#the fact that i legit got the 2 other banner cards too is making me cry

[kuragesoda]

babygirl where ARE you 😭😭😭😭😭

[mayor-nicola]

Welcome to my 3rd tutorial that I’m not qualified to make~! It’s about making these snazzy cards.

*Please refer to Parts 1 and 2 for some of the logistics and technical stuff you might need to do*

Step 1: Grab Photos from the Amiibo Camera Function and Take Them to Waifu2X

I went with something simple, but go crazy with the emotes and everything. After Waifu takes out the static, you can open it in your editing program of choice and make it transparent. (I’ve gone more in detail with this process in my other tutorials)

Step 2: Clean it Up!

Something that took me way too long to realize was the fact that the magic wand definitely isn’t the end of it. The tool leaves spaces and hard edges that look really bad. Not to mention the fact that, if your character has black clothing, it’s going to get erased. 

First, you export the rough copy and then reopen it in a new window. Then, you add a solid layer. Paint bucket it the color of your choice (I usually go with bright red) and see all that bad stuff. Make sure your character layer is in the front/selected and then start erasing. It helps to zoom all the way in and go around with a pretty fine size eraser.

Step 3: Placing Them on the Cards & Adding Text Layers

So, there’s like a billion templates online if you just Google “Amiibo Card Templates” I personally like this one. I just change the colors using my editing program if it’s not the color I want.

Open this as a new layer and move your character layer to the front (that layer should always be at the top of the stack) Resize the characters and move them around until they look centered.

Town Cards generally obtain the user’s info (friend code, town name, DA, etc.) You can use any text font, but personally I’m a fan of the AC font. I feel like it looks the most authentic.

Step 4: *OPTIONAL* Decorations

If your all about the classic cards, stop at step 3. You’re done. I think there’s too much open space, so I tend to keep going.

I’ve taken some other AC things online to flush out my cards and make look more legit. It’s mostly stuff clipped from Pocket Camp event banners that I make transparent and put in the middle of the layers. For Luna’s card, I’ve used the trees and pumpkins from Halloween. I took the pics in game, actually to get the sizing more right. The icons are from banners.

Finished! As always, please let me know if you’ve got questions. I’ll try and answer them as best I can. I really like doing these, so honestly if you can get the clear pictures of your mayor, I can totally do the rest.

[mycasandstarrs]

SPN 10x05: “Fan Fiction”

As a former theatre kid, this episode brings me so much joy.

“Ghost? Meet Winchester.”

There’s our girl!

“Where is the Samulet?”

“Oh! I took it off. It kept hitting me in the lips, and...”

“That amulet is the symbol of the Winchesters' brotherly love!”

!!!

“There is too much drama in the drama department.” Well...yeah.

“Why couldn't they just do ‘Godspell’ like good little skanks ? Instead it's this... awful, unbelievable horror story. Hmm! Like that stuff really happens! Huh, theater is about life, you know? Truth! Truth! Where is the truth in ‘Supernatural’?”

What the fuck kind of teacher is this??

I had a theater teacher who told us theatre was magic. I think she would’ve liked Marie’s play about Supernatural.

There she goes.

“I mean, it's close, but it's just.... It needs a little more grrrr!”

Our very special title card.

“Sundown” by Gordon Lightfoot

Our beautiful Baby.

Dean awake before Sam? A shocker.

“A teacher in an all girls school went missing in Flint, Michigan. She was heading to her car, disappeared, and nobody's seen her since.”

“Dean, there's nothing here that even remotely suggest there is a case.”

“There is nothing that even remotely suggest there isn't a case. Boom!”  

Logic!

Hell yes!

Thank you, thank you, thank you Robbie Thompson.

“Ugh, theater kids. Great.”  

“What? I was a theater kid.”

“Barely. You did ‘Our Town’, which was cool. But then, you did that crappy musical.”

“The - ‘Oklahoma’? Hugh Jackman got cast off of ‘Oklahoma’.”

