The Beam Retold

...I have to reach back to childhood for this (and rely on my mother's insistence of this as fact).

The "first" piece I ever presented to her was something called, quite simply, "The Beam."

"The Beam."

...I guess I was trying to branch out from writing (and crudely illustrating) "He-Man..." and "G.I. Joe..." Fan Fic in between the established episodes going off of the air and me popping in a VHS tape to watch MORE (I was four or five at the time and didn't know what "Fan Fiction" WAS yet. It was 1988-'89 and the TERM "Fan Fiction" may or may not have been coined yet. As for my ILLUSTRATIONS, I can only hope that my PROSE has improved since I was pre-school aged; but at least I'm developing my own characters now...)

Back to "The Beam."

I know that my mother kept the "manuscript" of lore somewhere; but I wrote it in the same crayons that I was using to almost but not quite DRAW. The penmanship, therefore, is a little difficult for me to make out anymore through the lenses of 38 year old eyeballs.

As to the premise of this "...Beam," well, a giant beam generator doesn't operate on its own, make sentient decisions, or have plans. If we're centering fiction around the owner of a beam cannon, he is most likely a mad scientist or deranged general/commander (maybe possibly a gung-ho, muscle-bound, narrow-minded military protagonist with the best of intentions but I seriously doubt that that's where my mind was going. Again, you're talking about a scribe who, at either four or five, was either WATCHING "He-Man" or "G.I. Joe" or the like, playing with the figures to spin/act out side adventures, or writing [in crayon] the episodes that the PROFESSIONAL scriptwriters would never dream of creating).

Anyway, as to the proper USE of a giant beam, well, it probably wasn't to build schools/forge communities; unless the operator of said weapon is Dr. Benton Quest (Johnny Quest) or Man-at-Arms (the aforementioned "He-Man..."). Yeah, the owner of a giant beam cannon is DEFINITELY a lunatic antagonist; the kind that I would root against on Saturday mornings (or, hey, in the case of Destro or Cobra Commander, in syndication. Yeah, I don't see Skeletor using a giant beam cannon unless Trap Jaw built it. Maybe Hordak might have; but, again, Hordak was closer to a deranged military leader than a sorcerer).

...Well, for better or for worse, that was "The Beam," written by a young Animation/Action Figure Nerd of somewhere between 4 and 6; and retold by a slightly jaded 38 year old.

(I wonder where that manuscript IS...)