This Here Is My Pocket Snacking Lobster: Cold Start

Cs Snacklobster1
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There’s something about docks and wharves that car brochure artists, especially mid-century ones, found irresistible. The idea of a car parked on a creaky wooden wharf, with waves crashing against it and boats bobbing around a dozen or so feet away must be the sort of thing that really makes people want to buy a new car. And, with all the exposure to the salty air and water and various mists, it’s probably a good ideal for the automaker, too, as they can get those cars rusting away nice and quick, and get those people back to the showroom. I like this 1960 Vauxhall Velox and Cresta brochure especially because of this big cover illustration you see there. Particularly that interaction with grandpa, the lobster, and that little girl.

Cs Snacklobster 2I like it because that lobster is vivid red, the color of a cooked lobster, not the sort you’d find there in those big traps, which would be alive and that grayish-blue color of a healthy, sexy lobster. So, this means grandpa has a full cooked lobster with him. Is that, what, his pocket snack lobster? That he just keeps on him, for when the urge for a mouthful of lobster gets him?

What’s he telling little Clamatha there? Here, girl, get yourself a taste! Grab an antenna for a nice little crunchy treat! They’re like carrot sticks! Or how about a nice eye stalk? They have a nice salty burst! Go on, dig in! Grandpa has two other snack lobsters in his special waist-harness!

Cs Snacklobster Vaux3

This brochure has another old staple of the genre: the golf course. The way this image is set up, it seems like someone at the golf club offered these two the use of a golf cart, and instead they just were like, nah, we’ll just use our full-sized Vauxhall Cresta, thanks, and then are just driving it all over the golf course.

What a magical world. I wonder how many snack lobsters the old dude has in his pants?

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Mercedes Streeter

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39 thoughts on “This Here Is My Pocket Snacking Lobster: Cold Start”

  4. As Jason wrote “And, with all the exposure to the salty air and water and various mists, it’s probably a good ideal for the automaker, too, as they can get those cars rusting away nice and quick, and get those people back to the showroom.”

    I always enjoyed Richard Guindon’s cartoons in the Detroit Free Press. His work was satirical, and heavily influenced by the automotive world in Detroit and Michigan. Considering that Detroit sits atop a major salt mine, I found one of his cartoons spot-on and funny. Click on the link and scroll down a bit a see the panel titled “Guindon’s Michigan”.

    https://www.deansgarage.com/guindons-detroit/

  6. I’ve got something in my front pocket for you
    Why don’t you reach on in my pocket and see what it is?
    There, grab onto it, it’s just for you
    Give it a little squeeze and say: “How do you do?”

    I’ve got something in my front pocket for you
    Why don’t you reach on in my pocket and see what it is?
    There, grab onto it, it’s just for you
    Give it a little squeeze and say: “How do you do?”

    There’s something in my front pocket
    There’s something in my front pocket
    There’s something in my front pocket

    I’ve got something in my front pocket for you
    Why don’t you reach on in my pocket and see what it is?
    There, grab onto it, it’s just for you
    Give it a little squeeze and say: “How do you do?”

    I’ve got something in my front pocket for you
    Why don’t you reach on in my pocket and see what it is?
    There, grab onto it, it’s just for you
    Give it a little squeeze and say: “How do you”

  7. How many in his pants? And if you are concerned about dental health, the antenna are useful as dental floss. And the mystery of the red color is solved. These are lobsters “to go.” Already cooked, and available at the drive thru window.
    “sorry but we are out of bibs.”

  12. If this is like any conversation with my mom as a kid, he’d be sayin…

    “Put your finger right there.”

    Not sure how many times my finger was pretend smashed in a drawer when I was a kid.

  13. And the way they got that quite ordinary midsized car to look so big also, by use of stretched lines, perspective and of course the tiny ad people! 😎
    Really gifted illustrator. Except for painting boats. Those actually look horrible.

  15. Sunglasses Woman next to them looks like she’s discovered a crime scene and just delivered a CSI: Miami line. “Looks like this lobster…..was caught red-handed”

  20. Screw pocket sand, pocket lobster is best self defense strategy!

    “Hey girl, come he- no don’t walk away! I’m going to show you self-defense, see? See this lobst- don’t go, he’s not gonna hurt ya, this one’s dead, see? Live ones aren’t red! Anyway the best way to defend yourself is with pocket lobster. Some scary guy comes up to you, BAM lobster time! What you gonna do if someone throw a lobster at ya? How you gonna react? You gonna pause n’ think, dat guy done threw lobter at me! Works every time I tell y- hey don’t walk away! I’m just showin’ ya lobster throwin’ techniques, see? Anyway if you want more lobsters, you seem the type to need more lobsters, I got soo many lobsters see, you can buy some of my extra lobsters for a very good- hey don’t walk away, I’ll give you a good deal! Where ya goin? Hey if ya get caught without lobster when ya need pocket lobster you’ll be sorry!!!”

  23. In the 50s-60s it was bodies of water, in the 90s it was deserts during sunsets and in 2020s it is empty city at night that are embodiments of good life. At least if we believe what people advertising cars want to tell us.

    2. In 2170 it’ll be the cold, hard, radiation blasted vacuum of the space between the planets because…I dunno because that’s what sells space cars?

  25. “Is that a lobster in your pants or are you just happy to see me?” Man if I had a dollar for every time I was asked that… I would be just as broke as I am now

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