Sampler Saturday: Childhood Is Temporary; Imaginary Friends Are Forever. Apparently. Also: Starships!

Once a year I go through the kids’ bedrooms and we sort out the toys that have been outgrown and can be packed away or donated to the thrift store. We used to do this in late fall or early winter, to make room for the big piles of shiny new Christmas toys, but alas, those days of big piles of new Christmas toys are bygone and yore, verily. Avast! Where was I? Right, the annual bedroom purges. Since it doesn’t matter so much anymore when we do them, I tackled Elizabeth’s room a few weeks ago. Turns out she’s outgrown a LOT of toys since the last time; her shelves were looking rather bare in the wake of our cleaning spree. I was tossing stuff into a cardboard box, confirming each item with her as I went. “Footprints too?” I asked, grabbing the toy in question and holding it over the box.

“Are you KIDDING?” she gasped, rescuing Footprints and restoring him lovingly to his familiar place on the shelf. “I’m never going to outgrow FOOTPRINTS!”

This is Footprints:

Elizabeth got him when she was four or five. Or maybe three. Anyway, she was a wee thing and she loved him like crazy. When he was brand new he had flashing lights and cool sound effects, but a few too many trips through mud puddles and sprinklers (and possibly the bathtub) put an end to that. Elizabeth loved him just the same.

The only reason I still have Joe Jackson’s “Steppin’ Out” on any of my iTunes playlists is because to this day, whenever it plays, Elizabeth says, “Oh! It’s Footprints’ favorite song!” I never get tired of that.

So apparently Footprints’ near-storage-experience got Elizabeth to thinking about which of her imaginary (“reality challenged?”) friends will still feel real to her when she’s all grown up and adult-like, and then she and Luke got into a conversation about it and he contributed his own list of BFFs, and then she was inspired to sit down and draw…not a comic, exactly. A Vision Of The Future, where she and Luke have grown up and become…captains of their own starships.

Hey, it’s good to aim high.

She started with Luke:

You can tell it’s Grownup Luke because of the pipe and the mustache. Love that spirally mic cord! Luke’s passion for steampunk will apparently integrate itself into the design of his future starship. And it looks like he will still be in the habit of wearing a coat almost year-round, with the sound-dampening hood always up to discourage his peers from attempting to engage him in conversation. It’s like his personal Cone of Silence.

The Hymie he’s speaking to is the boy from The Polar Express, the main character. The boy doesn’t have a name in either the book or the movie, but Luke dug the character enough to include him in his imaginative play, so he needed to be called something. I think Luke got the name Hymie from the robot dude in Get Smart. Moving on…

Looks like Hymie’s all grown up too. Still has bed-head, though.

Otto Matic, from one of Luke’s favorite video games. He’s a robot, so he ages well.

Alrighty then. Let’s take a look at Captain Elizabeth:

I…don’t even know where to begin with this pic. The vintage ’50’s shades, the slinky little dress, the inch-long talons, the hair…well, okay, the hair’s fairly realistic. Elizabeth has some serious hair.

(Btw, those are iPods and earbuds in the “In Case Of Emergency” case. Snerk.)

When I first saw this drawing, I commented to Elizabeth that it was hard for me to imagine her ever looking like that. She replied, “Well, that’s when I’m an adult.” Ah. Okay then. I fear that my own adult card is in danger of being revoked, though, if it involves dressing like that.

Captain Elizabeth might consider turning down the lighting levels on her bridge, since everyone seems to be so blinded by the glare that they have to wear sunglasses.

Espio doesn’t look a day over sixteen. I guess. It’s hard to tell with those Mobian Chameleons.

Classic.