Poster Boy

So yeah there was this post a few years back which was very popular. The worst photos of me ever? Yeah… not quite. Check this out:

robert3

The above is a photograph so diabolically awful that it pushes the boundaries of what even I would dare to put on the blog. It was taken by my brother using some sort of school-issued B&W camera. I think he was trying to be arty. Jesus, Mary and Joseph it’s a bad photo. I don’t even have any hair! And what is that hat??! Feel free to savage me in your comments πŸ™‚

Now to the good part: check out those posters!

I used to hang a lot of posters on my walls. When I was a lad, say in 1987, these posters tended to be of the video game sort, as evidenced by this shot. Yes the photo is awful (as in, sooooooo embarrasingly awful it makes me weep) but you must admit my ‘video game otaku’ street credit went through the roof when you saw the posters I displayed back then?

I can spot C+VG posters of Way Of The Exploding Fist 2 (an awesome game I beat many times), Leviathan (a wretched C64 Zaxxon clone that I hated), and Space Harrier (the big poster). Immediately behind my head is the 2-part 1987 Zzap64 calendar, and above and to the right is another calendar (C&VG perhaps) using Ghosts’n’Goblins art. In the bottom right is an awesome Proteus poster (that just shot my gamebook otaku rating into the stratosphere).

I can’t identify the art on the one above my head, or directly behind me. Nor can I identify what the art on the visible half of the Zzap64 calendar is meant to represent. Anyone?

But, my friends, but the poster I am most proud of is only visible in part in the top left of the image. Only the most maniacal of game fans would ever in their wildest dreams think that this image was worth making into a poster, much less hand proudly on their walls. What is it, you ask?

I present: the full map of Cauldron 2 on the C64

map_c64_large

Oh those were the days! If only we lived in a world where I could still proudly hang game maps on my wall and call them art. Even then it was a transient fancy, most of these posters torn down only a few years later to be replaced with Nick Cave or Depeche Mode. These days I have equally otaku-ish stuff on the walls (I smell a blog entry there…) but nothing that makes me as proud as what you see in the above photo.

Excluding my hat, (lack of) hair, clothing, glasses and what I am holding of course πŸ˜‰

5 Responses to “Poster Boy”

  1. Florence says:

    Didn’t think it was possible but this trumps the laptop bag picture by quite a bit :V

  2. Bernard says:

    I like the photo, primarily because I took it. I’m certain the posing was entirely your idea.

    For the photography class at school we had weekly theme. For that week it was portraiture. I took several shots of you, but it was a shot of our cat Borris that I submitted to be marked.

  3. Bernard says:

    The *film* was B&W, not the camera. πŸ™‚

    It was one of these: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentax_K1000

  4. Robert says:

    Oh I remember that now! Was that yours or a loaner from school?

  5. Bernard says:

    It was a loaner from school. I used to get one almost every weekend. I need to start scanning more of my 400 odd B&W negatives, there’s at least one or two good photos there.