San Diego Comic-Con 4 Months Later: A Cereal Look Back

It's been almost 4 months exactly since San Diego Comic Con 2009 and something's still haunting me: The extraordinary designs on the local cereals.

BREAKFAST cereals.

Like any guy my age at a comic convention, I look to save cash on non-comic goods including alcohol and food. That need to save money in case I find a copy of Mort, the Dead Teenager #1-4 is exactly why I found myself at the local Ralph's grocery store. Located a few blocks from the convention center, Ralph's will save you loads of money if you don't mind the 15-minute walk. And like any regional grocer, Ralph's has their own cheaper off-brand merchandise.

While searching the store for Mickey's grenades, I stumbled into the cereal aisle and couldn't believe my eyes. The off-brand cereal looked BETTER than the name-brand stuff! Here, now, for your pleasure are some of the brands I had the intense (sweaty?) pleasure of finding...

Tired of Grape Nuts? Why not toss some NUTTY NUGGETS in your mouth?!?

And I know what you're thinking. "Well, these look different enough from Grape Nuts that the customer will be able to tell them apart, right?" NO! You are wrong!

A few boxes down I had the pleasure of discovering this cereal from what I can only assume is the future:

Look familiar, Crispix fans?!?!

Hexa is clearly SO MUCH cooler! Like you live in one of those Bio-Domes (do they still have those?) on the moon or the sun or wherever they built those things before Pauly Shore crashed one that time in 1996. Ladies on the street would be like, "Whatcha eatin', Rickey?" and I'd be all like, "This? Oh, you don't eat this? Weird. It's just Crispix. From my Bio-Dome."
BOOM: Ladies impressed.

Next up is Honey Grahams.

And I know what you're thinking. "Oh, we have these at my grocer." WRONG! You're thinking of GOLDEN Grahams! And you can find them on the shelf RIGHT NEXT to the Honey Grahams:

I think you see where I'm going with these, so I'm gonna stick with side-by-side pictures from here on out. GO!

Fuck Raisin Bran Crunch! Ralph's has CRUNCHY RAISIN BRAN!

Why pump boring-ass Cookie Crisp into your face for breakfast when you can have CHIP MATES?!?! They even have a pirate mascot! NO ONE has a pirate mascot!
That's illegal, right?! If it is, fuck the law - CHIP MATES is here, so hand over your teeth cause we're filling them shits with cavities!

Honey Bunches of Oats can suck it. I need me some of the delightfully sounding Honey Crisp Medley, stat:

I don't even know what this is supposed to be an off-brand of, but I wanna shove fistfuls of it into my kid!
(I don't have a kid.)

And here's my favorite of them all. Don't look at the box for too long or you'll explode into a peanut butter cup and then I'll come over and eat you before the police or the government or the government police can catch me. I give you: FUSION...

If your local store is anything like my store, you've got pooty off-brands like Twin Grain Crisp:

Or Confruity Crisp (WHAT is a "confruity"?):

Or the VERY exciting Cocoa Bites:

(bite me, Cocoa Bites)

Or cereal with young girls on it:

Or cereal that comes in straws somehow:

I dunno what's going on, but name brands better step it up in the design department. They should at LEAST jot down some notes from Paul Newman's line of cereals. Take one look at a box of Newman's Own and you KNOW that box took a lady out last night and showed her a good time filled with romance and expensive dinners and maybe that box even got mixed up in a bar fight in the lady's honor cause some joker bumped her in the dance club and made her spill her apple-tini or Zima or whatever it was she was pretending to drink cause she didn't want to get too drunk and make the box think she was easy - I mean, come on, she had work the next morning and besides, it's been a LONG time since she found a cereal box she could learn to trust, but she just wants to take things slow after her last relationship ended in disaster, you know?:

If I make it to San Diego in 2010, I'll see you in the cereal aisle.