Kimberly Lembke

First off, I hadda redo this one asap once I started strolling through my dashboard looking at all the über-excellent drawings and shit other cats had posted. My first attempt at capturing ol’ Kimberly was woefully off-point. 

Speaking of Kim, I had a crush on her for a good minute… This being hi skool – and her being a good two years older than me or so – meant it was mercifully unrequited. I hate to even imagine the type of mental trauma her almost-certain rejection would’ve inflicted on my then-even-more-mega-pussy psyche. 

A year or two later she dyed her hair blonde – and, uh, I was gonna say she didn’t look as fly, but after thinking about it she looked just as good (if not better). 

I wonder if she’s a mom right now or something… God I’m old.

Julie Chamberlain

Taking a momentary reprieve from housers, here’s a younger Ctrl-Alt-Del girl we used to call “Morrissey chick” (on account of her being alty and rocking a Morrissey shirt from time to time). She was a pal of alterno-chick (aka Catherine Stankowski), and I’ll be frank – I thought she was cute. After all, it takes balls (metaphorically) – as well as a pretty face (actually) – to get away with sporting a short hairdo. Maybe not the most accurate portrayal but hopefully those who know her will get the gist.

Jack Bae

In Korean, there’s this word pronounced “gahng-peh”. Loosely translated, it means “gangster” or “punk”. That’s what comes to mind with this li’l Houser here – whom I should point I never, ever met or knew in hi skool.

Why? A combination of things, I suppose. The hair; the jaunty smirk (which I didn’t do a great job of translating to this tumblrino, though). Well, I guess that’s just two things…

On a related note, when I was in hi skool I didn’t think there were a lot of Koreans there. In retrospecticus, however, I can see I was sorely mistaken. The yearbook is crawling with them! Perhaps it was due to my own blinding self-loathing or some other factors that shielded them from my withering gaze. Who knows…

Mitchell La

Does anyone remember that video game, “King of the Monsters”? I think it was an SNK joint inside those Neo Geo machines. Basic premise is Rampage on a 3D-ish landscape. You could be a Godzilla-clone, an Ultraman-clone or some other monsters – and you basically duke it out with each other and a multitude of puny humanoid armies.

What’s that got to do with Mitchell La? Well, this week(ish) I aim to draw the “King of the Housers” – “housers” being what we used to call the (mostly) Asian dudes with gelled-up hair and fat pants who listened to house music. [Not to be confused with Ravers, who also wore fat pants, albeit with a lot more candy-based jewelry and fun fur…]

Was Mitchell La their king? I dunno, rilly… But his hair and steez was certainly emblematic of their whole schtick. Dunno if you can tell from this drawing, but dude was definitely on some Eurasian shit, too.

Shaun Taylor

Another big hairstyle in the early 90s – the mushroom cut. There were many variants, but that whole shaved-undersides thing was usually the common thread.

And honestly, dude looked way dorkier in his yearbook photo than I’ve made him appear here. Generally, these drawings skew uglier – in that they’re less attractive than the people I’m depicting. Herein lies the exception… (sorry, Shaun)

Laura Riley

This drawing doesn’t really do this chick justice, but we have a saying around here: “Get used to it, Hitler…”

In my defense, her yearbook photo didn’t really do her justice either. She was a couple years younger than me and my peeps, but for whatever reason we knew her and her crew. Of course, her game was tighter than that of her compatriots. On an unrelated note, I believe she is also a mom these days…

Jeffrey Hagan

So dude’s not very alternative – looking, anyway… But this side-part with leftovers-on-the-back hairdo was pretty common in the late 80s/early 90s. Why? I can’t honestly tell you. Maybe a dude in Glass Tiger rocked that shit. Or the lead singer of Honeymoon Suite. I’m not intentionally dissing CanCon here – I just can’t think of any other more period-appropriate musical acts that may have committed similar follicle atrocities.

Of course, the joke is ultimately on me (when is it ever not?) because right now I would kill to have dude’s amount of hair…

Katherine Stankowski

Speaking of alterno-chicks, we actually used to call her “alterno-chick”. Not that we didn’t know her – or her name. She was friends with this other alterno-chick we used to call Morrissey girl (she used to rock a Morrissey t-shirt frequently). They were both younger than us dudes. After a lifetime of dating progressively younger women (relative to my ever-increasing years), this observation seems, I dunno, poignant? Relevant? Creepy? Jeez…

Anyway, the original point I was going to make is that this hairstyle obviously wasn’t limited to dudes. And like the male version, this style was equally comfortable moshing to Ned’s Atomic Dustbin (everyone under 35 is like “who?”) as it was rawking out to Metallica. On a semi-related note, I believe she’s a mom now.

Marvin Mergelmeier

If you heard this dude’s name in an episode of The Simpsons, you’d be like, “Naw, too unrealistic…” One of the all-time greats. Seriously.

And peep the cut of his jib. Let’s put it this way: Dr. Huxtable called and he wants his sweater back. Now I admittedly guessed as to the colorings, but I wager I’m not far off the mark here. And he complements it with the trademark look of the late 80s/early 90s – a turtleneck. Choice!

Geek, nerd, poindexter, spazz, dork – you choose the pejorative. Just remember he’s (likely) more successful, handsome and happier than yours truly…

For the record, the other all-time great names from hi skool I can recall (not counting collegiate or pro athletes) are: Marty Donkervoot (some pundit I read about during the whole Marc Lépine Montreal massacre) and Phillip Rintaro (the name on my li’l cousin’s fake ID)…

On Tak Wong

Dag – good thing I finally found this guy’s yearbook picture! I don’t think calling him “Random Asian Dude” would’ve been fair – especially since he’s rocking some vintage late-80s stylings: namely a rugby sweater and a Dep-gelled classic Asian haircut.

Combine that with a wispy mustache and you’ve got at least one comprehensive look at the Asian pre-21st-century hi skool experience. Luckily, my own wispy mustache didn’t take full E-F-F-E-C-T until my late 20s. And no rugby jerseys since I played that oft-confusing sport…