Brainiac Suckerface Vs. The World

There's absolutely no way to categorize this type of mask, so I have just come up with the categorization of putting this mask, and all masks that fall into the look a like of it, as "mother fucking awesome". Because this thing is mother fucking awesome. I mean, back before Halloween became nothing but licensed franchised superhero costumes and cosplays of all kinds, this is what you did. Companies had to actually try and make an effort to get your attention, and we got some great shit because of it. And look, I'm not going to look down on anyone who cosplays, because those people have tremendous talent and are better than a lot of actual costume designers in Hollywood I'd say, but I do miss when Halloween was more of a "I'm a bug eyed chainsaw armed mummy" and not "I wore my Shazam costume again this year." Not that there's anything at all wrong with Shazam, it was a great movie, but come on man. Bug eyed chainsaw armed mummy sounds amazing, and with the props they used to put out and the masks we used to get, it could've been a reality! You could've been that cool!

To be fair, in the effort to be transparent, I wasn't above it myself either. When I was a little girl, I was a witch a lot for Halloween, but every now and then I wanted to be a character from something too. One year, I wanted to be Kenny from South Park, but they didn't sell costumes like they do today for that sort of thing, especially not for kids if it's something like South Park, so I went to my local Goodwill, bought an orange parka and spray painted it orange. Even the licensed costumes were unlicensed and you still had to put even just a modicum of effort into them.

That isn't to say that that facet of the Halloween culture is dead. My girlfriend and I visited a Spirit Store in a local mall about a year ago and it was jumping with creativity, and if you're the kind of kid who likes to make up stuff, whether you're just at that age or you're just creative in general, then you can easily still just go to a Spirit Store, wander around for an hour or two, gather up multiple, unrelated items and somehow merge them like some kind of Frankenstein creation. And if you do it well enough, then more props to you. But I miss all those goofy weird rubber masks we used to get, and got everywhere. Like, EVERYWHERE. Grocery stores, drug stores, you name it and they sold 'em. I miss that. I don't know, I guess, to me, there's just something special about walking into your local CVS and seeing a horrible monster from another world bleeding out its eyeballs waiting for you near the candy isle. It made childhood so special.

But this thing, let's look at this thing. I didn't wanna start this blog off on a bad patch, so I decided to instead go with something absolutely awesome. Look, I already run two other blogs about terrible things, okay? I can't be negative ALL the time. I mean, I could, but everyone tells me not to, so. Gotta listen to other people. This appears to be some sort of mutated bug from another planet, maybe an alien or an experiment gone wrong? And he looks mad as HELL. Like, he looks like he's about to suck your eyes out of their sockets with that mouth and those horrible teeth.

His skull also appears to simply be his brain? Which, is honestly, like, brilliant? Like, looking at this face on is bad enough, but somebody went, "And what if we put his brain on the outside!" and was probably promoted to CEO that afternoon. It's bad enough to look at this thing from the front, but there's no relief from the back either. He's just horrid all around, and that's what good monster design is about, baby. Just ugly as hell and lovin' life. Also, just the detail work is fantastic, like the shading on the curves of his teeth and the little lines and bumps on his skin. This thing was made with love, man. People really put their time and effort into this ugly son of a bitch and I can't thank them enough for it.

This thing was, as evidenced by these photos I totally stole off an Ebay listing, made in 1995 by a company called Rubie's Costumes, INC. Rubie's is actually an enormously famous producer of Halloween costumes, and I didn't know that upon searching them. When I first hit their webpage, I was hit with this splash image...

Sigh.

While their quality obviously hasn't dropped by any means (though even I'll admit that it's fucking weird seeing a Rocket Racoon be any taller than a foot and a half), this is exactly what I was talking about at the start of this post. I presented you at the beginning with an awesome high quality mask of original creation and now their splash image is fucking Thanos. I haven't even seen the movies and I know these characters names because they are inescapable, partially due to just the success of the movies themselves but a lot because of the costumes for Halloween. Let's click around though on the site and see what else we can find. I'm willing to give Rubie the benefit of the doubt here.

So clicking on that "shop products" button will bring up a dropdown menu, and you can see a list of options. Most of them brands. I was happy to see, however, a DIY section!...but it's also all brands. But thankfully, they do have the Halloween Favorites which includes Bugs & Insects, Aliens and, surprisingly, Burlesque. When put together, Alien Insect Burlesque Shows sound kind of...cool? Or maybe I'm the only girl who'd fuck a 5 foot tall cockroach, I don't know. Frankly I don't wanna know.

Anyway, for the sake of everyone, I went ahead and clicked through to the Bugs & Insects section, just to see what was available. Maybe there's still some absolutely awesome original creations, some grotesque monstrous horrible villainy afoot; something with seven eyes and four antenna and giant mandibles and

god dammit.

Now, to be fair, they DO have the sidebar, so I did some searching there too. I mean, Halloween is for everyone, so babies and girls (of which I am...not a baby, I mean, I'm a girl. But I guess I could be someone's baby girl) deserve to celebrate too! And there's absolutely nothing wrong with any of these, they were just not what I was expecting. I actually kinda like the pink butterfly one and probably would've worn that myself. But do you notice something? Butterfly has only 10 options in that sidebar, with everything else having at most 3. There's....there's no variety here. Let's take a look at aliens, considering this creature, of which I have now named Gary, is a bug alien in origin. So I looked at the aliens and

Listen, I'm not gonna be and old lady and say that the corporate blandism that we call "creativity" today isn't affecting our culture, but, uh...yeah. I mean, yes, these are aliens technically, but again, they're nothing like what we see above. There's not even a "monster" category I can delve into, which is, like, that's just straight sad, man. Like, let's be real for a second and ask a very serious question...what happened to monsters? Where are all the monsters? And not just in Halloween but in EVERYTHING. There's almost no real monsters in anything anymore, and it sucks. I Guess Brainiac Suckerface was just too pure and good for this world, and we didn't deserve him.

I guess, in the end, what it boils down to isn't so much that pop culture is bad or has taken over, but that it's simple. It's been simplified, just like our technology and day to day lives. I mean, my day to day life isn't simple, god knows, I'm a wreck all the time, but you know what I mean. We're more connected than ever, we partake in the same things more than ever, we like the same shit more than ever. There's a reason "Spoiler Warning" became a real phrase, because we're all watching the same goddamned shows. That's what really happened here, I think. Halloween, and costumes to boot, simply have been simplified. It's so much easier to have your kid point at something and go, "I wanna go as that!" and you go pay ten bucks or whatever for it and that's it, no mess, no drama, no effort beyond minimal input. But at least your kid will be happy, and that's what it's actually about, right? Right.

So thank you, Brainiac, for existing...at one point in time, at least. You're beautiful, and don't ever let anyone tell you otherwise.