nostalgia, merchandise, and keeping the faith
the other day, i found out that my favorite manga-ka had just started on a sequel to her most notorious and popular series. i was a little taken aback by my own mixed emotions-- the series wrapped up a little over twenty years ago, and my days of being seriously into the fandom were pretty far behind me. part of me was excited, and part of me was strangely disappointed. the characters and plot i knew so very well, the fandom i’d once poured years of time and effort into, all of that was going to change drastically, if-- if-- i was willing to stay the course and follow along.
or, you know, i could always sulk mightily about how an aging manga-ka who could no longer draw as well as in her heyday was trying to get blood out of a stone, falling back on yesterday’s laurels for the sake of the almighty dollar. sound familiar?
moving right along. i realized i wasn’t attached so much to the manga itself (the intellectual property, if you will) as i was the memories surrounding it. this volume, i got from my oldest internet friend. this artbook was given to me by a girl i spent most of college rping with. this reminds me of good times. and it makes you think, hey, this is “my” manga, or “my” band, etc. the feelings you’ve attached to it are more important than the thing itself. i think that’s a pretty heavy motivating factor. kiss sells-- absolutely. prolifically. kondoms, koffins, hello kitty kollabs. they are remembered for their brand as much, if not more, than their band. they wrapped up the kiss experience into a consumerist’s paradise-- and they did it before evangelion, pokemon, disney, etc. shifted branding into its own lifestyle. (i’m not saying kiss predates disney. i am saying that the scope and doggedness of their merchandising efforts was precocious for its time.)
i’m not knocking them for doing it. but to do it successfully, the bedrock had to be there. the memory of something good, something better, had to already be instilled. the buy-in is emotional, as buy-ins tend to be.
thinking back to creaturesfest— like basically everyone there, i dropped irresponsible amounts of cash on sundry normal to silly to cursed kiss items (in my case it was mostly 45s, sheet music, and a couple hello kitty tchotchkes). did it bring back 1994, when i first discovered my mom’s rock and roll over album? 1996, when second grade me first watched kiss (and heard kiss get derided by my mom, haha) on tv in the living room? sophomore year of college, crying along to “hard luck woman” in my dorm room for probably the fifth time that week? twenty-nine, crying the night before my mom’s surgery, playing “beth” over and over on the piano and computer both? (the fact that most of my kiss memories involve crying is in itself pretty worrisome.) no. there’s really no recreating those moments as a fan, any more than the furor and fever of any watershed concert can be recaptured later.
but it made me happy. it reminded me of those times when the band meant so, so much to me. and so did watching ace play with peter (honestly, so did watching peter play at all), and bruce. i dunno. there’s going to be a day, sooner rather than later, that all of this really is hung up for good, leaving “my” band as not much more than a collection of vinyls and goofy merch and memories. i wasn’t lucky enough to see them at their creative apex and physical peak; i wasn’t born in time for that. i’ve not agreed with every decision the band has made over the years. i’ve never really even thought most of the band was comprised of good people. but absolutely none of that changes that they’ve been important to me. i’m grateful to have had them be a small part of my life, and a slightly larger part of my wallet. that’s all.
