The Voltron Notebook

Today we take a dive back into the carefree 1980s, when we had way more time on our hands than we knew what to do with. Sure, computers were around in some fashion, and I did in fact have one in my room, but they weren’t the omnipresent time-suckers that the youth enjoy today.

No, we had to find other ways to pass the time, so drawing and writing were a good way to make do and stay out of the parents’ way in a quiet manner.

The Voltron Notebook has somehow survived throughout many a home move, all without much in the way of trying to coddle it. The cover is slightly worse than this old 2014 photo since the cats decided to jump onto the box it was in and then bolt across the room because they thought they saw something. The remainder of the scans are from some of my 2001 archiving attempts, where I thought 100 dpi was perfectly acceptable. It did produce perfect screen resolution images, however, so maybe it was fine in the end.

Come with me on a journey of terrible spelling, grammar, attempts at Greek, and some dubious drawing skills. If this goes well, I will delve next into the Jedi Journal. I believe there’s a drawing of a butt in it and some old blood.

I think I posted my old sticker collection over on Agora Road, so referencing it will fall on blind ears, but in some rare cases, I actually used a sticker rather than keeping them pristine and unstuck. Dinosaurs were a common theme for a fair majority of children back then, and we had the good fortune of being ignorant of scientific breakthroughs. Dinos were terrifying creatures of death and brute force. Little did we know they were delicate birds that pranced around and whistled calls to each other. Certainly, these were things we needed never know, assuming this isn’t another conspiracy from the fun police.

I wudn’t want to meet him, he eats meat, he’s rex, he’s bad. He’s teaubul, aaaaa! Kill him. Bang! Don’t wury, he’s dead. Ha Ha Ha, uho. He’s getting up. Bag! I pulled one tooth out. He’s dead now. He didn’t bite me.

Spelling crimes against humanity aside, we see the telling of an astute scholar who was attacked in the middle of his description of the great beast. Not one, but two shots are needed to take it down. Only after pulling a tooth out to see if it would still bite could we rest.

The second page is an outline of stats, much in the same way we would later be asked A/S/L in AOL chatrooms. I was far ahead of my time—just a simple 60 pown pech man with unwanted fruculs. Note the strict transliteration into Greek letters. I found my dad's old collage textbook and 'taught' myself how to swap letters without any regard to historical context.

Onto the household survey section. I went around to anyone who would humour me, and I asked them to give me a list of things they liked or were otherwise important. I’m guessing this was during the summer when my dad was home all the time from his teaching schedule, hence why my mom was noticeably absent—not because she didn’t want to be bothered with my pointless requests.

Chris: puzzles, snugules, beet me up.

My brother, when given the opportunity, told me that he liked puzzles and snuggling with blankets and stuffed animals. I’m almost certain that I added the last item on his behalf, since I wasn’t going to let the sibling rivalry go unchecked.

Δαvvυ: This, making, draing, staying home.

So very meta of me to mention the very book I was penning as a hobby. Drawing will come later, but the most notable thing is the fact that I just like staying home. Sure we were bored all the time, but it was better than school—that was for sure.

Dad: Me, and the rest, God, ice, [computers], wood, [fish]ing, bolyball, [sledding]

Kudos for adding me first, but perhaps I snuck that one in before I even approached him for input. That would explain the ‘etc.’ shortly after. A mix of pictograms would indicate that I wasn’t comfortable spelling certain words, even if that didn’t stop me from failing at the ones I did. Ice and Wood were probably references to ice skating and woodworking. The crude computer almost looks like a laptop, but we wouldn’t experience that for many years to come.

I forgot I was supposed to rotate this page, but then again, it wouldn’t fit the format here. Just do me a solid and tilt your head, will ya? The first drawing was from the closing scene of Brave Little Toaster, shortly after they escape the harrowing ordeal during the junk yard. I know the cartoon was meant for children, but anthropomorphizing the cars just before they were hoisted into the crusher was soul-crushing. At least don’t make a song number out of it.

Aah, your all a bunch of junk.

Anyway, there was a contest on the Disney Channel where you could submit drawings that could potentially end up on the bumpers between shows. The fact that I’m still alive rests on this drawing still being in the notebook. The punchline is given by the grumpy old vacuum cleaner, and everyone laughs. Except blanky, who states his name before realizing the errors of his ways and throws a quick laugh in afterward.

I appeared to have aged two years in the meantime as well, explaining how the artistic skills have progressed leaps and bounds. These were actual stuffed animals that I owned, so call it a still life attempt, if you will.

I don’t have the slightest clue why I labeled these with multiples of 101, nor why they are in percentages. I’ll attribute it to the fact that I was fuzzy on what those even meant. The characters are things I had made out of cotton balls, thread, and pipe cleaners.

The second image was part of storytime with my brother. Outside aimlessly drawing, we would tell stories to each other. In fact, I found a cassette tape recently recording many of them, but it needs a lot of cleanup before going prime time. I’ll give you a hint though: one story involves a Valentine’s Day punch to the nose.

In this story, a creature died or something before giving its full name—starting only with Griz? Eventually someone came along and was able to recount the rest of the name, but then he died halfway through describing the creature. Then a third person came along and finished the job. The noticeable gaps in the text and imagery were where they once were half-completed. As I told the story, they were filled in. You had to be there…

Why it’s killing someone with laser vision or why it has a clockface polyp on its butt, I’ll never know.

More stuffed animal studies.

Santa, I’ve been ood!

For once, that’s not a typo on my part. The ‘g’ fell off the stocking, so I faithfully recreated the likeness. I cannot tell a falsehood. Maybe as a follow-up, I’ll find these in the attic, and we can see how close I came to their portrayal.

As we wrap up the final few pages, I updated my age in the corner, as I’d done throughout. Being between 10 and 11, I had switched from dinosaurs to computer games. I guess that’s why things stop here, but we can only blame Commander Keen so much.

Speaking of ol’ Keen, I had hopes of making my own game. Did I know how to program? Of course not, but how hard could it be? I kept bugging my friend and church to, in turn, bug his brother—the BBS guru—to get me a game maker program. I’d just have to draw stuff, and then the game would start shaping up. I think once that didn’t seem to pan out, I asked him if he wanted to help make the game with me. He agreed, but likely so that he could get me off his back and get seconds at the cookout we were at.

The plan was basically to take Episode 1: Marooned on Mars and reimagine the main character as the stuffed animal that had become my favorite. Anyone familiar with the world map will notice an eerie and almost exact match. Marty Kitty, the protagonist, is even seen flying to Mars. Add a bean-and-bacon fuel source, and I’d be owing Mr. Tom Hall some apologies. It’s Master Marty Kitty, which I assume was one way to capitalize on Commander Keen or Captain Comic.

I’m guessing I was already thinking about Episode 2, which would make sense. I certainly wasn’t any closer to creating something playable, so may as well get artwork and stories finished.

The choice of hippies being the antagonists is a curious one. I probably just learned the term, and it is equally likely that my parents weren’t fond of them, having grown up in that era. The cyclops, long-haired, earringed spaceship is one for the books. Or just one book—this one.

The 1990s apparently killed my offline artistic endeavors, perhaps for the best. I continued to doodle in school notebooks, but that was more of a survival tactic in class. I have those as well, but they’re haphazard and cluttered. Not the orderly array of 14 pages drawn out over four years.