Bisquick - Pancake it till you make it.

Breakfast. For some people, it's the first meal of the day. And yet, for millions of Americans, they run out the door without taking the time to have a healthy, well-rounded - oh fuck that. Look at this groovy picture of pancakes from The Seventies.

By the early The Eighties the airbrush would sweep across the advertising world as the unheralded messiah of lazy, cheesy commercial art. People would love the hell out of  airbrush art, and it would later come to typify The Eighties so much, that by The Nineties, it would be (thankfully) played out, and regarded as lame as a pair of parachute pants.

In 1984, if you carried this Trapper Keeper, you were the coolest kid in homeroom. By 1990, you were a big lame, and maybe still sitting in homeroom.

An airbrush, in the hands of a really skilled airbrusher, is an amazing wondertool. Like any other media (you know: oils, pencil, etc. Not "media" as in "television" or "newspapers"), a master will make it hard to tell what they used to create the artwork. You'll hear people say things like "That's colored pencil? You're kidding me!".

So, yeah, an airbrush is not inherently stupid. It's just a tool. However, like any other annoying fad, like autotune, lens flare, or sampling, if it makes things easier to do, you can rest assured it will be wildly overused by way too many people people who use it as their shortcut to being "a artist". If they couldn't be an artist without their favorite gimmick, they're not an artist. They're a lazy fraud and a hack. There will always be a market for work like this. So, yay for lazy hackfrauds.

What's the airbrush of today? Hmm. Pick one. Computers have made it pretty easy to do nearly anything by clicking a few keys. Photoshop, for example. What's that other thing where you can replace people's faces in video and create fake revenge porn? Something like that, probably.

Okay, rant complete.

What's with the airbrush talk, anyway? This 1976 breakfast illustration looks kind of like it started with some airbrush to get started, and then maybe some watercolor or guache over that. You can see some brush strokes in the details at the edge of the plate, for example. Then there's the texture of the pancakes, which looks a lot like colored pencil. See? A good artist can work with a number of different tools and make it hard to tell how they did it.

Look at that breakfast, all shiny and glistening, like it's covered in rich, delicious vinyl. I don't know what this style would be called, but it's very Seventies. Someone should probably harvest it, pop it over an alpha channel background and save it away for a rainy day. Maybe someone will have a The Seventies-themed pancake party (god help us all)?

Hey! Look what a randomly chosen P.A.G. Graphic Blandishment and Photoshoppery Brigade staffer has done! Popped this groovy breakfast out of the ad and onto a nice transparent layer and saved it off as a PNG! Neat! Thanks, P.A.G.G.B.P.B. staffer! As for the rest of the ultranet... you're welcome! Graphic Gift incoming!!!

Click for 1600px.

Neolite Soles - The greatest gift of all.

This wholesome couple bought their boy some shoes last Christmas. What did he do to deserve that?

"Last Christmas we got practical and included a pair of shoes in Jimmy's stocking." Okay, "included" tells us that it wasn't all he got for Christmas, so they aren't total monsters. But shoes - along with food and shelter - are things a parent is expected to provide for their kids anyway, regardless of holiday gifting. Trying to pass off basic necessities as an exciting Christmas present is some lame parenting, right there. If your kid needs shoes, sticking a pair in their stocking is like giving them a loaf of bread on Christmas morning. "Merry Christmas, Jimmy! Eat up!"

But apparently, Jimmy was over the moon about those Christmas shoes, running up and down the hall in them all the live-long day. Now you know we're in the bullshit world of advertising land. Kids do get clothes for Christmas, but to be honest, when you were nine years old, do you recall being excited to rip open a box only to find a sweater inside? Never. Only the highest-functioning child has enough theory of mind to feign happiness when finding a garment masquerading as a proper present under the tree.

Most kids, being the narcissistic near-sociopaths that they are, it's all they can do to keep from punching you after opening a box of socks. Recall A Christmas Story, when Ralphie and Randy open up some socks on Christmas morning, pausing only to exchange a baffled glance before tossing them over their shoulders and moving on to something interesting, like maybe a clockwork zeppelin.

But "most" is not "all". There are a statistically insignificant number of preadolescents who could, uncoached, conjure a plausible smile and a simulation of polite gratitude in response to a sock gift. In decades to come, it is diplomatic outliers like this that will surely be forging alliances between fiercely hostile nations. Heroes, one and all.

But enough about them. Look at mom and dad. Jayne Mansfield and Ricky Ricardo are apparently married, and never leave the house without a hat. Plus they have their gifts wrapped at the store. So fancy! Also plus, they never let themselves be overlapped by other graphical elements in the ad, making it child's play to cut them out and use them wherever we like. So considerate! Phil Are GO! Graphic Blandishment and Photoshoppery Brigade... assemble! Pkshow!

Deploy pen tool! - Complete!
Create selection! - Complete!
Feather selection - Complete!
Ctrl/J (or command/J on a Mac, isolating a selection of an image onto a new layer) - Complete!
File / save! - Complete!

Good work, PAGGBPB! Hit the showers, and watch the towel snapping. Someone could lose an eye.

Jayne and Ricky now have a totally transparent alpha channel background, and they're all dressed up to make the scene on your filthy, fragmented hard drive. Get your rude finger ready to right click their brains out in three, two, one, RIGHTCLICKNOW! You're welcome!

Click for big.

Click for big.