“You ran tech, Wolverine.”

Hey, Techies are just as important as the actors.

They missed the huge banner advertising the show??

hahahaha, their faces are hilarious. Granted, if I found out someone made a musical about my life, I’d be speechless too.

“If there is case... It probably has something to do with all of this.” It has everything to do with it.

Marie, writer/director, and Maeve, the stage manager. (Fun fact: I was a stage manager once! Lots of fun, work, and telling people to shut up and pay attention.)

“I'm Special Agent Smith. This is my partner, Special Agent -”

“Smith.”

“Smith. No relation.”

Again with the joke.

There’s plenty of singing in Supernatural, mostly from you, Dean.

“If there was singing, it would be classic rock. Not this Andrew Floyd Webber crap -”

“Andrew Lloyd Webber.”

Love the improv correction.

Don’t shoot down “Carry on Wayward Son”, Sam.

I also had a theater teacher who went through a divorce.

“Maeve, right? You're the stage manager?”

“And I understudy Jody Mills.”

Maeve would make a great Jody!

“I'm gonna throw up.” Shush, Dean.

“I mean, I gotta say, it's kind of charming. The production value, and the...” I love Sam’s sincere interest tho.

Rule #1: You never touch the props.

“Why are they standing so close together?”

“Um...Reasons.”

“You know they're brothers, right?”

“Well, duh! But... Subtext.”

We gotta address that.

“You know, back when I did tech in school, we had two CD decks-”

“I'm sorry, I have to go sign the delivery.”

Aww Sam! I would love to hear his theater stories.

Pfft, Sam.

“There's no space in Supernatural.” We got close to it...

“Chuck stopped writing after ‘Swan Song’. I just- I couldn't leave it the way that it was! I mean, Dean not hunting anymore, living with Lisa?! Sam, somehow back from Hell, but not with Dean?! So, I wrote my own ending.” I don’t blame her.

“Dean becomes a woman.” Would still wanna see that happen in an episode.

“So, Sam came back from Hell. But without a soul. Then, Cas brought in a bunch of Leviathans from Purgatory. They lost Bobby. And then, Cas and Dean got stuck in Purgatory, Sam hit a dog. They met a prophet named Kevin, they lost him too. Then Sam endured a series of trials, in an attempt to close the gates of Hell. Which nearly cost him his life. Then Dean? Dean became a demon. Knight of Hell, actually.”

S6-9 summary, courtesy of Dean.

Here comes the second hand embarrassment.

“That is some of the worst fan fiction that I've ever heard ! I mean, seriously, I don't know where your friend found this garbage!” Oof, I still don’t like that.

“Siobhan and Kristen are a couple in real life. Although, we do explore the nature of Destiel in act two.”

“Sorry, what?”

“Oh, it's just subtext ! But, then again, you know, you can't spell subtext without.... s-e-x.”

!!!!!

Hi, Jensen.

“I don’t understand.”

“Me either.”

“I mean, shouldn't it be... Deastiel?”

LMAO SAM.

“You know... How about Sastiel? Samstiel?”

“Ok, alright. You know what? You're gonna do that thing, where you just shut the hell up. Forever.”

Teasing brother, Sam.

“This whole musical thing, everything, it's... It's all a coincidence? There is no case?” When is it ever just a coincidence?

“Get in the car!”  

!!!!!!!

BUT HE NEVER DENIED IT THOO, that’s all i’m saying.

“You know, we should've done ‘The Outsiders’, like I told you.”

Maggie’s the second person to get kidnapped.

“I called the cops, and a bunch of adults just told me I have an overactive imagination.” :(

“It is all real. And so are we. I'm Sam Winchester. That's Dean.” NO NO NO.

“You guys are way too old to be Sam or Dean.”

“Oh, yeah!”

“More of a Bobby/Rufus combo? Maybe.”

How old do they think Sam and Dean should be???

