Sending off for catalogs and paperwork is something I really miss. I started doing it in early childhood out of comic books. It might very well be the way I began to create my own little worlds of interest and hobby. As a kid, letters are mysterious things. The first things you get besides holiday and birthday cards that are addressed to you and are yours. No matter what it was, I usually had written for a catalog or two. Stereo equipment. Camping and climbing gear. Music. This year was the first in a long while that I received a huge catalog. Massive, comprehensive catalog from Hilleberg Tents, including fabric samples. I haven't seen a catalog like this for...I didn't think companies made catalogs like this anymore. It's been that long since seeing one. I lot of them are worth money now, and that makes perfect sense to me. They're often more difficult to find than the products they sold.
Someone should make a book of the Artware catalogs. Talk about a resource. Talk about information. I appreciate the zine blogs and mad scanners who operate them, but we don't have enough of the old catalog and mailer flyers documented from our past. They're a part of this culture as much as anything. Opening up a real letter and having a pile of flyers fall out of it. Nothing like it. It is greatly missed.
