Post by ONEBADMK8 on Mar 21, 2004 17:33:58 GMT -5
Did you hear that? That giant sucking sound? It's the sound of fickle, youthful passions. And it's leaving a gaping hole in plastic modeling's downline, and bottom line. Let loose your anguished cry from the battlements; "Modeling is dead"! With ever increasing frequency, those are the tortured words of lonely hobbyists, muttering about the demise of styrene kits.
What, pray tell, could incite such a melancholy notion?
Y2K? The IRS? The EPA? Black Helicopters?
No need to exasperate your mental faculties with such conspiratorial concepts. Instead, cast a wary glance at the guy next to you at your modeling club meeting, or the customer, shaking his head, at the local shop. This is an inside job.
Who else could so convincingly state that diecast has ruined youngsters minds...turned them into mindless metal-loving zombies content to purchase their assembly line cars in a limited variety of uncreative plain vanilla flavorings. And then, a little dollop of despair to go with that cynicism; the model companies don't give a rat's ass about adult modelers. It's a crime, and unfair too.
The model makers themselves are contributing to their own downfall. The carpetbaggers at Racing Champions paid big to get a tight stranglehold on AMT and MPC's molds, so they can put 'em out of business at any time. Do you think Racing Champions cares about plastic models? What do they know about models! Models aren't toys, and they don't sell as many as they do diecast. Just look at toy stores. How many models do you see?
Now Revell is making diecast cars. Just look at they're website. Look at the big deal they make over diecast cars. Where's the challenge in a pre-made metal car?
You know, they're gonna dump all those molds as soon as they can and nobody'll have the money to buy 'em, so they'll be lost forever. In the mean time these companies are reissuing the same old crummy kits year after year. Putting old cars in new boxes...like we wouldn't notice. What's with that ProShop Galaxie anyway? What junk. Models are dead-meat man! Diecast is killing us.
After a rant like that, a dance through history is obviously in order, with an emphasis on modeling's golden age. A quick perusal of common modeling media shows that models, while immensely popular in the 1960s, shared the spotlight with something called slotcars. The width and breadth of the slot car phenom was staggering. Slot car tracks seemed to spring from the earth like magic. And in large numbers too.
There were magazines dedicated to slot cars, but still, that didn't inhibit slot car news and reviews from appearing generously in the mainstream modeling press, and on TV. The horror. The list of accomplices in this travesty can be found at the very root of modeling itself; Revell, AMT, MPC, Aurora and Monogram. Each, in their own way, offered up some hue of pre-made, electric race cars that undermined the very hobby that supported them.
Correct?
Auto World, the Christmas Catalog that was available year round, reflected the change by the mid '70s by emasculating the model kits section and reapportioning the catalog to favor the electric "Slotniks." Curses!
That squares it! Why would manufacturers ascribe to practices that forge a path away from their very livelihood? After all, modelers cannot possibly enjoy anything else.
Correct?
It seems that the model manufacturers are perpetually in checkmate. Even during the styrene splendor of the '60s, it seemed that no matter what they did, they stepped on their Johnson in the process, at least to some group of modelers. The proof, again, is found in the pages of the modeling press. Review these topics of correspondence from Rod & Custom Models, Model Car Science and Model Car. Listen, and hear the cries of anguish coming from one of the most exciting times modeling has ever known...
Too many working features on models - it'll ruin the art of modeling.
Kits are too simplistic. They need more realistic detail.
Models should only reflect reality
Models should push the boundaries of design
Modeling means a replica of a real car
"True modelers" must detail their kits
Do you sense a familiar air to these topics? Reality check gentleman. Seems debate is inherent in our system. Take two steps back from cranial-rectal inversion and muster a glimpse at the current crop of newly minted models. A smattering of the deliciously new, with a dash of retooled classics thrown in. Some are quite stunning achievements, considering some hidden apocryphal hand, behind the facade, is waiting, contemplating the bottom-line, watchful for any harbinger that will signal that it is time to cast us back into modeling's darkest abyss, while filling the fresh, empty shelves to the brim with cheap metal replicas. Hoo Wha ha ha haaaaaaaaa.
Seriously, this demise of modeling; is it death from above, or from within? Like some surreal dream, modelers have begun to eat their own; devouring the doom and gloom prophecies like beggars at a banquet. At what point does this become satisfying? After the predictions become self-fulfilling, or when there is a realization that this feeding frenzy will only bring you more distress.
We've survived all manner of competing pastimes, and other social encumbrances; slot cars, go-carts, Hot Wheels, real cars, women, children, work, and, I suspect, diecast collectibles. Plastic modeling is an established hobby with living roots. It may wither and rebound with the whims of youth and industry, but it will remain as long as we, ourselves, don't decide to kill it.
- Hansel Roth Gruber
Special thanks to www.Bonediggers.com for this article.
.