Earlier this year, this post caused a few chuckles. Who doesn’t love terrible old photos?
Certainly not me! So with pride, two more:
Lovely aren’t they? Thanks to my brother for fishing these out of an abyss 🙂
Now, some analysis. Obviously these two photos were taken at the same time as before, and painful as it may be to admit, the calendar dates it as 1987. The bottom picture (these were taken in my room) shows bits of the same posters as before. But there is now more to be seen, so much more!
For starters, in the top picture, in which I’m pulling off an early Monkey D Luffy look, the wall behind me is plastered in vaguely homoerotic art. Most prominent above me is a Depeche Mode poster (circa 1985), but I can also see Duran Duran, U2, Howard Jones, Nik Kershaw and (dare I admit it?!) Wham. Can anyone decipher any of the other posters?
Ignoring my outfit for now (and frankly, for ever), let’s investigate what I hold. In my right hand is my yellow (yes, yellow) Sharp QT12 cassette player. This may have been my second favourite possession in those days. In the other hand? Well, lets just say this poster is proof for anyone who doubted this post (specifically the third-last paragraph).
But, as much as you’ll guffaw at the photo with me in it, the true gem for me is the lower of the two photos. Here we see a very rare example of my artistic skills of the day! On the dresser and back of the door you can see four pictures that I drew. The one partially cut off is an Alphaville picture, possibly the cover of Forever Young. The other three show my renditions of the following…
The white dragon from Caverns Of The Snow Witch:
The cover of Afternoons In Utopia, done in a very minimalistic style:
And a ‘Mezzodaemon’ from Fiend Folio:
If you look very closely, you can also see gamebooks in the little bookshelf in the lower left (under a statue of Mary)!
I love this photo. All the same sorts of things I rave on about now are right there – 25 years ago. I just love that I was drawing massive drawings of monsters from gamebooks and sticking them on my wall.
Next time I see some college nerd strutting his stuff, I can say with confidence “Let me tell you kid, I was drawing mezzodaemons even before you were born!” 🙂
