SW Mann's Chinese 1977

2 Warps to Neptune is an attempt to document the experiences, ideas, and artifacts—the entire cultural and physical landscape, really—that defined a generation of kids in the ’70s and ’80s. My focus is on how a confluence of cultural forces—Star Wars and the resulting sci-fi boom, D&D and the fantasy boom, the evolution of the comic book industry, the video game and personal computer revolutions—gave rise to the original geek.

My thesis is that geek culture, as it’s called today, was largely inherited from the anti-establishment youth of the 1960s, whose discontent with the world as it stood led to an embrace of speculative fantasies such as The Lord of the Rings, Star Trek, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and the works of H.P. Lovecraft. There was also a general advance (or retreat) into psychedelics and the occult at the same time. With all of that in mind, I talk quite a bit about the artists, publishers, and personalities who acted as a kind of conduit through which kids of the ’70s and ’80s were exposed to the styles and attitudes of the counterculture ’60s.

2 Warps to Neptune is currently on hiatus. Please check out my new project, We Are the Mutants.

You can reach me at 2warpstoneptune@gmail.com.

39 Responses to “About”


  1. 1 leftylimbo February 1, 2012 at 9:52 pm

    So very well done. It seems that 40 is the new 50 for us ’70s kids, as I’ve noticed quite a wealth of flashback-oriented “good olde days” material (including my own) getting posted up lately. It’s even beginning to show itself in the consumer market—brands targeting 40-somethings by obscure and not-so-obscure references to ’70s and ’80s pop culture.

    Keep up the great work. I’ll definitely be hanging around.

  2. 2 2W2N February 2, 2012 at 8:12 pm

    Thanks, Greg. Why not target us, right? Our parents bought it for us the first time around, and now we have our own money. There’s something both amazing and disturbing about growing up when we did…

  3. 3 Mike Moore April 4, 2013 at 10:27 pm

    I love this blog. I discovered it about a month ago and come back almost daily. I was born in December of 68, so this is my sweetspot as well. I have always been a sucker for the good old days and enjoy blogs like these. Even with all the advances that my kids enjoy now, I feel sorry that they did not have the childhood that I had.

    Keep up the great work.

  4. 4 2W2N April 4, 2013 at 11:05 pm

    Thanks so much for the compliment, Mike. I’ll keep it up as long as I can!

  5. 5 Rafael Berrios May 14, 2013 at 1:22 am

    Your site is filled with all types of great throwbacks! Would you be interested in contributing to beyondthegamer.com? I would be totally honored to have you aboard. You can contact me through the about page. Hope to hear from you!

  6. 6 leftylimbo May 14, 2013 at 6:08 am

    Aw yeah, Warpz gettin’ propz! Woo hoo!

  7. 7 Don Gates June 23, 2013 at 2:42 pm

    Your site is my new obsession! I was born in 1974, and as I grow older the nostalgia I feel for the late 70’s-early 80’s era continues to grow (how long is an “era”, anyway?). This site is a time-warp: I can almost hear the Journey on the radio, can almost taste Burger Chef hamburgers and smell the plastic of a new action figure… Keep it up!

  8. 8 2W2N June 23, 2013 at 2:53 pm

    Thanks a million, Don. Much appreciated!

  9. 9 Len August 16, 2013 at 5:33 am

    Love the goonies reference!

  10. 11 Chris November 2, 2013 at 12:19 am

    I never knew the people pictured here personally, but I *know* these people. From their Battlestar Galactica bed sheets, to their Space 1999 Eagle spaceships, to their Black Hole Trapper Keeper, this was me and my pals. I found myself almost recognizing people I’ve never known in these pictures. Now I know what nostalgia really feels like. Thanks so much.

  11. 13 Neb December 12, 2013 at 1:36 am

    I was starting to think that some of my friends were thinking that I was either making some of this stuff up or that I had a ‘unique’ memory of the 70s and 80s. Then I saw your site and there it was. The evidence. All of it. Artifacts on display from a kick-ass time in history. Thanks for making such a brilliant site. Feel free to visit blitter dot com (where I’m quite sure you’ll feel right at home).

    • 14 2W2N December 12, 2013 at 7:05 pm

      Thanks! I do love artifacts: digging them up, dusting them off, trying to figure out why they were made, how they work, what they say about the time…

      I’ll check out Blitter, for sure.

  12. 15 Ed February 5, 2014 at 10:36 pm

    Sounds like my story just change that first line a little:

    I was born in 1971 and grew up in the middle class Northwest suburbs of Chicago.