“We are what the books called hunters.” They believe that.

First guess: a tulpa.

“How do you kill an idea?”  

“Well, in ‘Hell House’, Sam and Dean burnt the house down, to take out the one tulpa they hunted.”

Correct!

“Gird your loins. It's horrifying.” Umm...okay.

I love how reluctant Marie was to burn her prop.

“What?”

“It’s not a tulpa.”

“Say it one more time, but just a little bit more Arnold--”  

LMAO, Dean.

Calliope.

“According to the lore, Calliope manifests creatures from the story she's tuned into.”

The show must go on.

An understandable panic attack over the possibility of getting eaten.

“Is Marie gonna get eaten?” Shush.

I love when Dean calls people “champ”. It’s so sweet and endearing.

“If Sam and Dean were real, they wouldn't back down from a fight. Especially my sweet, brave, selfless Sam. There's nothing he can't do.” !!!

“I used this for my one-woman ‘Orphan Black’ show, last year.” Marie is the theater kid I would’ve lowkey wanted to be.

“Writer. Director. Actor. I'm gonna Barbra Streisand this bitch.” FUCK YES! KICK IT IN THE ASS!

Dean fixing Stage!Cas’ tie!!

Funny Sam asked for Chuck...

“Oh! I-I, I love him. I do! But honestly, the whole author introducing himself into the narrative thing, it's just not my favorite. I kind of hate the meta stories.” I politely disagree.

“Alright, listen up, girls. Now, you're all here, because you love ‘Supernatural’.”

“Actually, I was hoping we'd do ‘Wicked’.” 

“I want you to get out there, and I want you to stand as close as she wants you to, and I want you to put as much sub and add text, as you possibly can. There is no other road. No other way. No day, but today.”

“Did he just quote ‘Rent’?”

“Not enough to get us into trouble.”

“Ghooooost-facerssss!”  This episode just adds wonderful years to my lifespan.

You know what I would pay to watch this play in full???

“The Road So Far”

There it is.

The misunderstood thumbs up, lmao.

Sam goes bye bye.

Maggie and the teacher.

They were in the school’s basement.

Hello, Calliope.

“I’ll Just Wait Here Then”

Nothing makes me more emotional than seeing the audience fall in love Stage!Cas, much like we did with our real Cas.

“If I have to sit through that second act, one more time... There's robots, and tentacles, and space. I can't even.” lol

“A Single Man Tear”

That exorcism special effect is so wonderful! I can see how they do it now, but from the audience’s POV, it’s absolutely magical.

What the hell did the audience think Dean was doing??

“We're through the looking glass, here, people. Strike the wendigo set, let's prep the priests costumes. And Sarah? Get understudies into hair and makeup.” Maeve’s a A+ stage manager.

“Supernatural has everything. Life. Death. Resurrection. Redemption. But above all, family. All sorts of music you can really tap your toe to. It isn't some meandering piece of genre dreck. It's... epic!” Agreed.

Stage!Dean is a pro if she could keep singing with everything going on in the background.

lmao at the one guy putting on his poncho.

Original Stage!Sam knocks out Calliope.

Understudy!Sam kills the Scarecrow.

Sam kills Calliope. A trifecta of Sam Awesomeness.

RIP Calliope. Killed by Sam.

The audience must be wondering how they managed to do that for years.

“Take a bow, Sammy.” Take a bow too, Dean.

“Thanks for saving my friends.”

“Sure.”

“You know? If you'd cut your hair a little, you'd make a pretty good Dean.”

Aww.

“Dean? You never should've thrown this away.” YYYEEESSS

“It never really worked. And, I don't need a symbol to remind me how I feel about my brother, so...”

“Just take it. Jerk.”

“Bitch.”

I love Dean’s panic when he realizes he just called a teenage girl a “bitch” without meaning to, lmaoo.

Take it away Stage!Winchesters!

