The Lunchbox Book!

Here's another little gem I picked up for all of $2 a couple of weeks ago. I notice that I am becoming a sucker for these picture-heavy "collection retrospective" type books. It's sort of like having an instant collection of whatever the book is about. For example, this one is obviously all about classic lunchboxes, which I don't collect (although I do have one vintage Dukes of Hazzard lunchbox with the thermos) but can now spend a lazy Sunday afternoon poring over, soaking in the brilliant vintage graphics.

This book got me thinking about my own lunchboxes of yesteryear, which were as follows:

1st grade: Peanuts
2nd grade: Star Wars
3rd grade: Dukes of Hazzard
4th grade: Masters of the Universe
5th Grade: Return of the Jedi

I bet in 3,000 years when Earth's new alien colonists start to excavate our landfills in order to learn more about us, they'll unearth any one of my old lunchboxes and it will probably still smell like peanut butter and jelly and cherry Kool-Aid.

I also had an old Spider-Man lunchbox that I got at a yard sale that I just kept trading cards in. God I wish I still had that.

Anyway, enjoy the pics of the book...

Tales From the 25¢ Bin! Classic Super Heroes Edition!

Just posting some pics of my latest 25¢ scores! Enjoy...

The Munsters - The Last Resort

I scored this brilliant little book at a swap meet in San Diego for all of $2 and I would have paid $10. I had no idea that there were once Munsters books back int he day, and now I'm wondering how many are out there. This book was published by Whitman in 1966, probably at the height of Munsters mania.

I can't really tell you much about the story, because I haven't read it yet, but I am simply in love with the cover and interior illustrations. Take a look...

There's just something about the cartoony drawings, rendered in a warm brown ink that I just adore. It looks like, Herman and the family try to take a vacation and run afoul a couple of mad scientist wannabes, as often happens on family trips. At least in my family, anyway.

The real prize in the illustrations comes from the inside front and back cover pages (both of which are the same), with this spectacular drawing of the Munsters gang in what appears to be a hybrid of the Munsters Koach and the Dragula, cruising toward a lightning-lit, cloud-shadowed castle. Priceless.

I'm off to try and find some more of these books (if they exist), but I get the sneaking suspicion that I won't be able to get them for $2.

My Vintage Kenner Star Wars Haul from SDCC!

As mentioned a couple of week's back, I'm committing to complete my vintage Kenner Star Wars figure collection, so while I was at SDCC, my vintage Star Wars radar was firing on all circuits. Sadly, there wasn't a whole lot to be found, with most booths selling newer packaged (scalped) stuff or (ugh) half-naked Japanese hentai girls statues.

Luckily, I managed to find two different booths selling some vintage stuff, and for pretty decent prices, so I did get to grab a few. And here they are...

First up, we've got the baddest Bounty Hunter in the galaxy, Boba Fett. I can't believe that I didn't already have a Boba Fett on the shelf, but he's been a little hard to find (for a decent price). This one is in pretty good shape and even came with his gun, so I was stoked to score him.  Looking at this figure again took me right back to one night when I was 8 or so and my uncle was babysitting me and we were playing Star Wars on the carpet in front of the TV (he was a pretty cool uncle), and he kept calling him "Blubber Fat" and I laughed so hard I almost peed.

Next we have the lovely Princess Leia in her Bespin getup. I never actually had this figure as a kid, but I distinctly remember my cousin Sean getting her for Christmas and his two brothers laughing at him for having a "girl toy". I was jealous of his Christmas morning score. Now Sean's laughing at me for still collecting these things.

Next up... Lobot! What a lame figure. I got this guy for a whopping $3. Even in my deepest throes of Star Wars fever, I avoided this figure like crazy. So did all my friends. I remember that there was this one Lobot figure that was constantly used as a bonus figure in our trading sessions, and everyone owned him at one time or another. Everyone except me, that is, because I always turned him down. But, now I'm trying to collect them all, so here he is. I don't know why I disliked this figure so much. I think it was the puffy sleeves.

When I say R5, you say D4! R5! D4! R5! D4! I loved this little droid when I was a kid and I love him just as much now. I always imagined how different the trilogy would have been if he hadn't had a bad motivator. One memory I have of this figure is that this kid, Randy, who lived next door to me, always just called him "Fake R2."

And finally (for this haul, anyway), we have the mighty, yet diminutive, Snaggletooth! I never had Snaggletooth when I was a kid, but another neighbor kid, Brett, did have him and I always coveted it. Not that we ever did much with him when we played Star Wars. I think we mostly just loved him because he was short and had those red, beady eyes.

So, that's it for this Star Wars haul (except for one that I bought for custom fodder, but that's another story). Now I have to go update my list and set my sights on the next figures to add to the collection. I have so far to go, but it's going to be a fun journey.

May the Force be with you.

Lego Minifig of the Week! #32

VROOOM! DA da-da da-DUM! Inspector Gadget!

(click to view Dr. claw sized)

Super Awesome Trading Cards!

Yesterday, I needed to stock up on some supplies from Archie McPhee (their headquarters and official brick and mortar store is here in Seattle), and stepping up to the checkout, I spotted these packs of Super Awesome Cards. I had no idea what they were about (obviously things that were super awesome), so I grabbed a pack, got them home, opened them up and saw that the the name doesn't lie...

 

Why, yes... they are correct. All of these things are indeed super awesome. This is why I love Archie McPhee.

Random Toy Pic #33

It Was a Short Summer, Charlie Brown

I love Peanuts. Always have. In fact, if I could be any comic strip character, I'd be the Phantom. But if I could be another, I'd be Snoopy.

