Never realized how much of my childhood was full of boogers, vomit, monsters and maggots until just now... and that's the magic of Jim Phillips and his brain trust at Phillips Studios.
With VCJ's precision coupled with Stecyk's mysticism proving to be a winning formula at Powell while Vision continued on it's dark, often-random course with Grigley's ghosts, Takakjian's psycho shapes and Greg's Evan's alligator geometry, Jim Phillips and crew stepped up with Santa Cruz to largely fill in this gap with a nauseating scope of disgust that would prove perfect for teenage consumers. The Screaming Hand, the Evil Eyes, Jessee's Neptune, the Cell Block Guy, the Speed Wheels Shark, Roskopp's Bull's Eye, the Elite 'thanes... the list goes on and on. Beyond classic.
To think that so much of this iconic imagery was often created just to sell goofy shit like Rip Grip, Cell Block 3's, Foam Boards and Spidey. And I'm still grappling with how that "puke=ultimate wheels" equation managed to manifest itself in the minds of an entire generation...
But it worked.