Let me tell you, I literally bursted into tears when they started singing “Carry On Wayward Son”. It’s beautifully done.

Starting with Stage!Mary, who is more or less Square 1 of the entire story.

i remember a lot of people being upset about Cas not being part of the family lineup at the end, and I get it. But if Marie was only going off of the first 5 seasons, it makes sense that she didn’t see Cas as family yet because Sam and Dean didn’t see Cas as family yet. They’re just one year shy of that.

BUT the same girl who plays Cas is on stage as Adam, a technical Winchester. You could say Cas took over Adam’s role as the third Winchester “brother” because canonically speaking, that’s the highest title Sam and Dean have given Cas.

“Who's that?”

“Oh, that's Adam. John Winchester's other kid. He's still trapped in the cage, in Hell. With Lucifer.”

lmaooo. Awkward.

“Don’t you cry no more.” I sing, while crying.

I wish he had kept the Samulet Part 2 on there.

A picture perfect ending.

...One last surprise.

“Oh my gosh! But wait... That means that- Calliope came for me or for-?” Did Marie know who he was?

I thought it was Cas...

I legit lost my goddamn mind when I saw him.

A perfect episode of Supernatural, in my most humble opinion.

[courage-a-word-of-justice]

SSSS.Gridman 3 - 4 | Double Decker 5 - 6 | Golden Kamuy 15 - 16 | Zombieland Saga 4 - 5 | Merc Storia 3 - 4

Gridman 3

Samurai Calibur is literally what pulled me back into the show – after all, he’s an indicator that despite this show’s serious demeanour, it is campy at heart. So it’s great to see him have a big role, even if he has to look stupid to do so.

Uh…by the way, kaiju (Anti?). What’s so cool about Wolverine blades? I mean, Wolverine himself has healing factor to back that up, but you’re just a kaiju…

That star explosion! There’s the Trigger we know and love!

“A kaiju that eats breakfast with me.”

I always love how anime deal with isolation through framing and other visual techniques. In this case, it’s Utsumi and Rikka in two mirrors of different shapes.

“…over, right?” I thought, as Utsumi said, “…disbanded.” – Close enough.

Literally everyone in this show has blue eyes. It’s striking, but it’s a bit much…? I personally like a mix of eye colours for characters, especially those eyes which seem to have flecks of different colours in them. Not that I’ve ever had an excuse to give any character I’ve created eyes like that (since it’s easier to describe single-coloured eyes), but it would be nice to have an opportunity to. Update: Apparently it’s a homage to something. A Transformers thing, actually.

This ED…hmm, it kinda looks like the Sarazanmai ads I’ve seen around lately. Just without the stylised background people and with Akane and Rikka.

Double Decker 5

“The Derick Special!” – Welp, aside from forgetting the E in “potatoes”, they got the spelling right, LOL.

I wonder if Kirill’s sister looks anything like him?

…Hmm. I noticed the license plate on that blue car has BNY. Maybe it stands for “bunny” or “Barnaby”?

*Kirill headbutts Doug* - Well…uh, that’s one way to use your head…

“My first partner died.” – Wait, but if that’s (Doug’s first partner) not Derick…then who is it??? The one before Derick? Update: Yep, I was right.

I just realised the motorbike (? car?) Max rides has her name on the license plate. At least in the ED it does.

It seems like the next episode is a breather ep…hmm.

Golden Kamuy 15

Kibushi is number 8 on this page.

“Bat man”…? Like the superhero?

I can’t believe I actually don’t mind the Blingee fire at this moment in the season…urgh. Why did I just say that? I might regret it later…

Oh my gosh…woodcock birds are adorable!

Inkarmat likes Cikapasi’s cover story? Even the bit about…boob-grabbing…?

I like the technique where it appears Nagakura and Toshizou have deaged. It really gives the scene emotional impact and emphasises the fact this episode is called “Let’s Talk About the Past”.

