My Hero Gyro Gearloose

 A Comic Book That Shaped My Life

. . . and I'm not even kidding. My family moved from Vienna, Austria to Bahrain Island, Persian Gulf, Middle East, when I was barely five. We left snowy winter and went to a subtropical desert island not far short of the Tropic of Cancer and my first step off the aircraft we flew in on was almost my last - or so it seemed. The humidity was well into 95% - 100% and to my young mind it seemed that I was surely going to suffocate on this thick, HOT, air I was trying my best to take in.

But of course after a (very) short period of adjustment I was running around like any kid my age and not feeling the slightest bit affected by 34C / 98% weather. And I'd brought with me my favourite things, a pack of Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck comics, and my "Mickey Maus Klub" (MMK not MMC, Austria speaks German) pocketbook. 

I believe my parents were a bit of a subversive element in Austria, they encouraged me to read by use of comics, and Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck in particular. The subversion comes from the fact that in Germany and Austria, things American were still considered rubbish and not generally encouraged, even though there were German-language versions. So I learned to read German by age four so that I could keep up with the comics, and started to try and write by my 5th birthday. (I was moderately successful - I've always had poor hand/eye coordination to this day.)

Interesting trivia: Carl Barks was the creator of Gyro Gearloose and a whole host of other mainly Donald Duck characters, and one of the more successful Donald Duck creators writers and cartoonists, and was also involved in creating Little Golden Books. (Important!)

And Gyro was my most favouritest character of all in the comics, so much so that I decided that if I couldn't be a vet I'd become an inventor. . .  One of the reasons was that Gyro had "Little Helper" who was made from a lightbulb and various bits. I mention Little Helper in another post and there's a picture of my Little Helper I finally made for myself some ten years back.

I still put him in my pictures occasionally and keep his little metal ass busy (so to speak, he mainly gets in the way) and here he is, assisting. (And foreshadowing . . .)

. . . because - yep - he's standing there in the last two photos showing off what is probably going to become the head of his Big Helper Bro. . . I've decided my LH - who actually calls itself DJ FM Trap - should help me design and build a much bigger (1m  to possibly 1.4m) assistant.

Now to that other important thing to do with Cark Barks: Little Golden Books. 

One of the books published by Little Golden Books was "The Little Golden Book Of Astronomy" which led to my first real philosophical existential crisis, being that I decided to imagine my place in the Universe, and after following that train of thought to the best of my almost-six-year-old abilities, I promptly threw up and got put to bed because my parents thought I'd picked up a stomach bug or something... 

One of the side effects of that was that I made up my mind, and by my first day of school I knew I wanted to be a scientist or technologist or (preferably) a mad scientist inventor. Between them, Gyro and the True Scale Of The Universe made 75% of what I am today...

So Carl Barks has really been influential on me. 

Now - that (mercury or sodium, not sure) vapor lamp was a lucky thrift shop buy as it's brand new and includes a new ceramic base but it wasn't a thrifty buy, so I'm probably going to auction Big Helper once it's finished. Seeing as Little Helper comes from the almost Victorian era style and ethic that was still visible in Carl's times, I think Big Helper will need to include modern era parts but still follow the "scavenged" ethic with only the most necessary parts being 3D printed or made from recycled plastics. 

One of the nice things about a 3D printer is that you can design and make parts at will, and with my RCX-AU project I'm going to make recycled plastic one of the base materials for the conventional 3D printer I have. The bar to recycling plastics is pretty low these days and if a few of the phases of RCX-AU come off, I'll be able to do Big Helper in recycled plastic parts as well. 

A Disclaimer:

I have a pretty full schedule at the moment - I'm trying to keep half a dozen blogs updated with new material with an article per fortnight at least, and generally the process of creating a post takes me between a full day and a week; On top of that I'm writing the programs for machine controllers for the machines; What machines I hear you ask? Well the machines that will allow anyone with the plans and a few tools to recycle plastics, textiles, metals, glass and ceramics, cardboard and paper, and even food - if - IF- I can get on with the R&D process. 

I'm also the carer for my spouse and the main cook and cleaner, and we're pensioners. That's not a hard luck sob story, that's life. You get on with it. But life could be much easier if someone wanted to collaborate with me on researching and possibly writing articles for one or more of the blogs; taking some of my design drafts and working them up into a machine and then making the plans available; or even just donate or sponsor me for some of the work so that instead of having to do R&D only when my limited finances permit.

And I'm not kidding here but one of the ways I currently finance the research is to do surveys online. At which, it turns out my time answering surveys is worth a princely $6 per hour, but only when there are surveys available, which is not all that often. Also, it's time I could more gainfully spend writing or designing or making. Any assistance you give spares me from having to waste time on these surveys. hellllppp! pleeaassee!

So please - if you can at all spare some time, take a look at my News Stand where you'll see live updated links to everything I publish; Or take a subscription to my weekly newsletter where you'll receive the same information; Or contact me via the webform; Or donate either directly; Or at my Ko-Fi page for the price of a coffee; Or even make a regular monthly donation there.