Analysis of My Third Grade Sticker Book: Part II

Right. Back to my sub-par 3rd grade sticker collection. Here's Part I if you missed it.

(Remember, you can click the pics to make 'em big):

PAGE 7: The Inevitable Lisa Frank

Before I get started there's just one thing I need to get out of the way:

Witch hats ain't for ghosts, 'tardo.

Now that that's settled, great. Let's get to it.

As much as I'd like to plunge into a full-length discourse on Lisa Frank, there's already enough good, nasty writing on her out there. Google it if you like--but don't come complaining to me after you've wasted 3 hours of your life gorging on Lisa Frank internet findings.

So real quick, the basics: Lisa Frank is the eponymous founder of a neon empire characterized by the aesthetic result of mating a candy raver with a PVC-chief drag queen, glitter, acid, Peggy Bundy's wardrobe Best Of, fever dreams, baby animals and a dash of Yes album cover art. This mix, plastered on every commodifiable surface possible, was immensely popular with the elementary and tween-age crowd of the late 80s and 90s. Little girls = merchandising dream market = her shit was everywhere. Pencils and plastic products aside, if you didn't have any Lisa Frank stickers, you could forget about sticker-collecting completely.

Lisa Frank was not widely available in Europe, which placed her high on the totem pole of sticker worth. I certainly didn't have any of my own and, judging from the lame few that I did have, I'm guessing I traded some decent stuff just to score somebody's leftovers. (I may have even been ripped off -- I'm pretty sure that toucan and flamingo aren't genuine LF).

Apart from the basic rainbows, stars, seizure-inducing clashes of fluorescence, etc., Lisa Frank designs were also distinguished by a cast of specific characters.

Her current website--proof she's still pumpin' out the goods from her lair--offers detailed profiles of "the gang."

*(These profiles are the kind of media gems I live for. I think writing them is my new dream job. There's an orca who studies physics as a hobby, a panda who lists "hunger pains" as a dislike, a pegasus who doesn't like "negative attitudes," and a bear who's interested in "cool shades." But there are too many profiles to include here without this becoming a post solely about Lisa Frank, which I'm trying to avoid. So if you'd like me to address them all separately, let me know in the comments section below!)*

The gang members I have are these:


1) An arrogant Type A unicorn named Markie.


So The Galloping Markie the Unicorn doesn't like Hesitation, Bad smells, or Bullies. Bad smells? You would think that the clouds above the Fantastic World of Lisa Frank (Airfluff Island) could only ever smell like Bounce dryer sheets. Hm. I guess unicorns fart too. Fair enough then.


2) Two glowering Dalmations emerging from burning rings of leopard psychedelia, who may or may not be the damaged, adult versions of Spotty and Dotty Paws, a brother-sister duo who indiscriminately vandalize under the premise of making "anything that's bland, colorful." (As a little bland myself, I take offense.)

My guess is they don those fun paisley print bandanas to add irony to their flat, emotionless stares. Because my guess is also that they will silently remove those fun paisley-print bandanas, douse them in chloroform and then gas you and drag you away. To The Fantastic World of Lisa Frank, of course. They will also be sure to say, "Welcome to prime time, bitch," because they are big-time Freddy Krueger fans.

Yeah, these are officially the most intense Dalmations I've ever seen in my life. And are also available as beach towel, should I ever wish to make lying on the beach a traumatic experience.



3) A multi-colored orb.


Fun! Stuff girls love! Enabling children to exercise their imaginations and creativity!


3) A sulky little bitch.

4) A ball of technicolored insult.

You could look at this and reel off a rambling spiel of how ominously, singularly symbolic this is of the brazenness and frightening proliferation of corporate branding, how this is the visual approximation of the blind, caterwauling decline of society, how this is some condensed, spherical concentrate of a market niche, how wrong it is that we will happily accept being charged for a mere circle of a signature. But really, it's as simple as this:

Lisa Frank: Ripping off children with circles of bullshit since 1979.

PAGE 8: Disaster

Sticker collecting also involved the delicate art of assembly and presentation. An area in which--as we saw in Part I--I displayed zero finesse. We also see it here:


This page makes me sad.