Zombieland Saga 4

I always imagine Lily’s voice to be extremely high pitched. So high pitched, it’s almost silly…but maybe that’s just what happens when I turn off the volume and try to imagine their voices that way.

Chatsumi means “tea picking”. As in picking tea leaves.

Bikubiku just means Junko is trembling from fear. She probably has a fear of heights…

Hey wait, I thought slapping Saganship Z on people who aren’t zombies is called “administering medicine”…

The CGI…I don’t think it’s entirely hideous, but it’s still vaguely obvious.

Marutchi/Tamatchi -> Yes, it’s another Tamagotchi joke from Saki.

Merc Storia 3

Oh my goodness…this (the queen) is the fairy I got hyped for way back when this show first had its ED showcased! She’s basically the anime version of a Shirley Barber fairy! She’s gorgeous!

Princess, didn’t the tale of Excalibur teach you not to pull swords from stones?

There are a lot of princesses in this, to the point where it makes me feel like a kid again. Then again, all good anime makes me giggly like a kid. Not to mention this actually is aimed at kids…

Who’s a healer, Merc? Jamo? (Yeah, yeah, I’m kidding, but seriously, get Merc to do a better indication of who she’s talking about.)

Oh, how did I not think of this? Yuu’s name is Yuu because he’s you, geddit? The player character?...Okay, stop booing…

Seriously, all the fairies, regardless of their gender, are gorgeous…! Except the bartender and the butler. The bartender looks like Tank from Brave Beats and the butler’s just an old guy. The background characters are only decent looking, too, but I’m talking about (most of) the main characters here. The princess is kinda cute, but not enough to awaken a moe instinct in me, y’know?

I didn’t notice this until now, but Paristos has pointy ears…hmm.

Wait, that was a dude fairy??? The black one, i.e. “one that knows the land”??? Update: Sorry. I listened to his voice and then realised…that is a dude. Sorry. He even kind of sounds like Ume…Update 2: A-hah! That’s why The One That Knows the Land (that is literally what he’s credited as) sounded familiar. It was Junichi Suwabe! Update 3: His name is in the next ep, it’s Zephrodai.

SSSS.Gridman 4

I noticed Akane has a Surume card. It’s probably a pun on Suika (Watermelon) cards. Apparently the pun is that tapping the card on and off is like water swishing (sui sui), hence the name. Update: It would be also nice to say they were a pun on Hong Kong’s Octopus cards, but the visuals on the cards are all wrong…

See? They’re (Namiko and Hass) using their phones like normal kids. So why didn’t Rikka remember to use her phone last ep?

Rumour has it Borr is a dude, which makes the fact he’s questioning why girls like older guys make a lot more sense. Then again, you could just headcanon him as a lesbian instead. I’m not going to stop you from thinking that way if you do.

Honest to stars above, this feels like Kiznaiver Round 2. I didn’t mind Kiznaiver but though it could be better. The drama felt a little too…melodramatic, y’know?

See? This episode just proves Calibur is best boi…until further notice, when they introduce that other Neon Genesis bishonen for real.

So if Borr -> Buster Borr, Max -> Tracto Max and Samurai Calibur -> Calibur, then Sky Vitter…either Sky or Vit. I already know the answer is “Vit” because I saw it on the wiki, but it makes a bit more sense now. Anyways, I was wondering…what happened to the 3 dudes from Arcadia? Max is the strongest, eh? So many questions, not enough time, y’know???

Double Decker! 6

“Good Noodles”, LOL.

The line that appears when the subs say “Let’s take this to our car” actually says something along the lines of, “For the moment, let’s take this to our car, shall we?”

Interestingly, the word “guinea pig” (as in, the “we’re being tested on” sort) translates directly – you can read the word morumotto (guinea pig) in the text.

