Must-See Site:
Vot Der Dumboozle?

Jim Lowe calls his site "a popular culture excavation," and that's not far from the truth. But where one might expect to find links to the John Ritter homepage or equally sarcastic sites, Lowe is dedicated to collecting links regarding "unique, obscure, or extraordinary persons or areas of popular interest which are otherwise virtually absent from the World Wide Web." In doing so, he's providing a tremendous service to those interested in expanding their knowledge of music, cartooning, film and history without wading through the thousands of "Star Wars," Spice Girls, and Mickey Mouse sites already jockeying for position amongst themselves.

You can learn plenty about arcane pop culture subjects just from checking out the list of links he presents on Vot Der Dumboozle. It features not just pointers to sites, but graphics and a brief description of each site and its subject. Unlike other link sites, you can head off the page without venturing into the unknown. Among those pages featured are sites dedicated to the comic strip "The Katzenjammer Kids," Disney comic book artist Carl Barks, and Tim Moore, the African-American actor who portrayed "Kingfish" on "The Amos 'n Andy Show."

So much pop culture content on the internet is designed only to promote obsessive fandom or to entertain. It's refreshing to find a site equally dedicated to educating the casual surfer on areas of popular culture that are less well-known, but equally worthy of exploration and study. The copy on the site is also strong, full of humor and entertaining in its own right. And as if his own set of links weren't enough of a way to kill time and learn simultaneously, Lowe also links to other sites which are focused on collecting quality pop culture links.

Jim Lowe's quiet corner of the internet is a place where the obscure is celebrated not for its obscurity alone, but for its value equal to that of the well-known and popular. If you're looking to learn new things about pop culture without dealing with the rampant sarcasm flooding most of the web (and coincidentally, most of this very zine), Vot Der Dumboozle is worth thorough exploration.