1. Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems. That’s all it said, along with a brilliantly boring company logo. Yoyodyne is the New Jersey company which is a front for an alien invasion of earth in the film Buckaroo Banzai– Across the Eighth Dimension. I bought the mug at a science fiction bookstore in Cambridge, Mass., years after the movie had been released, when the reference would be grasped by very very few. Nobody ever got it. Broke the mug when I dropped it in the kitchen of the old New Haven Advocate offices on Long Wharf (Long Wharf itself could be a reminder of the film’s villain, Lord Whorfkin).
2. Drabble, the underrated comic strip loser created by Kevin Fagan. Clean, colorful drawing of Drabble, the strip’s logo, and that’s it; no slogan or punchline to get tired of. It broke in a moment of Drabble-like klutziness, when I knocked it off a bookshelf onto a carpet. (Yes, it shattered on a carpet.) It’d be easy enough to get another one–it was one of those Cafe Press print-to-order jobs. But I’d moved on. I like a lot of different comic strips, and it seemed unfair to dwell on one.
3. Twin Peaks. A Double D diner mug touting the virtues of their coffee. Not as subtle a the Yoyodyne mug, but in the same vein. From the Twin Peaks official fan club. When it cracked, I used it as a planter for a while.
4. Archie. I’ve owned and broken many of these– not as many as I’ve owned and broken of Archie-themed Welch jam jar drinking glasses. But a lot. The ones I’d never seen before or since came from a vast comics shop in NYC, where they were covered in dust. We’re a rare breed, we Archie collectors.
5. Biggest One I Ever Owned. Basically a soup bowl with a handle. I don’t mind cold coffee or tea, so having a quart of caffeinated fluid in easy reach was sheer joy, though a calamity if I spilled it. As I did on brand new New Haven Advocate carpeting one day.