While there is some categorization--

Glitteries: Shiny Bunnies: Creepy Clowns and Pet Shapes:

Partially Damaged Dinosaurs:

Anthropomorphized and Straight up Nasty:

--this page is a disaster. Even without the scars of attempted rearrangement (like I said, once I put a sticker down, it stayed down), the style and composition are pitiful. The unifying factor of these groups is a mystery to me, unless I was actively trying to make this my "Random/Ugly" page, or had a keen and precocious sense of irony.

Which I didn't--I was a pretty mediocre kid. And one who evidently didn't think twice about showcasing what's gotta be the #1 least appealing crew of groceries to ever hang out with. Who wants to be friends with a retarded orange, or a sleazy onion, or a maybe farting banana, or a challenged, toddler drumstick? Not me.

PAGE 9: Clusterfuck

Again. Style, composition, pitiful.

Here we have:

a. A lone, distinguished Pine Marten

b. Sluts

Dammmmmn. When'd Minnie become such a ho? Fishnet gloves? Leopard print leggings? Madonna headbands? Cheap plastic jewelry? Enthusiastic roadside soliciting? Nuh-uh finger pointing? Suggestive, rear-prone posing?


c. Baby Phenomena/Infantilizing of popular cartoons



d. Bullshit teeny tiny sun

I may possibly own the world's smallest and most insignificant sticker ever to exist. And it's upside down.


e. Patricia.

Patricia is not my name.

It always made me sad as a kid that my name wasn't common enough to find in sticker form, or on mugs, or jumbo-sized pencils, or hats, or those cool little fake license plates. I was kinda pissed off at my parents for that.

When I look at this Patricia font, I think "pizazz" and accompanying hand-movements.


f. Euro Smilies


These smilies have a distinct European style of illustration that I don't really know how to explain. It's the vague feeling of second-rateness, of these not being smilies so much as they are a small variation of stock expressions printed onto plain, yellow circles. Maybe it's the eyelashes, or noses, or that one looking wanton, I don't know. It's just Euro, in the same way that this duck is too:

Right? It's just kind of... off. It has eyelids. No one likes ducks with eyelids.

g. Fruity Bear


He has a pride bowtie.

(And you have him to thank for this entire analysis -- finding this sticker was the original inspiration.)

But wait. Could this be a cousin, or counterfeit, or perhaps earlier prototype of... HOLLYWOOD BEAR?



(First of all, next time somebody asks me, "How would you describe your personality?" I will also reply, "You can do anything you put your mind to." Then, when asked what my hobbies are, I will also say, "Stand up comedian.")

Man, Hollywood Bear sure is a party animal. Between going out on the town in style, skydiving, playing saxophone, throwing parties, being glamorous yet down-to-earth at the same time, how does he manage it all?

I'll hazard a guess: cocaine. Lots of it.

The signs are there. His friends worry that he's "too reckless." He likes cool shades--all the better to hide the bloodshot of three day benders. All the better to hide the vacant eyes of a bear grappling with demons; the remorse of the fractured bear he's become. All the better to hide a bear crumbling under the pressure of unfathomable expectation (10 Bearcademy awards! To work with Steven Squealberg!) and the stress of climbing property debt and back taxes on his very own tropical island Bearadise Island vacation villa (now falling quickly into disrepair); a bear bound by the facade of persona, of the entertainer ever marching in top hat and tails (but in celebration of what?). All the better to hide a bear barely there; a bear of despair.




And a bear who knows, in his blackened heart, that he is not who he makes himself out to be, but something tarnished and lost instead.

(Like Mr. Slugworth from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Similar, no?)

PAGE 10: Shinies

Here is an especially shiny page:

Here we have:

A lil bit of floating geometrics-checkered background-hot color scheme motivational 90s flash:


Awww.... birthday dino.

Whoa! Bear violating hearts in grass!

Kinda bullshit.



Total bullshit.


Even with all that sparkle, still a sulky little bitch.

PAGE 12: Ponies and Pumpkins

How much would it suck to wish and pray and beg for a pony, and then get this one:

Bummer!



Coming up in Part III: Gun-toting children, more sulky dogs, Garfield.