Oooouuuuuuuuch! My E.T. Collection!

I have no shame in admitting that when E.T. the Extra Terrestrial hit theaters in '82 (when I was 9), I was completely enthralled in this bitter-sweet tale of a marooned alien befriended by one lucky kid in the California hills.

The fallowing Christmas was all about E.T., with me scoring all kinds of E.T. toys alongside an E.T. hat and backpack. Sure, this was also the year I had discovered the new line of G.I. Joe figures and there was quite a struggle for ownership of my heart between the various licenses (G.I. Joe would ultimately win out), but for a few months there, I was a true-blue, Reese's Pieces-eating E.T. maniac.

First up is the original (and only) action figure version of E.T. released in '82. I desperately wanted this figure after seeing it in the JC Penny Christmas catalog that year (or maybe it was Sears, not sure). Sadly, the figure itself turned out to be massively out of scale with my usual 3 3/4" gang of heroes and villains, so this toy, although loved in many eays, never got a lot of play.

I scored this still-carded baby on eBay for cheap. I know I should open it, but there's just something about how it looks carded, as if I had just ripped away the wrapping paper on that very same Christmas morning 29 years ago.

Next we have the E.T. toy that got the most play back in early '83, the walking wind-up E.T., which, although not exactly 1:18 scale, at least was shorter than my Joes or Star Wars figures, and therefore found himself in the middle of some crazy adventures.

I'm not sure if this next one counts as a toy, since it's technically a candy container, but no kid alive in the '80s made it through the decade without having at least a couple of these plastic head containers filled with sugary goodness. I still vividly remember the day that I bought one of these and several packs of E.T. trading cards down at Bailey's Pharmacy in Blissfield, Michigan during the Summer of '83. That was the same summer that one of my best friends, Sean Kirkpatrick, threw my E.T. baseball hat into a fire because he was mad at me. Things were never the same between Sean and I. ;)

Here's a late-comer to the E.T. collectible scene. This bendy figure was original included in packages of Kraft mac-n-cheese promoting the re-release of the movie on DVD or something like that. I scored this one in an odd lot of various toys, so, although not all that nostalgic for me, it still gets its place in the collection.

Here's a truly rare E.T. figure! This one was included only in the E.T. board game. It came with a little plastic ghost piece that you'd put over him, like in the famous trick or treating scenes in the movie. I'll be showing off the ghost piece in October, during my Halloween countdown, but for now here's the tiniest E.T. in my collection...

And finally, here's an odd little addition to the collection; a classic E.T. Halloween mask.I picked this up at SDCC for all of $5. This vendor had a stack of them, and although it's clearly a vintage piece, it is not the official Collegeville mask, and I should know, because I owned one. Halloween of 1982 almost saw me dressed as E.T., but that was also the year that I suddenly changed gears, deciding that those store bought vinyl costumes were for babies (although I still hung the mask on my bedroom wall), and opted to make my own Indiana Jones costume.

So, where this mask came from is anyone's guess. But it's in my collection now.

So, that does it for my small E.T. collection, I do have some interesting books and trading cards from the movie, which will eventually show up on one of my other blogs eventually. But until then, kids... beeeeeeeeee gooooooooooood!

Lego Minifig of the Week! #34

The Many Faces of Mixo's Batman!

As some of you may know, Mixo (the company I art direct for) launched our first wave of DC Comics Kookycans at SDCC 2011. The one that sold out the quickest (on the very first night, as a matter of fact) was the one and only Batman. But fear not, all the DC Kookycans should be hitting stores in a couple of weeks.

And since everyone seems to dig the Dark Knight, I thought it would be cool to show off some Batman variations I mocked up a few months ago when we first got the DC license. Check 'em out...

I still hope to release more Batman variations at some point, but I can promise that Bat-fans will LOVE the 2nd wave of DC Kookycans. They're a regular "rogue's gallery". ;) Stay tuned!

MORE Bubble Funnies! Spider-Man Edition!

