The Art of Mark Frederickson
Essay by Harrison Cook
As the inaugural blog post for Plastikcomb Magazine, I’ve poured my attention to the past issues on my desk, marinating on what makes PCM so itself. It’s truly unlike any other art magazine on the market. PCM is designed collision on the page. Where collage and typography come together to tag graffiti on the back of a cereal box. It’s a Casio Alarm Chrono on the wrist of a hotdog or a Ferbie made of nuclear yogurt. It’s a magazine that attempts on the page, never afraid to cross out and edit itself. It’s truly the unexpected feast for the visually curious. When translating this aplomb to the online hemispheres, the PCM blog will be a curio cabinet for more time-sensitive, school-of-thought writing on what “melds art with design.”
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On Meads’ “No Rules” Folders
One of my favorite aspects of examining a cultural object is plugging into the visual imagination of its past. Being born in ’95, I was too bright and shiny to remember the outrageousness of trending fashion, let alone what was “cool.” I remember the neon pink of Gogurt and the jewel tones of Gushers. I remember Barney purple of course, and Nickelodeon’s orange and green goo. I remember denim shirts and striped shorts, and primary colors in the Scholastic décor trend. It was a vibrant landscape of patterns and colors, block panels and splats—at least I’m given the impression when consulting the few photos I have as a toddler. Though I wasn’t in school yet, both my parents were teachers and stomped up and down the school supplies isles come late July in preparation for their classrooms. I was in proximity to the Mead’s “No Rules” folders, even if by a few inches. Though when I look at them now, it feels familiar somehow, as if I’m being reacquainted with a memory.
In the ‘90s, the school product company Mead released an extreme line of school folders, taking the best elements from hyper-stylized soda and bubblegum ads and pairing them with pure fabulism. The mastermind behind the visual identity of the “No Rules” folder run was the artist Mark Fredrickson. When looking at Fredrickson’s body of work, many of the key points of the “No Rules” run seem to be the DNA of his visual lexicon. Humor, action, and forced perspective unite his images as if they are snapshots from the same lopsided world. Mead’s “No Rules” folders also mirrored the rise of “Xtreme sports” like skateboarding, inline skating, and BMX, and the crazy advertisements that sold us on them. Somewhere between airbrush and oil painting, these hyperrealistic images, sprawled across the binding of the folder, in their own way capturing the best aspects of illustration: narrative and movement.
A lynx darts onto a football field, its forward motion clawing a football, splitting the pigskin.
Kayaking down the white rapids, a middle schooler fights off a piranha monster, chomping a hunk out of his paddle.
On a beachside net, a smiling iguana super jumps to spike the volleyball like a meteor entering Earth’s atmosphere.
A gorilla wearing a rust-colored tank top spits out bits of football leather, not breaking eye contact with the viewer.
An Alligator erupts from the concrete, trying to gobble up a roller bladder darting out of harm’s way.
A French bulldog on a basketball court carries a Converse sneaker lengthwise in its slobbery jowls, teeth caging the shoe.
A rodeo bull, breaking down the white fence, its container, bucks a cowboy to outer space.
A bald eagle catches a baseball, clenching its talons around the curvature of the ball with the fluid motion of a karate kick.
A hawk alley oops the basketball, midair, mid-flight, slamming it back into the net.
A stallion gallops on the green, headbutting the soccer ball, making his long horse lips peel with energy.
A batter at home plate connects bat to baseball, splintering wood, sparking light as his mouth opens in shock.
A goofy King Kong makes a basket without even trying, swooshing the net with a giant finger.
A panther on the soccer field this time, scoring a goal, slashes the net with its midnight claws.
A polar bear bursts into the hockey rink, long tongue lagging from its forward motion, almost slamming into a human player.
A warthog warrior grunts, flaring air out its nostrils, sending the basketball flying off the folder.
A rhino, football in mouth, blasts past the touchdown, piking the goal post.
And there’s still more! One eBay listing had a bundle of folders featuring shipwrecked pirates, caricatured and bushwhacked on the sandy beaches, swashbuckling till a coconut falls on their head and they break a tooth, going for fifty bucks. Governed by cartoon logic, the kind where forced perspective is embraced, making extremities rubbery, and the laws of physics are dropped, the “No Rules” folder collection hearkens back to how a child makes sense of the world. Sometimes the world seems familiar, like there’s magic under the sidewalk, and other times it’s overstimulating. But most of the time, we need school folders to remind us that things don't always add up, let alone make sense. Yet, in the very least, they keep things organized.
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Harrison Cook is a writer, potter, & thinker living in the Midwest. His work has been published in Future Tense, Gay Mag, Foglifter Journal, Gargolye Magazine, TriQuarterly Review, and elsewhere. Keep a lookout for his next creative adventure, Future Artifact (coming 2026).