Maybe I’m not familiar with terms aside from keiji/keibu etc. for policemen, but I’ve never seen a policeman being referred to as “omeguri-san”…

If we’re talking about noticing things…a post for this episode already spoilt for me that “Kirill now has a brother”, although I don’t know whether that comment was made in jest/deception or not. Also, that “sister” sure didn’t have any…er, secondary reproductive characteristics on the torso, to put it lightly.

Reminder, dear cowatchers: Doug is…kind of…an asshole.

*Milla’s disappearance involves getting on one of those double decker buses you see around Lisvaletta* - Welp, that puts another meaning to the name “Double Decker”, eh?

Apple Bieber (LOL) is so tsundere when people actually call him “Doctor”, haha.

Holy sisters, Batman! Milla even sounds like a man. I may be terrible at identifying voice actors from their voices alone, but heck if I can’t tell this “Milla” is a man! (The voice of “Milla” sounds familiar…who is it, though? I’ll skip forward and check. Update: Okay, it’s a name I don’t recognise, but it is a dude! The VA’s name is Yuki Fujiwara. But now that that’s established…I like Valery (sic…?) already. He’s definitely my type~.)

Soooooooooo…yeah. Kirill really does have a brother. Sorry for the spoilers.

Golden Kamuy 16

…Wait, so he’s (Shiraishi) actually getting captured this time?

I find it interesting there is a Japanese equivalent to “Kamuy” which means “residence of the gods”, to translate it somewhat loosely.

Shiraishi had such stupid faces in everyone’s heads…LOL.

I find Tsurumi wearing a proper outfit coloured like the 7th division (albeit more Chinese-looking) kinda strange. Tsurumi suits red more, methinks.

Opium, eh? I assume this talk about poppies and England has something to do with the Opium Wars.

Arisaka’s probably as bad as Brook from One Piece…at least, when it comes to skull jokes in the OP manga. Or like a group of dads having a meeting.

Nikaidou’s so petty…LOL. But it is a good idea to weaponise a fake leg – I mean, Toshizou could have the same advantage if he put a sword in his cane…but I think Toshizou thinks too highly of his Izuminokami Kanesada to do such a thing.

I laughed pretty hard when I learnt Ogata is meant to be part of the 27th. Probably because it wasn’t much of a coincidence in the first place.

Zombieland Saga 5

Wowee, what just happened to Tatsumi’s leg??? “The second you let your guard down, it can all fall apart!” – I think he was talking more about his leg rather than competitive baseball…Update: I swore the ball went through his leg. If you didn’t interpret it the same way, then…sorry.

So I heard you like KFC. Well, we’ll just grab Saga’s equivalent to KFC so you can have chicken in your anime while you eat chicken…or something like that…?

Shouldn’t that be “principles of Drive-In Tori”?

The fish eyecatch seems to involve a Karatsu-kun-chi…according to the banner in the back.

Google Translate tells me “Bonjour, Saga jeune” means something to the effect of “Hello, Saga youngster.”

They really like their live-action segments on this show, huh?

Seriously, which of these girls does Ookoba-san remember??? Is he the driver from episode 1’s Truck-kun? Update: It’s Junko, so that makes sense. If it were Policeman A recognising Junko, Ai or Sakura…we’d be in trouble.

I forgot why they were panicking, but then I remembered…they didn’t have their makeup on. Ah.

Eh? You’re kidding…the Gatalympics is legit!

Yugiri literally poledanced on that rope! Yipe, that’s stiff competition…

What is Tae eating in these in-between scenes, anyway…?

I believe I cannnnnn…*music cuts immediately* Fall…So much for the “I Believe I Can Fly” parody…

Merc Storia 4

Gah, that necklace looks like a Sims gem…

Okay, if I figured out what the next country is it won’t be so interesting. It’s the “country of the clan of few people”.

You can see Salodeah in the ED…and Fruedling (sp???)…but there are some other characters you don’t see in these fairy episodes. Now I’d like to meet the lady riding the spider and the blonde guy (you see them in the same screenshot). You can also see the dog girl from the animal in the ED (I forgot her name though, LOL). I’d also like to see the angel country…

I just realised the next ep previews are called Merc Yokoku (Next Ep Preview) Storia…hmm.

