In 1982, my cousin Steve and I were bored. Our family would go camping together in the wilderness of upstate New York, those campgrounds with sectioned off sites and souveneir stores. There was usually an activity hall with a jukebox and some games like ping pong or air hockey, or pinball machines (the kind with real bells and buzzers.) If we were really lucky, there would be a new video game like Asteroids or Berzerk, but these were rare. More often than not we'd just roam aimlessly, or sit around the campsite reading comics. We would draw as well, with large sets of finely pointed colored markers.
I'm not exactly sure how we entered into the "Burning Hotel" phase of our work. The idea evolved over time, probably a couple of summers. I guess it may have started with sitting around the evening campfires, maybe using some of our drawings as kindling, or seeing the sunday comics page smolder and burn. Our first sacrifice was a large paper cartoon man with polka-dotted underwear, tied to a stake in the middle of the fire. It quickly became apparent that this was only the beginning, that something... well, Bigger was in the air.
The answer came in the form of cardboard boxes, which we would cut and shape into run-down, fire trap hotels. The windows would be filled with little paper figures, family oriented scenes of fun-filled violence.
