning the flag or anything, it's just that a shot of Captain America on the fife is probably a little misleading.

This is the picture for January; it shows Commodore Esak Hopkins of the Continental Navy. Apparently, on January 5, 1776, he and his eight ships were sent out to face the British. And he's being helped out by the Invaders, who are Captain America (he's all over this calendar!), Bucky, the Human Torch, Toro (no idea who that is; he appears to be a lil' Torch), and the Sub-Mariner. This picture pretty much sums up the calendar's style: you've got something related to 1776, and then you have these big, unambiguous superheroes. There's none of this existential whining about their lot in life; they're thrilled to be superheroes!

Incidentally, there's a thing in the back of the calendar that explains what each picture is and identifies all the characters. Which is good, because quite frankly I needed the help to identify the Son of Satan. He doesn't seem that popular these days.

In February, we have the Hulk. He's being George Washington. Or something. I just wanted to quote the description in the back, complete with gratuitous boldface:

February is fer General George Washington. Personally, I figger the father of our country deserves a better monthmate than ol' Jade-Jaws -- a.k.a. THE INCREDIBLE HULK!

I love that. I could do without the "fer" and "figger" but the whole over-the-top Stan Lee writing? Genius.

I've used November to show what the months themselves look like. Because this is mid-Seventies Marvel, no opportunity is wasted: the days are covered with random Marvel characters (November 3: "SHALLA BAL, The Silver Surfer's beloved"), random goofy stuff (November 15: "The Man-Beast signs with Alpo, 1974") and self-promotion (November 11: "Many happy returns, DAVE COCKRUM and proofreader ROGER SLIFER").

Incidentally, check out this square from January 4. It's a Hitler joke! You don't see much of that anymore, do you? I can't remember the last time someone used Hitler for comedic purposes. It might have been on Fawlty Towers.

Anyway, that's my calendar this year. It's not as old as I'd hoped, but it's fully as crazy. And since it's really garish, it catches people's eye and they come to my cubicle and say things like "I had this calendar! I remember it clearly!" And then I ask them to explain things on it, and they're forced to admit that as children, they just accepted whatever diseased imaginings Stan Lee forced on them.