[mexcine2]

                                  One-Way Ticket to Hell: Teen-Age Madness!  

          Although this series of essays concentrates on the analysis of print materials, we’ve bent the rules slightly this time to present a two-fer: a one-sheet poster and a theatre marquee display for One-Way Ticket to Hell (1955).

           One-Way Ticket to Hell (better-known today as Teenage Devil Dolls, the video release title) was originally titled One Way Ticket.  The film was produced, directed, and written by Bamlett “Bam” Lawrence Price Jr. (who also plays the main villain), a film student at UCLA (and married to actress Anne Francis from 1952-55).   Picked up for theatrical release by Eden Distributing, it was sold as an exploitation film, although it is actually rather serious in tone.  Like some other notorious future “cult classics” (such as The Creeping Terror), One-Way Ticket to Hell features no “name” actors and has no sync dialogue.  

           An extensive collection of One-Way Ticket to Hell “paper” can be found here, including a one-sheet (27x41 inches) poster, a 40x60 poster, a lobby card set and a still set. We’ll examine the one-sheet poster, as well as the marquee display for the film’s December 1955 exhibition at the Globe Theatre in New York City.

           The one-sheet poster is colourful, lurid and well-crafted.  The overall “look”--including the printing--seems a bit old-fashioned for 1955.  Posters for mainstream releases in this era tended to be much brighter, even for movies in the exploitation/crime genre.  

           The text elements--the tagline and two text boxes--are common to both the one-sheet and the 40x60, although the larger poster reduces the number of separate images from 5 to 2.  The “reclining woman in green” art appears in the same, lower position in both posters, but the upper sections are very different. 

          The 40x60 has a single key illustration of a man injecting a woman with drugs as another woman looks on, while the one-sheet gives us 4 different images from the film, as well as two newspaper headline mock-ups.  This makes the one-sheet a little “busier” that the 40x60, but it also provides the potential ticket-buyer additional information about the film’s contents.

          Interestingly enough, while both posters depict a woman getting a drug injection from a man, the images are different, featuring the same, presumably evil, man but a different woman.  This “key art” ties directly to the film’s tagline: “One Touch of the Needle--A Lifetime of Torture!”  

[As an aside, the lobby cards may have been produced for a different release, since they carry the “Bamlet L. Price Jr. presents” credit (the posters have no company name). The lobbies do feature a line-drawing version of the “reclining woman” art and the secondary tag-line “The Story of Teen-Age Madness,” however, both of which link them to the poster versions.]

          Thanks to the aforementioned website containing the lobby card set and still set for One-Way Ticket to Hell, the photographic “inspiration” for the individual images on the one-sheet poster can be identified. Woman getting injection? Yes. Man picking up unconscious woman? Yes.  Woman tries to prevent a sinister-looking guy from choking another woman? Yes. People on motorcycles? Well, this image isn’t on the extant lobbies or stills, but it’s in the movie so the poster artist probably got a photo for reference.  In fact, there’s a chance that a fair amount of the artwork was pasted-up from the photographs themselves and then retouched and colourised.  No shame in that.

          These additional images, as noted above, provide the potential audience member with a broader idea of the film they’re about to see.  Yes, it’s about youthful (female) drug users, but you’ll also see…motorcycles! The Wild One was a popular movie released in 1953, and gave motorcycles a sort of counter-culture image (prior to that time, pop culture motorcyclists were often cops, couriers, or speed demon daredevils).  There’s also violence! Unconscious women! Languid women!  And if you couldn’t figure out from the “One Touch of the Needle” tagline or the artwork of a woman being injected, the newspaper headlines make it clear: One-Way Ticket to Hell is about “Girls Drugged” and “Teen-Agers Held” in “Narcotic Raid.”  

