The Red Headed Stranger

Previously:

Follow the Leaders  - -  Tour of Duty  - -  Under the Dome

My Spidey Sense in Jingling  - -  The X-Men Visit the State Fair

 Texas Marvels  - -  Check Please  - -  Houston Heroes

We've seen several comic book characters visit the Lone Star State over the years, especially the gang from DC and Marvel.  But it was only a matter of time before the kids from Archie Comics wanted to get their piece of the action...which brings us to 1991's Veronica #17.

The story begins with Riverdale rich girl Veronica Lodge on a plane headed to DFW Airport to visit her father who is already there on business.  She passes the time by reading a paperback adventure of "Dusty Marlowe, Rodeo Star."  When a bit of turbulence gives her an old school, sitcomy konk on the head, naturally she gets the type of amnesia where you believe yourself to be the character you were just reading about...very common stuff..

Armed with the confidence that comes with a brand new persona, Veronica (or "Dusty" as she now calls herself) then proceeds to lasso a wild bucking bull who was loose in the airport (They really gloss over the whole "bull is loose in an airport" element of the story) like a champ.

The bull's owners, father and son rodeo organizers, Harry and Matthew Chase, offer her a job in their rodeo which she promptly accepts.  They even seem to be okay with giving the amnesiac teenage girl they just met a ride in their truck.

One bottle of red hair dye later, Matthew starts laying on the charm by taking Veronica out to dinner at whatever the restaurant at the top of Reunion Tower was called in the early 90s.  Check out artist Dan Parent's take on the Dallas skyline:

The house style for Archie comics might seem somewhat simplistic but if you take a minute or two to examine the drawing above you'll see several details of the Dallas skyline were included and not just the obligatory Reunion Tower cameo.  At this point in the story we get into a tour of Texas landmarks.  Since we're starting in downtown Dallas, let's do some side-by-sides from that area:

One of the first sights is the JFK Memorial, a.k.a. the JFK Cenotaph which is unfortunately mostly covered by word balloon.  Making matters worse is that the Old Red Courthouse Museum is featured prominently in the panel but the artist didn't seem to have a good reference pic to work from so the resemblance is not very accurate.

Veronica notices that Dallas founder John Neely Bryan's log cabin was not necessarily matching its downtown Dallas surroundings.  The cabin has been moved around and refurbished several times over the years and always seems to get attention.  You may remember that a few years back another comic book tourist noticed it when Spider-Man teamed up with the Dallas Cowboys.

After a while it was time for the traveling rodeo to start traveling and it was southbound to Houston.  Amnesiac teenager "Veronica/Dusty" continued to tag along and nobody seemed too weirded out about it.  And the tour continued!  This time at NASA in Houston.

While all this is going on there's a few subplots in the story trying to keep the queso spicy.  One involves a pair of rodeo clowns planning to steal from the Chase Rodeo's box office.  Another involves Veronica's father hiring a private detective (who's always eating something for some reason) and Veronica's mother hiring a psychic (who, like all psychics, is faking it til she makes it) to track down their daughter.

And, of course, the tour continues!  This time it's a Texas history lesson at the San Jacinto Monument.  Either Veronica is genuinely interested or she's doing a great job of faking it.  But there's no time to bask in Texas Independence...it's time to head to Austin!

Like most tourists, one of the kids' first stops is the Capitol Building.  It's an impressive sight (and a great drawing) but I can't help but stare at the mustache bro who's looking right at the reader:

Yeah, this guy knows what's up.  He's got a secret...a dark secret.  But that's a story for another day.  Unfortunately, our fate is to continue following Veronica and Matthew on their tour of famous Texas sites:

The last stop on the tour was a quick swim at Hamilton Pool.  Looks like there wasn't a postcard handy for the artist to use as a reference because this one was a little off too.  The real thing is more of a grotto than what you'd think of as a traditional water fall but it was still pretty cool that a natural landmark was included in the issue.  Now all that's left is the wrap up.

The rodeo clown robbers were foiled, Veronica got her memory back, her parents finally caught up with her and they all celebrated with some BBQ and some Texas two-stepping.  All in all, a pretty standard trip to Texas.

Pin Pal

Previously:

World's Largest Kaleidoscope  - -  World's Largest Jackrabbit 

If there are to be various World's Largest things then surely they would feel right at home in Texas.  While, I've so far been able to stop myself from beginning a blog entry with the phrase, "They say everything is bigger in Texas," it's getting harder and harder with the amount of great big stuff that populates the Lone Star state.  And with that, we head inside Pinballz Kingdom in Buda, TX to check out another great big thingamajig.

Now it's always tricky when you get into the "World's Largest" this and the "World's Largest" that.  Caveats tend to abound.  Many people play it safe by claiming they have the largest thing in the state or the country or they can even get cute and claim to have the second largest such-and-such.  But when signage is involved, you know they mean business:

There's a lot of great pinball machines out there but there's only one that can claim to be the "World's Largest."  OK, so these were commercially produced so there's technically more than one of them out there but I this is the one in Central Texas.  Behold...the "Hercules":

The place is full of tons of retro (and newish) pinball and arcade games but this one is the arcade's pride and joy and is positioned right in the center of the action.  In the interest of full disclosure, the Folks at Guinness claim that this machine in Italy is the real World's Largest but that location probably doesn't have the old Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade game like Pinballz does so I'll head to Buda the next time I want to sink some quarters.

"Whip It" in Austin

On a recent visit to Austin we made our usual visit to 6th Street.  Our first stop was The Museum of the Weird but now we're going a little farther down the street for some shooting locations from the roller derby movie "Whip It."

At one point in the film there's the standard "love montage" featuring Whip It Girl & Whip It Boy having fun at various places in Austin. Here, it looks like they just stopped by Roppolo's Pizza to have a slice and a quick piggy back ride:

Later they went down the street a few feet and took in a movie at The Alamo Drafthouse Cinema (which is one of the greatest movie theaters in the world despite the fact that they've never screened any of our films):

 

Here's a scene where Juno/Kitty Pryde/Whip It Girl gets off a bus in Austin. The location is on South Congress Avenue near Elizabeth Street and has some of the the Wacky Austin Shops™ in the background.

The most recognizable shop is Lucy in Disguise With Diamonds costume shop/clothing store/Wacky Austin Shop™.  As you may have noticed, it has a great big Carmen Miranda Zebra on the roof.

You can see downtown Austin in the background. Apparently a giant skyscraper was built after the filming of the movie but the rest of the skyline is relatively the same. You can see the Capitol Building in the middle.

Austin and the surrounding area have had plenty of films shot there (like Office Space) so hopefully I'll stumble across a few more the next time I'm down here.

Office Space

We're going to head to Central Texas for today's "On Location"...all the way to Austin, the home of beloved businesses like Initech & Chotskies!

You may remember the exterior of the soul crushing company from the move "Office Space." The offices look vacant today and there are some "For Lease" signs up if you'd like to spend some dough to recreate your favorite scenes.

The location of Chotskies Restaurant has definitely lost its flair...it's now a bank. And a bank that doesn't seem to like it when people show up to takes pictures, no less!

It was hard to try and copy the angle from the film to get the picture but you can still see the background building behind the trees that have grown up.

There's still a few more locations from this film I need to track down but right now I need to get back to work on those TPS Reports.