Pengo's 2023 Summer Book Club
I have always been in love with marketing. As a kid, I wanted to sell things. I don’t mean I wanted to make money (I’m still no good at that) I wanted to create product for others to acquire from me.
An artist does, too, but an artist is very particular about what they create. I wanted to make and to find an audience for things people wanted. I would design cereal boxes and candy wrappers. I made greeting cards. I wanted to be a graphic designer, I guess.
I did try taking courses in design, at Ohio University, and at Kent. But I was never very successful. Mom said I should have gotten a job at American Greetings, and she was right.
I embraced my role making posters and other promotional materials for Guerrilla and Dobama. I was happier designing the posters for Bad Epitaph than I was directing the plays.
Long before becoming engrossed in the TV program Mad Men, which is ostensibly about the business of advertising, I had read a book in high school called Acapulco Gold by Edwin Corley. Written in 1972, it’s an in-depth description of one Madison Avenue advertising executive, told with the same kind of hard-drinking, hard-playing bravado of that aforementioned 21st century TV program, though this story focuses on the account of one firm working secretly to get the jump on federal approval for the recreational use of cannabis.
How would a commercial advertising firm promote weed?
The more amusing aspects of this fable set aside (are they amusing? I cannot tell if the casual racism, sexism and homophobia exhibited by the main protagonist is meant to comment on the mores of the time, or the author’s actual sensibilities and does it make any difference) as a teenager I was largely compelled by the occupation itself – how to create a campaign for the product.
Currently, I am writing the adaptation of a book, a different book, a book for children, and it also tells the story of a product (to be sure, an entirely different product) from first idea to development to marketing and national exposure.
I embraced my role making posters and other promotional materials for Guerrilla and Dobama. I was happier designing the posters for Bad Epitaph than I was directing the plays.
Long before becoming engrossed in the TV program Mad Men, which is ostensibly about the business of advertising, I had read a book in high school called Acapulco Gold by Edwin Corley. Written in 1972, it’s an in-depth description of one Madison Avenue advertising executive, told with the same kind of hard-drinking, hard-playing bravado of that aforementioned 21st century TV program, though this story focuses on the account of one firm working secretly to get the jump on federal approval for the recreational use of cannabis.
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| "Mind Your Own Business" poster Guerrilla Theater Company (1994) I drew this! |
The more amusing aspects of this fable set aside (are they amusing? I cannot tell if the casual racism, sexism and homophobia exhibited by the main protagonist is meant to comment on the mores of the time, or the author’s actual sensibilities and does it make any difference) as a teenager I was largely compelled by the occupation itself – how to create a campaign for the product.
Currently, I am writing the adaptation of a book, a different book, a book for children, and it also tells the story of a product (to be sure, an entirely different product) from first idea to development to marketing and national exposure.
This children's book is tightly focused on the mission to succeed and how, as is often the case, the effect these decisions have on the lives of those around the actors involved can get lost. Capitalism creates many orphans.
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