Collage Piece

                                                                Devlin Thompson

Waka! Waka! Waka! Waka!

Adhesive paper, enameled metal door

1979, 1981

                                                                ARTIST'S STATEMENT

      In this piece, I have attempted to make a statement about world hunger through repurposing commercially available "bubble-gum card stickers" portraying popular actors and video game characters to create an imagined scenario in which "Pac-Man", having no access to the "power pellets"  that constitute his/its normal diet, is forced instead to consume "Commander Adama." To subtly reinforce the food theme, I chose as my substrate an actual refrigerator door still in use at the time, so that the viewer would be forced to contemplate the image before every  meal or snack.  Not shown: several subsequent image groupings on the same door, involving "Spider-Man", an  orange cow, "Blinky the Ghost" (famed nemesis of Pac-Man), and magnets displaying pictures of food and the telephone number of a local pizzeria .

Note with Incidental Colonial Viper

If I thought anyone would believe it, I would claim that the Viper was drawn specifically to illustrate the note. A (possibly) interesting side note: later that year, I would dream that I'd received a life-size prop Viper for Christmas (on my grandmother's front lawn with a huge bow tied around it), and the rest of the dream was concerned with the monstrous impracticality of owning such a thing, and my ambivalent feelings about this albatross of a gift. I believe this may have been prompted by an article in Starlog tracking the fates of a couple of similar life-size rockets offered as contest prizes in the '50s, but it may have actually been before I read that. It was perhaps my least fun toy-related dream ever.

Pin the Tail on the Daggit

For a slight change of pace, here's a photo of my father holding aside a balloon to facilitate a game of "Pin the Tail on the Daggit" at my 11th birthday, on or about this day in 1979. He made the game out of white and mustard-yellow poster board (do they even make that color anymore?), and did a bang-up job of it, if I do say so myself. There was also a cake with a Colonial Viper airbrushed on top, and I seem to remember loaning the baker one of the toys as a reference, though it may have just been a comic book or an issue of Starlog. The kid playing the game is old chum David Alexander, who I haven't seen in nearly 25 years. Wherever you are, David, I hope you're well...and thanks for coming to my party!
CLARIFICATION: Upon applying the advanced detective's technique of looking at the back of the photo, I learn that this party occurred on April 22, 1979. A simple investigation determines that it was a Sunday, and my actual birthday fell on Tuesday, both then and now.