HOVERBOY CONTEST ENTRIES POUR IN!

We’ve gotten some entries, and we’re getting more every day! And since some of them are wonderful (and some of them are simply vile and hateful, you know who you are, vile entrants) we’re going to share these delightful Hoverboy memories with you Bucket People!

In terms of early animation from the twenties, this Li'l Bucketboy short is about as "limited" as it gets, with a total of only 38 different frames, repeated in a loop for seven minutes.

But first, it’s been pointed out to me by a friend, that today marks the LONGEST period of time since Hoverboy’s original creation we’ve ever seen, and tomorrow will be even LONGER! But there’s no time like the present to head back to the past and examine the origins of everyone’s favorite bucket wearing hero…or at least he’s in everyone’s top three.

Our research has suggested Hoverboy was first created as a tribute to Peter Nutt, the famous circus freak known as The Amazing Head, and father of Hoverboy co-creator Charlie Nutt. Our research has also suggested he was created as a flat out steal from this character, “Li’l Bucketboy”, who appeared in a 1932 animated film.

It's probably best if you don't mention the character is wearing a spitoon for a diaper.

One of the first animated characters to truly fail at the box office, Li’l Bucketboy was banned in 29 states , according to the New York Times, May 23rd edition of that year, for “…truly poor craftsmanship and racism even our Klan dominated era cannot abide”.

Our research has also led us to discover that science fiction legend HUGO GERNSBACK was involved, perhaps even earlier, as this edition of his 1912 magazine MODERN ELECTRONICS suggests.

At this point, did anyone truly CREATE Hoverboy, or is he part of the Jungian subconscious?

In an interview with  Rob Goodwin, official publisher of NASA Mission Reports (and very serious science fiction historian) told us,

“…when he [Hugo Gernsback] came to America in 1904, the first thing he did was he spent $30 of his first $100 on buying a bucket.”

This is Rob Godwin. You can trust him. He works for NASA, and he's a friend of Buzz Aldrin's. Really.

“Buying a bucket” was a term used in conjunction with the “Slopping” industry of the early 1900’s. In the crowded, dirty streets of New York at the turn of the century, slopping was a booming industry. Animal feed, water, milk, and feces all needed to be transported quickly and cheaply. “Sloppers” were really the bicycle couriers of their day.

“By “Buying a Bucket”, you bought not only a physical bucket, but the slopping rights to a particular piece of territory, which turned out to be the beginning of the road to success for Gernsback, father of modern Science Fiction.”

A delightful, if quick, interview on film with Rob can be seen HERE.

There will be more on the history of the Hovering Hero as we  uncover these important facts.

Can't you feel the patriotism just oozing from this image?

AND NOW:  Some of the entries in our WORLD SPANNING HOVERBOY CONTEST, open to all members of the HOVERBOY FACEBOOK FANPAGE.

THE CONTEST:  Drop us an email over at the fanpage, and tell us your FAVORITE Hoverboy villain from the past…one that we have NOT featured in this column or at the online Hoverboy Museum yet, and at the end of the month of May, we’ll pick the winning entry out of a bucket and send the winner a STUNNING recreation of the original art for the cover, drawn by Ty Templeton himself!   We promise, the recreation will be so line for line perfect, you’d SWEAR it was the original. <

SOME ENTIRES:

“The Procrastinator, who technically remains undefeated by Hoverboy because he’s been rescheduling their final showdown for 14 years and counting. He gained his powers when a dying time-traveler gave him his damaged chrono-ring, allowing him to put off until tomorrow any event he’d rather not do today.”  –Ray Yelle

“Greco-Roman Steve: With a physique that rivals Hoverboy, Greco-Roman Steve wins any battle that starts in the wresting ring and often creates elaborate plots that force Hoverboy into submissive positions.”  –Adam Borg

“Time is the enemy, the enemy of us all, but especially Hoverboy.  An eons-old curmudgeon trapped in the cherub-body of baby new year. The piss, vile and vinegar that comes with old age spewing from the two-toothed mouth of the insane mastermind know as Mr. Time.”  –Dana Moreshead (former head of creative services at Marvel Comics, and Hoverboy Fan Club member #00015)

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“The Forgotten, who didn’t care enough to show up for any meetings of the Apathy Three. Potentially the most fearsome member of this uber-alliance of enemies. Maybe. I think. Meh.”   –Ray Yelle

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“I think that HARDCOVER, the literary-based villain and former librarian who has turned to a life of crime after the untimely murder of his beloved Grammar, was my favorite.”  –Ken Turner

“The MOP is the ultimate Hoverboy nemesis! He absorbs all liquids, and since the human body is 60% water, he leaves his victims seriously incapacitated, not to mention dehydrated! And he has never seen a bucket he could resist!” –Movie Seals

“Mein Sweeper, the dastardly pewter-age villain who murdered Duck and Cover Boy in cold mud still gives me chills.”  – Rob Pincombe (story editor for the very popular animated TV show “KID vs. KAT” ).

This is just a small sampling of the floating memories we’ve uncovered during this contest, and your memory is needed as well…even if your memory is faulty and prone to imagination, we’re HAPPY TO HEAR FROM YOU!  Don’t let major industry professionals like Dana Moreshead and Rob Pincombe beat you to the Bucket Punch!  Enter today!

TOMORROW:  For FREE WEBCOMICS SATURDAY, we continue Hoverboy Week, with the latest Strips, and a COMPLETE Hoverboy story from WW2, never before seen online!  You better bring oxygen, cause we plan to take your breath away.