So with an undying love for all things Charles Shultz in my heart, I just can't pass up any of these vintage Peanuts paperbacks whenever I find them. This little gem was one that I remembered from my grade school days, having checked out all of the Peanuts books several times between 1st and 5th grade, that I'm sure I've read this one about eight times.

Scholastic released this book in a series based on the extremely popular Peanuts TV specials, which included stills taken from Bill Melendez's original animation cels. Here we see Shermie (yes, that's his name), Linus, Charlie Brown, Pig Pen and Schroder roasting up marshmallows on the cover...

This is a classic going-to-summer-camp tale (not to be confused with the better known, and frankly better all around, Peanuts summer camp special, Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown), and is packed with color illustrations throughout.

Unlike many Peanuts paperbacks, which are usually reprints of the classic strips (I have a ton of those, too), these books were presented in storybook style for young readers (or geeky collectors, like me).

The real beauty of some of these books were the occasional calm moment of sublime illustration without the need for words...

If you're having trouble remembering this TV special, this was the one were the whole camp was taken over by arm-wrestling fever (or "wrist wrestling", as they say in the show), leading the champion, Lucy, to face off with the "Masked Marvel", who no one ever identified as Snoopy.

The match was riveting!

Of course, Snoopy eventually did things his way...

Causing Lucy to call foul...

This book is a perfect storm of nostalgia for me from the TV specials, to the book itself to my own epic memories of Summer Camp. Not that we did any "wrist wrestling".

Thanks for reading!

Tales from the 25¢ Bin!

For the second post ever on my newest blogging adventure, I'd like to kick off a regular feature called Tales from the 25¢ Bin, where I basically show off cool comics that I scored for a big whopping quarter. The old quarter bins are great places to find all kinds of oddities (as long as your willing to root through the stacks of still-bagged X-Force #1's) and every now and then you can surface with some real gems. Here's a few that I grabbed the other day...

Here we have Groo #2 from PC! This was Groo's first outing, before Marvel and way before Image and even later, Darkhorse. I have loved Groo every since I discovered him back when I was 12. I never did get all of the older PC issues, so this one is a nice addition.

Next we have the Batman Movie Special, from way back in 1989! Yeah, I bought this one back in the day when it first came out. I had Bat-fever pretty bad when the movie hit. Nice to find another copy after all these years.

And finally, who the heck wouldn't pay 25¢ for The A-Team #2?!

That's all for now, but tune in again for more Tales from the 25¢ Bin!

First Post! All About Wacky Packages!

Welcome to the first post of the what will probably be the most boring blog ever! Well, I hope not. Hopefully there are enough of you out there that dig interesting books, comics and magazines (with the occasional trading card and sticker mixed in).

Let's kick things off right with a book I picked up recently (that I'd been eyeballing for a while, only to pull the trigger and snatch it up at a discount book store for more than 60% off), a little colorful tome dedicated to those classic collectible stickers that my friends and I used to covet like gold, Wacky Packages.

Wacky Packages were there right when I started to discover the wonderful world of collectible trading cards, and even though the line started to die out while I was still a kid, in the days before mass hording and eBay scalpers, you could still find packs of Wacky Packages in certain drug stores for years after the line's demise.

We adored them, and thanks to a huge shoebox of trading cards that I scored when I was 8 at a garage sale that my Mom and I stopped at in the next town over (which also contained some classic Batman and Odd Rod cards), I was pretty much crowned the Wacky Packages King of 3rd grade, doling out treasured doubles to my friends for Star Wars cards or the occasional lunch-time Twinkie.

The book kicks off with a quick (almost too quick, I want to know more!) reminiscence from former Topps artist (and comic book legend) Art Spiegelman, looking back on the glory days of Wacky Packages.

The real treasure within the book however, is the fact that it contains large, colorful pics of every single Wacky Packages card ever printed!

And if that didn't sell me (which, it did), they throw in a few actual sticker cards of reprinted rare and unpublished designs from back in the day.

This book was like a walk down memory lane (Oh! I had that one!) and will be the perfect "field guide" in case I ever try to sink my teeth in to collecting them all again (gods help me). But if I do, I'll be sure to brush those teeth with Crust toothpaste and gargle  with Blisterine. ;)

Dragonriders of the Styx's Fantar!

A little while back, one of my favorite cyber-homies, Planet Bierwagen, hooked me up with a killer care package of posable, collectible awesomeness. And not to take away from the other figures in the box, but one figure in particular really stood out (so much so, that he got a quick mention in a previous video blog, and now I felt was the time to write a little more in depth about him).

As many of you know, I'm a fan of the classic Dragonriders of the Styx toy line. I often incorporated them into my fantasy adventures alongside my beloved LJN Dungeons & Dragons figures. So it was a nice surprise when I found what I originally thought was a wingless Demon figure from the DotS line...

I thought, Well, that's nice. Now I have an extra Demon figure. What a nice chap that Planet Bierwagen is. Oh, but how wrong I was! Looking at the figure again the next day, I notice that this wasn't the Demon at all! This was a figure that I never had! Planet Bierwagen is far beyond being just a nice chap!

This is the Demon...

And next to him, is Guliz, the Ogre. It finally hit me that what I had looked like the hybrid bastard-child of these two evil creatures!

With a little digging, I discovered that this mix of Demon and Ogre is none other than Fantar! A truly horrible creature that road upon the back of flame-footed, human-faced, pitch-black horse in a rare Dragonriders of the Styx deluxe set.

And thus my Dragonriders horde grows! So, my deepest gratitude to Planet Bierwagen for hooking me up with a killer addition to my collection, from a line of toys I have always loved. :)

Lego Minifig of the Week! #31

Random Toy Pic #32