Mutterings of a Mad Woman

When you start a business, it's important to know your target audience and the positioning of the product you're selling (a basic decision of who it's for, what it does, and how to appeal to your target group). With this in mind, I think the folks over at Casket Furniture need to work on their selling angle. Or at the very least, reorganize their website. I get the feeling they didn't want to miss out on either crowd - people mourning a loss and people who look at coffins as entertainment.

For example, the second menu item on their website after 'Casket Furniture' is 'Casket Gaming' where you can find items like this Coffin Poker Table.

Are you now in a fun and fancy free mood? Totally on board with how coffins aren't just for funerals? Goooood! Because the third menu item is 'Casket Plans' where we switch gears from fun and games. Suddenly the messages take on a sombre tone to discuss how hard it is to lose a loved one, and the products aren't for fun, but for eternal peace.

I'm sure most of us can remember a time in childhood when our parents nudged us out the door to play, even though something - be it the local bully or the crazy neighbour's dog that's always loose - was waiting for us. I can remember many a battle taking place at the local park. Though I will admit, I never had to fight zombies (not real ones, anyway).

This corner snapshot from Jason Chan's "Zombie Playground" sums up a metaphor of what it was like to battle those foes way back when.

Gives a whole new spin on "King of the Castle", doesn't it?

While there are many things to legitimately fear in the world, I find that human beings have a tendency to heighten these fears to the point where we lose scope of what we should actually be afraid of; what the original source of fear was, and how to act in order to protect ourselves. If you lose sight of what the original source was, then any action you take to prevent it from happening again is fairly useless.

I just read a news story from last October about a town in Pennsylvania who, after 16 years, lifted a ban on trick or treating after dark. The ban was put in place in October of 1992, after an 11-year-old girl, Shauna Howe, was abducted and murdered by two men.

Death is tragic. Murder of children is devastating. The people who commit these acts are the source of fear, and have nothing to do with a holiday.

I decided to do a bit of digging on the original story, and what I found illustrates my point of displacing fear.

The girl wasn't taken on Halloween. She was actually attacked on October 27th, while walking home from a girl scout Halloween party. On her own.

You may have seen his work on the Cartoon Network or through Warner Brothers. If you haven't, come sit by me and get to know Wisconsin-born Aaron Blecha.

It's the editorial work he's done while living in London that caught my eye (for example, the images posted below).

While I enjoy animated shows, there's something that changes just beneath the surface of a cartoon when you take the same animation artist and apply their skill in a different medium for an older audience: the corners are a little darker; the characters are a little edgier; there is a commentary to the unspoken story.