bag men: sugar pops

by Art Chantry ( art@artchantry.com)

since i,ve  gotten into a scary creepy mood and posted some bags, i thought i’d go one step further and post my even smaller scarier collection of pop corn bags. of course, the fact that i also watched “killer klowns from outer space” yestrday on the teevee didn’t influence today’s choice, either. right?

i dunno why it is, but it seems to be part of that great “corporate graphics standards manual in the sky” that every pop corn bag on earth needs to have a scary ass clown on it. why is that?

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man, clowns are the worst. i think that’s why i don’t eat popcorn any more. i may be why i stopped voting republican, too….

…here’s another favorite cheezy pop corn bag. it’s actually promo item, a piece of swag actually used for sale at concerts at the merch table (some times filled with popcorn).

the cocktails were a short lived but very hip and cool band from the 1990′s. they operated in the exploding garage rock underground scene of that era (largely ignored because it didn’t happen int he media capital of nyc, at least back then.)

the cocktails always had some of the very best swag around. other bands like man or astroman and the makers were also known for killer swag. but, the cocktails were the coolest of all.

so, this little silkscreened fake popcorn bag echoes perfectly the aesthetic of the flexo klowny pop corn bags you usually find out there. great work.

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AC:it took me awhile to figure this was silkscreen and not flexo. that's pretty darn good faking, there, fella. really great crappy printing!!

ADDENDUM:

AC:i can’t remember the last time i had the luxury of a ‘press check’. i don’t think i’ve done a press check in decades. all my printing is so cheapo that i have to do mail order printing. it’s pretty much “put yer money down and take yer chances.” i have to design for a “range of acceptability” in my work – it can go off so far this way or it can go wrong so far that way – and still be acceptable. most of the work i do can be off register a half inch and still work fine. that’s the way i’m forced to design these days. that’s the nature of my clientele. honest. i don’t really have clients with money (like corporations. man, those guys just piss money away.)

besides. i think most of these bags are ordered from supply companies and they print most of their stuff through ‘flexography’. betcha never heard of that one before, either have you? it’s an industrial cheapo printing process that primarily used on cardboard boxes. crappy is what makes it in the world under here, the REAL world of graphix. zero money = DIY. …flexo (as i understand it) is almost like a rubber stamp process. dirt and debris accumulate in the ridges (cheap dirty fiberpus board stock) and the ink over fills. the ‘blobby’ and ‘over trapped’ look (as you call it) results when you don’t bother to stop the press and clean ever it so often. these bags are so cheap, they probably just s’tart ‘er up’ and walk away. then, come back every 4 hours to throw more ink and paper in it….

…there was also an infamous mudhoney show at coca back in around 1990. it was an extremely hot sweaty night and somebody (actually it turns out if was owen, my tattooist) showed up with a couple of bags of powdered sugar. he popped them open and threw them into the air and crowd played catch with it,covering the entire place in sticky gooey sugar slime. the amps and equipment actually started to short. the band started sticking to the stage (and each other.) icky!

to it’s last days, that space has a black hard crust covering the floor…

… then there was that blackouts show where they were opening up for some pop band, so they all performed in loin cloths and as a finale, dumped buckets pig blood on themselves. the featured band wasn’t to happy to play in that mess.

at least i THINK it was pig blood. if anybody out there remembers exactly what that crap was, i’d sure like to know….

…then there was the really wonderful Refuzors ‘dead cat’ show of legend. they found a freshly run-over roadkill kitty on their way to the gig. so they they took it on stage and swung the corpse around their heads by the tail while they sang their popular tune “splat goes the cat!”. the audience got all messy….