Sprocket Man

#1

Release: 1981

Consumer Product Safety Commission

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The sheer NUMBER of bikes in use these days shows that the days when bikes were merely TOYS for kids are BYGONE…and that the ANARCHY of the cyclist can be afforded NO LONGER!

It’s time.

I don’t know what makes it time to finally bust out the long-threatened look at this particular PSA comic, I just know that it’s time.

I’ve mentioned before the time my parents came home after being away for a weekend and upon their arrival my mom presented me with a big box of random comics she’d picked up during their trip.

The box was mostly filled with comics from Charlton, but it also contained this little oddity. (Note that I no longer have that specific copy; it was lost to the ages and I’ve since replaced ti.)

One of the things I often say about my taste in comics when I was a kid is that I didn’t have any. While I enjoyed some more than others, I uncritically enjoyed pretty much any comic I could get my hands on just because it was a comic.

By the time I got this, I had matured a bit and had developed some level of critical awareness, so while I was still glad to have it because comic, I didn’t particularly enjoy it.

And there’s no reason that I would have – this is probably the worst PSA comic I’ve ever encountered, mostly because it puts almost all the emphasis on the PSA aspect and, apart from the form, ignores the comic aspect.

This isn’t the Teen Titans dealing with the scourge of drugs, or Captain America fighting energy drainers, it’s just a collection of unconnected pages illustrating various safety tips for bicyclists, narrated by the titular character.

The only time we really see Sprocket Man in action is on the back cover.

The interior art is…not much better than what we see on the back and it’s entirely in black and white, which would have been another turn off for young Jon, who would only accept a lack of color from MAD, Cracked, or Crazy.

I’m not saying the art is terrible, but it’s sorely lacking compared to the art in PSA comics that were produced in cooperation with actual comic book publishers, and ultimately isn’t too much better than your average Chick tract.

While it lacks any kind of narrative, there is at least a bit of humor to be found in some of the situations presented, like the image of an inconsiderate cyclist bowling over a pedestrian, or a distracted bird-watching bicyclist crashing into a lamppost.

The comic doesn’t just focus on protecting yourself and others while bicycling, it also stresses the importance of protecting your bike when it’s not in use.

That leads to another one of the funny illustrations with the advice, “Whenever possible, take your bike with you!!” illustrated by a cyclist taking his bike to bed with him.

As noted, I had moved from being completely uncritical in my reading of comics by the time I got this. I had also begun to learn to appreciate things ironically – though I wouldn’t have known that was what I was doing at the time – so while I didn’t think the comic was good, I was amused by it and developed a kind of affection for it at a result.

Which is why – along with starting to write posts about PSA comics – I had opted to pick up a new copy of it a while back.

At the time, I didn’t really appreciate the usefulness of it, as very little of the information in it applied to someone who didn’t live in an urban or suburban area – doesn’t really do any good to tell someone not to ride his bike on the sidewalk when there are no sidewalks where he lives – but looking at it now, even though I haven’t ridden a bike in years, I do see how it actually is informative.

I just wish that, like even the TRS-80 Color Computer ads, it could have been informative while also being a bit more entertaining.

If you want to learn more about Sprocket Man, check out this Stanford University site, where you can also get PDF copies of earlier editions of the comic.

I still have a few – better – PSA comics in my collection, and some of them are bound to end up getting Unbagged, so keep an eye out…just as you should keep an eye out for cyclists.

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