I happily admit to being one of those enlightened souls who jumped at the chance to fund Rob Loukotka’s Acme Corporation poster on Kickstarter when advertised there last December.
Loukotka, a fellow Chicagoan, had put together a hilarious video to sell his poster, a work inspired by the immortal struggle between Wiley E Coyote and the Road Runner.
Loukotka’s video, recounting his effort to draw and print a poster containing every one of the fictional Acme products ever devised, catapulted him into the upper ether of internet celebrity, just like in the original cartoons!
Now, when I’m demoralized, as I have been lately, I love to look at my beautiful red poster, with its silly devices that somehow have kept several generations of creatives safe in their jobs.
The poster is all about silliness, in the most thorough-going way. I simply can’t look at it without giggling, remembering childhood, and being more happy. I look at the ridiculous inventions and try to decide which one is funniest. The fake train tracks that lead nowhere? The hi-fi record that played fake railroad sounds? Just one glance brings back hours of shenanigans.
As moving to an adult, perhaps, is the poster’s underlying poke at perseverance, while tacitly embodying that very thing. The beauty of it is in the details, in all the excessive care and enthusiasm that fueled the work of the Acme Corporation.
harley says
Yes, as a youngster I almost always caught that cartoon on TV. The road runner was clever, like a fox; it saw the flaws in the poor coyote’s “original ” traps devised to make the catch. Most of the episodes had the coyote introduce two traps to catch the road runner. A nice post, Celia!
Celia says
It was pretty violent for those days!