Here's another example of the Bubble Funnies mini comic books/trading cards thing that I scored a little while back. his will be the last of these for a bit, since the Hulk and this Spidey one are the only ones I have so far. Anyway, enjoy...

Random Toy Pic #35

The Birth of an Ad Character!

I've now worked for my new company, Mixo, long enough and enough of the artwork is finally out there that I can start talking about the creative process and showing off some of the behind the scenes stuff. And I thought that I'd kick it all off with some pics on how our company mascot, Mr. Mixo, came to be!

Mr. Mixo is our Snap, Crackle and Pop, our Twinkie the Kid, our Kool-aid Man. And we really wanted something that aesthetically paid homage to the great ad characters of yesteryear.

Mr.Mixo started out as a drawing done by another artist, and as cute as he was, it didn't quite capture "our look and feel" and once I was hired on full time, I took the character under my wing, or in this case, under my Bic ball point pen.

You can see the original Mr. Mixo taped down in the lower right hand corner. I took that character and ran him through my cartoon filters and worked him out with some pen sketches (anyone else out there sketch in ball-point ink?). Note my boss' sketch just above the card. It's a Mike Becker original! You can also see where I was highly enamored by the old "My Three Sons" shoes. Weird stuff sticks in my head.

Next up came a more finished sketch (still in pen) that would be my guide once I took him into Illustrator. Note his obvious "soda jerk/ice cream man" look, which was originally how we wanted him, back when our collectible tins were going to contain ice-cream flavored drink mixes (they're now filled with sweet-tart candy and papercraft prizes).

Then it was time to build him digitally...

 

 We even had planed to make an exclusive Mr. Mixo Kookycan (the name of our first product) for San Diego Comic Con, but it never happened. Maybe next year...

Mr. Mixo would eventually go through one more makeover, when we wanted our focus to be more on the designs of the collectible tins and the creative, "artsy" papercraft accessories inside. With a few changes here and there, we ended up with our current (but probably not final) version of Mr. Mixo...

And that, kids, is how I make an ad character!

The Star Wars Scrapbook!

Here's a priceless little gem that I picked up the other day for $10 and it was worth every penny. Trolling the sci-fi aisles of may favorite used book store the other day, just looking for something to flip through while I ate lunch (do any of you ever do that?), I came across this book from 1998, that I never even seen before, called The Star Wars Scrapbook, which is essentially a brilliant little of collection of reproductions, photos and facsimiles of some of the more offbeat Star Wars paper ephemera and other saved items that were never meant to be saved from 1977 through 1997. Luckily, this book was released before the horrid prequels, so we're spared pics of Jar Jar Binks water bottles or Watto wrist watches.

Some of the best slices of Star Wars' past come in the form of such items as this newspaper clipping below written by the only reporter to take the time to visit the set in London in 1976. Their confusion as to what they were seeing was evident, as they describe the picture as "two robots escorting an ape-man".

Remember those cardboard masks on the back of Frosted Flakes? This Threepio one came from ice cream treats, but seeing it transported me back instantly.

Another treat was this exact facsimile of the very first Star Wars Fan Club newsletter. It shed some interesting light on how Lucas looked to 1950s sci-fi comic books for inspiration.

Make your own mini X-Wing! Seriously, this cardboard die-cut and scored insert is calling to me to pop it out and put it together, but I don't want to ruin the book.

The book even comes with a couple of pages of actual vinyl stickers. Once again, I must resist the urge to peel these up and stick them to my Trapper Keeper.

Buy a small box of candy in japan in 1978 and you'd get a tiny Star Wars ship inside. Seriously, I'd kill for one of those little Darth Vader figures.

Speaking of stickers, here's a sheet metallic stickers originally produced in Japan.

A real prize out of so many prizes in this book is this reproduction of a Boba Fett "Revenge of the Jedi" action figure backing card.. Kenner was ordered to destroy tens of thousands of these backing cards when Lucas changed the title to "Return of the Jedi" in late 1982.