          The textual elements in the bottom half of the poster don’t provide any additional information--they’re not specific to the film itself, serving chiefly as exploitation ballyhoo.  The first text box reads “It’s New! It’s Powerful! It Pulls No Punches!” which is fine, even though the printing doesn’t quite fill the available white space, which looks awkward. These phrases are just empty comments about the recency and alleged visceral impact of the film: “Shocking!” “The Untold Truth About Dope!” and so on would have been better.  “The story of TEEN-AGE MADNESS!” is slightly more relevant, exploitative and lurid, and was used on the lobby cards as well.  The banner across the bottom of the poster vouches for the verisimilitude of the exposé: “See It On The Screen As It Actually Happens in Real Life!” Not exactly clear what “IT” refers to, but generally satisfactory.  Exploitation-film promotion often laid a thin veneer of “informing the public” to “expose this evil” and “prevent it from happening to YOU” (or in YOUR town or to YOUR kids). “It’s TRUE!” (by which I mean, fictional).

          The other image included here represents the initial engagement of One-Way Ticket to Hell at the Globe Theatre in New York City in December 1955 (read the review in The New York Times).  The Globe was located at Times Square and Broadway in New York City: it opened in 1910 as a “legit” theatre (for stage plays), then converted to a cinema in the 1930s, reverting to its live-show origins in 1958 as the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre (which still exists).  

          Motion pictures in the pre-Internet days were advertised in various ways: in newspaper & magazine ads, on radio (and later, television), via billboards and window cards (which were displayed in shop windows, often in exchange for free tickets), using “heralds” (small paper documents--showing the title, some art, perhaps a brief synopsis, with the local cinema’s name often over-printed---liberally distributed throughout a particular geographical area), and through various publicity gimmicks (dress up someone like a gorilla, send him out on the street wearing a sign-board reading “Follow me to the Rialto Theatre to see KING KONG”).  

          Much of the “paper” discussed in my essays--one-sheet posters, lobby cards--was primarily displayed on the premises of the actual theatre, to attract passersby and to alert audiences to movies to be shown in the near future.  Thus, these methods are somewhat less useful in selling tickets to the masses, since you had to be in relatively close proximity to the building to see them (there might have been some walk-in traffic, though).  

          This caveat also applies to the special exterior displays that some cinemas erected for certain “special” films.  In addition to the actual marquee (listing the current bill), theatre managers used “standees,” banners, giant-size posters, and other ostentatious and elaborate decorations that drew attention. The Globe Theatre gave One-Way Ticket to Hell the star treatment, with a giant (text-only, too bad) display over the marquee itself, a piece of art (the “injection” scene used on the 40x60 poster) and tag-lines on the marquee, and an inverted-U shaped display under the marquee featuring a flipped version of the “injection” image, a humungous syringe, and lots of text. [It’s possible that the top part of this is a banner, and the two “legs” are separate sign-boards.]

          You’d have to be standing across the street (where the photographer who took this photo obviously was) to get the full effect of the giant sign, but it’s pretty impressive seen from this perspective.  Again, this is largely “localised” advertising, intended to provoke spur-of-the-moment ticket purchasing by people who see it: such a display probably wouldn’t convince anyone in New Jersey to cross the river and pay to watch One-Way Ticket to Hell, since they’d likely not even see it.  Consequently, such displays weren’t used for every film, and would rarely if ever appear in venues where there wasn’t a substantial amount of traffic passing by the cinema every day.

          Still, it’s amazing to see this display and realise it was advertising essentially an amateur/student film made for about $14,000.  One-Way Ticket to Hell was the only feature film ever directed by “Bam” Price, but it made quite a splash and--more than 50 years later--can still be seen online and on DVD.  I’m sure there are numerous “mainstream Hollywood” films released in 1955 about which this cannot be said. Hopefully Mr. Price (who passed away in 1996) lived long enough to appreciate the longevity of his magnum opus (well, his only opus, but regardless...).