In Which Your Faithful Narrator Goes Down the Rabbit Hole of Memory Lost

Yesterday at work I had a conversation with a guy who was looking for a book about Ed Roth, of Rat Fink fame. Ed Roth was an artist that made hotrods, or more importantly completely recreated the art of the hotraod, he was also a legitmate graphic artist who created automotive inspired art, hence Rat Fink. You've probably all seen the Rat Fink character on t-shirts and posters-- he's usually a overgrown rat in a souped up hotrod, slobbering over a gearshift topped with a skull and there are flames blowing from the exhaust pipes and dust and gravel spewing from behind the rear tires.

As we talked the guy said something about CARtoons magazine. I almost fell over. I used to subscribe to that magazine when I was in middle school. I was never a car-guy per se, that is I was never a grease monkey, nor did I know anything about cars, but I liked the magazine, I thought it was funny. CARtoons magazine was kind of like a Mad Magazine for the gearheads. The thing is that I have never talked to anyone who remembers the magazine. I get blank stares when I mention it. I had gotten to the point in my life that I thought it was a made up memory. I wasn't sure that the magazine had existed. Turns out it did. When the guy mentioned it I about freaked out. I think he was a bit surprised at my excitement over it. We talked for about ten minutes about the magazine and I rattled off some of the things I remembered about it. I particularly remember
Krass & Bernie. They were definitely two gearheads. They were drawn by a guy named George Trosley, a well known artist in car circles. I remember Krass & Bernie because they were always designing these crazy cool hotrods that usually ended up in some way or another not going anywhere. The Krass & Bernie strip was usually at the beginning of the magazine.

I guess in weird way it feels good to have a memory validated. I seriously thought it was a memory I had made up, though, I knew it wasn't. Its too bad the magazine has stopped publishing. It really was a lot of fun.