Ty the Guy, OUT!

BIG HOVERBOY NEWS!! ORIGINAL ART CONTEST!!

No, it's not Friday...but this was TOO important to wait!

For those looking for the Original Art Contest, y’all gotta scroll down about fifteen inches  (past the stuff about Nazi dentistry, and it’s connection to Hoverboy), and look for the big red letters saying IMPORTANT  HOVERBOY ANNOUNCEMENT!

For regular Hoverboy readers, my extended research about German Tooth Hygiene  has finally paid off.  It led me to discover what might be the most important photograph in the world of Hoverboy! It certainly suggests a possible origin for the familiar Battlin’ Bucket’s costume never before considered.

If this photo is genuine, it changes everything we know about our favorite Battlin' Bucket!

This is a photograph of Hermann Stark, father of Hoverboy co-creator BOB STARK, taken in 1929, when the elder Stark still lived in Germany, and worked for Auergesellschaft, a German company who marketed Doramad Radioactive Toothpaste to European customers throughout the thirties. “Es macht Ihre Zähne leuchten mit Weiß!” was their well known slogan, which roughly translated to: “We shall make your teeth glow with whiteness!”. Sales were brisk right up until the factory was destroyed by Allied bombers during the war.

A poster advertising Doramad Toothpaste, unscientifically blaming much of tooth decay on the Jews, and promising to chase their decadent influence from your mouth with military precision.

(As shocking as the concept of thorium toothpaste might be to our modern world, it was hardly the worst example of radioactive medical quackery in the first half of the 20th century. Radium enema treatments were quite the rage in the United States at the time, a practice that increased in popularity for years after Hiroshima changed people’s relationship to atomic power. The enticing slogans “Bop a bomb in your bowels”, and “Radiate health from the bottom up” was enough to keep the radium enema in the public imagination until the wave of rectum amputations that followed in the early fifties.)

How many Nazis got cancer of the lip from this tube alone? One can only hope....

But this photo of Stark, on his way to the PASTE ROOM at Auergesellschaft Works, shows the HAZARDOUS MATERIALS suit that factory workers wore to save their reproductive organs from decay while making the deadly dental cleanser. The mask bears an uncanny resemblance to later versions of the Hoverboy Helmet used in the comics, and the large black “H” on the chest (signifying that this outfit belonged to “Hermann”) is hard to chalk up to mere “co-incidence”.

Early Hover Boy appearances bear little resemblance to the startling photo at the top of this article. Which throws this entire theory "into the bin".

It’s interesting to note, that the first published versions of Hoverboy, seen in both the comic strips and the early pulp novels had a round faceplate instead

The first example of the "H" logo on his chest, from 1940. Click to enlarge

of eyeholes on his helmet, and there was no “H” on the chest until 1940. Like many of the pre-comic book appearances of the Hovering Hero, there is some confusion as to what was original to the character and what was clearly plagiarized.

The  photo at the top of this article (if genuine), casts an enormous shadow of doubt over the widely accepted version of Hoverboy’s creation (often stated by Charles Nutt in interviews) that Nutt alone had created Hoverboy due to the fact that “….my dad worked at a hardware store that sold buckets.”

Now, I don’t know WHAT to believe about any of this stuff.

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IMPORTANT HOVERBOY ANNOUNCEMENT:

We’re having a membership drive for the HOVERBOY FACEBOOK PAGE, and we want YOU to join!

It's not just fun. IT'S YOUR PATRIOTIC DUTY, PUNKS!!

WHY YOU SHOULD JOIN:

Besides the swell of pride one feels knowing that they’re better than regular people, members of the FACEBOOK FAN PAGE get regular updates on Hoverboy Happenings around the web, alerts for new entries at The Hoverboy Museum, and Hoverboy Fridays! at Art Land, first dibs on auctions for old Hoverboy memorabilia, including DECODER RINGS, POSTERS, DVDs of old TV and Radio Shows, and a chance to upload their own Hoverboy memories to share with a heart pounding world! And it’s FREE! What else on the internet is free, huh? I think it’s just us.

AND right now we’re running A FUN CONTEST with a BIG BIG PRIZE!!

THE CONTEST:

(open only to members of the Facebook Fan Page, so ya gots to sign up…) Give us your favorite Hoverboy Villain from the past. Tickle that memory bone, and tell us your favorite issue of Hoverboy THAT WE HAVEN’T YET FEATURED  ON THE WEBSITE GALLERY and name that Villain!!  The winner

Don't send us "Legs Luthor" as a villain suggestion. We already have him, get it?

(chosen in a lottery draw conducted by eminent Hoverboy Actress SARAH SAMMS) gets the original artwork for the cover, painstakingly recreated by me, (Ty Templeton) with such line by line precision you’d think I drew it in the first place!!  Which I totally didn’t, okay?  These are old.

Don’t send us a scan of the cover from an existing copy, send us your description of it, as it’s easier for us to find the comic that way (wink wink wink—have I winked enough here?).

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HOW TO ENTER:

Go here

Hoverboy

Promote Your Page Too

and sign up to join the club. Membership is free, and ya could win prizes, ya greedy comic fans.

CONTEST ENDS:

Well, according to Marcus Moore, curator of The Hoverboy Museum, the contest ends on the 21st of May, but I’m trying to talk him into letting it run until the 1st of June. Enter now and save the trouble of Marcus and myself squabbling over the whole thing.

Is it possible that this might be THE GREATEST HOVERBOY CONTEST OF ALL TIME?!?

It’s possible…

Ty the Guy

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