  13. 17 James L March 21, 2014 at 2:24 am

    1973 here. This is a great site, just discovered it tonight. Keep up the great work 🙂

  14. 19 Michele March 31, 2014 at 10:06 pm

    Fellow 1972, here. I should be tackling my “to do” list, but instead I’m GLUED to your site. It’s probably wrong for a 41 y.o. woman to want the Godzilla/Tricephalon playset, but I don’t care. Thank you so much for putting this blog together – it’s a gem!

    • 20 2W2N March 31, 2014 at 10:46 pm

      Ha. We’ll always want that Godzilla playset, and we’ll never really care if other people think we’re weird because of it. That’s one of the reasons we’re so awesome.

      Thanks for the comment and the compliment!

  15. 21 darik October 6, 2014 at 8:52 pm

    Ok, born in 1977 here, so I recognize a lot of this stuff – but some of it is new. The love of Thundarr the Barbarian is great to see, though. Man, Jack Kirby was just the best. But I digress from my actual question – did you name the blog “2 warps to Neptune” as a reference to the old arcade game “Gyruss” ? I worked at an arcade in the 1990s and waxed poetically about that game and the general heyday of video game arcades that was the 1970s and 1980s. Great blog!

  16. 23 Matt October 20, 2015 at 8:45 pm

    Another 1972 here, but I grew up in Northeast Tennessee. I came for the pics of the 1978 Sears catalog and stayed for the obscure 70s and 80s references. You really took me back to a great time in my life. I had forgotten all about the show Double Trouble until I saw it on your blog. I do remember watching it with my brother when it aired. It seemed all our favorite shows were doomed for cancellation (i.e. Brady Brides, Manimal, Quark, etc). Maybe we just had terrible taste in television?

    Anyway, terrific blog. You have made my day. I’m now off to look for Buck Rogers. That Erin Grey really did it for me.

  17. 25 Fraser Lovatt November 7, 2015 at 7:15 pm

    Just found your blog today — it’s fantastic, so much interesting stuff and lots of nostalgia. Thank you for taking the effort to document all this — it’s giving me hours of reading!

  18. 27 Fred Ball December 19, 2015 at 6:24 pm

    hello from europe/ France, 1972 circa. your searches are so enthusiast. it’s a pleasure to see how the kids of america grew up (while we were kind of harassed with eastern europe/ussr lifestyle..). arcades, toys, design, great to read you !

  19. 29 Eric February 16, 2016 at 5:26 am

    Howdy,

    I Just wanted to thank you for such an amazing blog! I was a young child in the early 80’s and this website is time machine back to that beloved era. 🙂

    Thanks again,

    Eric

  20. 31 Brian March 3, 2016 at 11:55 pm

    Absolutely love this site. Almost every entry gets an “Oh, yeah! I remember that,” response from me. From Micronauts to all the old D&D toys. What great memories. Thank you!

  21. 33 James Garry April 15, 2016 at 5:30 am

    Bravo! A heroic effort to have collected images of such ephemera, but also kudos to suggest a (credible) hypothesis as to why the 70s/80s were so instrumental in forging the world we have now.

    • 34 2W2N April 15, 2016 at 3:25 pm

      Thanks so much, James. I’m starting another project soon that will be a more serious exploration of the foundations of Cold War era culture. Stay tuned.

  22. 36 tom dulski December 22, 2016 at 12:47 am

    I just discovered your blog and spent 3 fantastic days going through every single post. For the love of god please go back to updating it. One of the best blogs I’ve ever seen.

  23. 37 Julia Hoffman June 1, 2020 at 7:43 pm

    I am terrified by everything here. It’s an avalanche of American awful; a curated cringe. Yet, I cannot look away. It’s all so hideously compelling and beautiful, in its own bizarre way. What could have driven you to this? Who hurt you? Advertising? Popular Culture? Episcopalians? All of it… in totality? Don’t stop! I want MORE!!! MORE Hideous tract homes! MORE Tragic design choices! MORE iffy electronics! MORE cheap, incendiary kid’s pajamas, bedding and drapes with Blockbuster movie graphics, you can’t get within 12 feet of an open flame!!! Yes! YES!!! YYYYEEEEESSSSSSSS!!!

  24. 38 itsjjwalters August 11, 2022 at 5:30 am

    Wow Just found this site out today by accident and I love your articles and the amazing look back at the 70’s and 80’s. As an 80s kid I related a lot with a lot of the articles and I learned so much more about the things I already love! Just wanted to say thank you and keep up the amazing work!


  1. 1 Monday Memory-gasm – The 1984 TV Guide Trackback on April 29, 2013 at 4:30 am

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s




Pages

Archives

Categories

Donate Button

Join 1,103 other subscribers

%d bloggers like this: