Random Happenstance

I enjoy arts and crafts time; or at least I do until I inevitably reach the part where it's not going the way I want it to and I'm trying to cram it together and power through to the finish. And the Wife always says I should just buy a 3D-printer and grind stuff out that way. Also, I almost always choose the wrong tool for the job, or the absolute hardest, most time-consuming way to do anything. So let's take a look at the newsstand!

The idea came from a Larry Hama house ad from 1982's Bizarre Adventures #32. (He also wrote and drew the short "Demon's Bridge.") Step one, then: stock the magazines for the newsstand, by ganking them off Google.

Pulp magazine covers! Newspapers from comics and movies! 70's Marvel mags! A...Spider-Man cereal box, for some reason! (Full disclaimer: I ate a ton of that. In college.)


I pulled way more than I could actually fit, and while most of them were from actual magazines (or faux-covers from movies, like Obadiah Stane on Newsweek for the first Iron Man) there are a few that aren't: the Black Mirror covers were on io9 some time back, and I know there's a Bruce Timm pulpy detective cover in there too. Are they accurately scaled? Eh, in the ballpark, I think. Cut them out, and glue them onto backing boards. If you want to give the impression of multiple copies, print up more.

Step two: buy some wood! Which were popsicle stick shaped, and I needed them squared off...just buy them squared off, if you see them! Using backing boards, glue, and tape; slap them in the shape of a shack! I did actually buy a little hinge, because I wanted to build a functioning door...that was beyond me, yeah. But cram on a shelf, and leave the roof unattached, so you can put whoever inside. I wanted a skeleton clerk, but went with a McFarlane Toys Al Simmons. Not the most poseable corpse in the world...

Step...six maybe, since you should've put in a window and everything. A real newsstand--which I keep misspelling!--would probably have the magazines held on by clips or something, but we're using putty. Slap 'em all over!

Anyway, most of the fun in this is the magazines. I may have to look for it now, but I'm pretty sure for several years, my folks had outside their house a birdhouse I built in junior high, which was basically a wooden box with a circular hole cut in it. That's basically it for my architectural skills, but good enough for this! Later, we'll check out making a miniature spinner rack!