VHS or VHS-TV (call it what you will!) is an inside joke in the form of a tall-tale in the form of a comic book!

Wait, did I say it’s an inside joke? Well, kind of. I think (hope!) that pretty much anyone can follow the story and get some sort of amusement out of it, although I guess some parts may be a little confusing. Hopefully I can clear up a few things here.

First of all, I’m sure that some of you are wondering how much of the story is actually true. Here’s a handy breakdown of what’s factual and what’s fictional (WARNING, THIS CONTAINS MANY SPOILERS [but don't worry about it, it's not that kind of thing!]):

FACT:

The high school I went to (Ridgewood High in Ridgewood, NJ) did actually have a public access TV studio called RHS-TV, and my friends and I did actually play [the card game] Asshole in the TV studio at lunch for most of our Junior and Senior years.

FICTION:

Pretty much everything else in the comic.

...OK, it’s not that bad. Obviously, the whole thing about the underground theme park ride is complete bullshit, but almost everything else in the comic was at least inspired by actual events or people. The three main characters are based on three real people, for one thing. I mean, OK, I was never actually as serious or as motivated as the character that’s based on me, but there is a germ of truth in there: I did have round glasses at the time!

Ironically, there’s another germ of truth to be found in the Goldfibs character! He’s kind of an amalgam of various bullshit artists I’ve known throughout the years, but the main inspiration was a kid I went to day camp with who used to tell tales about Nintendo games he’d supposedly heard of/seen/played at a cousin’s house, many of which sounded a tad imaginary. I always wanted to call him on it, but my friend Tom (the inspiration for the character named Tom!) would always tell me to play along and pretend we believed the guy. By encouraging him in this way, we always got him to tell bigger, bolder, more amusing lies, which Tom and I would then laugh about behind his back. Good times!

It is also true that no one in school who wasn’t involved with them ever really watched RHS-TV broadcasts (which aired on channel 19 in areas served by TCI of Northern New Jersey on Thursday nights!), and thus no one ever really challenged our complete domination of the TV studio. So yeah, the whole storyline about skaters making awesome videos and stealing the spotlight from us is complete fiction.

Our only real adversary was the head of the art department, the person the “Mr. Dennis” character was based on. We clashed with him on a few occasions over the content of the videos we wanted to air, but I think most of the friction resulted from his disdain for our attitudes. In retrospect, we were fairly arrogant, and rightfully so; we were the most creative, inventive, industrious kids involved in RHS-TV at the time (by default).

Probably the most faithful depiction of actual events in the comic is the He-Man and Skeletor interview scene. Tom and I really did make a video called The He Man and Skeletor Interview that consisted of footage of the two of us asking questions and He-Man and Skeletor “answering” via clips from Masters of the Universe episodes. The brainstorming session that lead to this groundbreaking endeavor was probably pretty similar to what occurs in the comic, and those are real lines of dialogue from Masters of the Universe episodes!

Also, unfortunately, the Japanese enema tape was indeed a real tape that Tom had in his possession! Tom’s girlfriend at the time gave him the tape as a gag gift, and though we never actually aired it on RHS-TV, Tom did like to throw it on at get-togethers now and then just to foul everyone out. In fact, there’s a tape out there somewhere with footage of a roomful of people watching the video while Tom taped their horrified reactions. It's hilarious, I swear!

Let’s see, what else? Well, no one in my high school ever swiped fliers for extracurricular activities and replaced them with parody fliers, but I wish I’d thought to do it! Hey, who was that masked guy in the hallway? You’ll find out if/when I ever make a sequel!

I can understand how some readers might be frustrated by the amount of bullshit in this story, and I can understand why some might question my decision to write a memoir about a period in my life that needs so much “padding” to seem interesting. The thing is, when I revisit this era, there's a general feeling of excitement and discovery, but any accounting of the actual events makes it seem like it was sort of a boring time. Maybe, if I remembered EXACTLY the way things happened, the comic could work as a sort of slice of life story, but though I have an unusual amount of footage from that period of time, very little of it is behind-the-scenes stuff.