Now I can brag about having my very own invitation to the staff screening of Return of the Jedi in Hollywood. This may not be valid any longer, though...

Want to be a Jedi Knight? Bam! Just fill out this certificate originally included with Star Wars Underoos. I wonder if Luke knew it was this easy?

The book has several pages on embroidered patches from various sources such as film crew patches to fan clubs exclusives.

And a great section of the book includes disposable ephemera such as these Popsicle wrappers, which, like the old Star Wars Dixie Cups and cereal boxes were just the kind of thing that my Mom told me to throw away, but I kept in a box under my bed for years. It's nice to know that I wasn't the only person crazy enough to do this.

If you're a Star Wars nut, like me, and you happen across this book, I strongly suggest picking it up. It'll catapult you down memory lane in less than 12 parsecs.

Them Mego Duke Boys!

Since this week sort of just became "Mego Week" here on the blog, I thought I'd end it by showing off a couple of recent eBay scores in the form of these two vintage Mego Dukes of Hazzard Bo & Luke figures.

Many of you may already know that I am a dyed-in-the-wool Dukes of Hazzard fanatic. It was always one of my favorite shows as a kid (which, thanks to the collections on DVD, I have learned still hold up) and I used to have a hoot of a time playing with my classic 3 3/4" Mego Dukes figures and their General Lee.

I never had the larger Mego figures from this series, but have been keeping my eye out for an affordable set on eBay for a while now. Long story short; I eventually got the Duke Boys and they're now displayed front and center of my Dukes shelf.

The Luke figure that I got is in pretty good shape, minus a little paint loss in the hair. And it's a pretty decent likeness of Tom Wompat. His clothes are in excellent shape, so I'm calling this one a score!

Bo, on the other hand, looks like he's been living in the back of Cooter's garage and sleeping on the floor, in a puddle of old oil. The figure itself is dirty as can be, and the soft-rubbery head is starting to get all "Zombie head" on us, which is a common issue with many Megos made in the last year or two of the company's existence, due to their using a cheaper plastic that turns gray with age. And although his clothes look like they are in good shape, when he first arrived, he smelled like he'd been stored in a musty basement, next to some old meat, in the Summer. Also, you can't see it in the top pic, but he's got a bum left knee, as it wobbles about when I pick him up and I can feel the wrappings of ancient cellophane tape just barely holding it on.

And let's be honest, that face doesn't look a thing like John Schneider.

Still, I don't think it would be all that hard to clean his clothes with a little Woolite, give his body a good scrub and maybe even replace the pin in his knee (or give him a new leg altogether), and I'll probably get around to it one day. In the meantime, these two boys only need to concern themselves with looking awesome on my shelf, and making sure Roscoe don't catch 'em.

Well, that's it for today. Thanks for reading, and y'all come back now, y'hear?

Bubble Funnies! The Incredible Hulk!

I had never heard of these before, which is odd, because the combination of comic books and trading cards (specifically, mini comic books the size of trading cards) is something that would be right up my alley when I was a kid. I got a couple of these in a lot of trading cards on eBay the other day and am simply blown away! They have a copyright date of 1981. Again, I would have killed for these at 8 years old.

Anyway, I scanned in the two that I have (I'll post the other one later), and am posting the Incredible Hulk right here, right now!

Lego Minifig of the Week! #33

The Last Starfighter Activity Book!

HOLY CRAP! This is the score of the century! I loved this movie as a kid and spent about a year waiting for the toys to show up in stores, which they never did. Back when they made action figures for crap like The Love Boat, they couldn't get some Last Starfighter toys on the shelves? I know they were being designed, but they just never made it past the prototype stage. Sad.

But there were apparently a few choice items and this activity book is proof! I scanned in the entire book so the four of you who actually read this blog can save each page, print them out and get your crayon on.

This is some priceless stuff. be sure to build your very own Ganstar and give Grig some pimp threads.