My Monster Mash-Up T-Shirt Design!

The other day, I stumbled onto this t-shirt design...

...(which is by an artist known as Raz and was originally available for order at Shirtpunch) that totally reminded me of another old t-shirt design I did back when I was with my old company. This is yet another design that didn't make the cut, but it was designed during one of our mad dashes to knock out a ton of potential designs for a Halloween program.

The two ideas are super similar, but the styles are completely different. Here's mine...

Looking at the two together, mine looks pretty cartoony. I guess that's what I was going for because if my memory serves me, I think this program was supposed to be for younger kids. Maybe it was too scary for that age-group and too cartoony for an older age group and that's why it never got produced. Now that I'm looking at it, I really hate the orange glow I added, and that "distress" filter was something they always made up add. It looks misplaced here, though.

Either way, I love that people can come up with such similar ides independently and execute them in such a different way.

Here's the original sketch I made for this design...

Now that I look at it, I guess I technically squeezed in an extra monster with the Mummy bandages. ;)

So, there's that. Just thought I'd share. 

Tales from the 25¢ Bin!

Can you believe it's time once again for another edition of Tales from the 25¢ Bin? Well, I can, because I have had some amazing luck hitting the cheap-o boxes lately. This latest haul is pretty epic, and it would have been even more epic but I had to skip the last two rows of the clearance bin because this fat, smelly guy walked up and stood way too close to me and started breathing on me, clearly waiting for me to finish, but displaying a stunningly absent sense of personal space and public decorum. Enjoy your comic, dude. And perhaps a shower.


Anyway, here we go!

First up is All=Star Squadron Annual #2. I have no idea why I bought this one.  Maybe it's because there was a cute green chick on the cover. Maybe it's because it was a quarter. Maybe it was both. Hey, isn't that the Green Lantern who's gay now? Go on with your bad self, GL!

I always buy every issue of Arak I find, and I never read them. I think it stems from the tenuous connection of the Arak action figure from Remco being released with the Warlord figure, a comic that I love. Maybe one day I'll sit down and read through all of these. Maybe not.

Yeah, I'm still in the throes of Avenegers love, so any issue of Captain America I find is gonna get bought.

Who remembers these? When I was in middle school, I had a complete run of both DC Who's Who guides and Marvel's Marvel Universe guides. They were the best books to have back then, especially when me and my friends would sit around just making up comic book characters and flipping through these books for ideas to rip off. I think i may have to make an effort to re-collect all of these again. There were just too awesome.

I used to read DC's TSR-based book back in 9th and 10th grade, and the nostalgia alone makes me keep buying them whenever I see them in the cheap bin. Now I look at the interior artwork (or those horrid colors, ugh!) and cringe. Still, these books are nerdcore.

Ka-Zar has always been one of my back-up favorite characters. Part Tarzan, with a dash of Kamandi and a sprinkle of Conan. And he had a pet saber-toothed tiger and a hottie of a girlfriend wearing a skimpy fur bikini. Mash all that up and then make him hang out with Spider-Man every now and then and what's not to love?

And finally, here's where I share my most shameful secret. When I was in 7th grade, my comic book collecting got serious for the first time. Sure, I had had comics throughout my youth, but 7th grade was when I started saving them and trying to complete runs and whatnot.  In fact, me and my friend had both decided that we were going to start collecting at the same time and one day took a long bike ride to our local mall where they had a Waldenbooks that we knew carried a bunch of comics. Comic book shops had yet to be introduced to us.

So we go to this Waldenbooks and pick out some issues. That was when I saw this new character with a hockey mask (like Jason!) and a football jersey (like Wlater Payton) and an uzi (like Snake Eyes!) and I went nuts. I declared right then and there that this was my new guy and I bought the first issue (it'll be worth millions one day!).

Well, I stuck through all 4 issues of Wild Dog, before moving on to much better characters. But for a hot second, one the stupidest Punisher kock-offs in comic book history had a very enthusiastic 12 year old fan.

Dang! Look at all those guns and missiles!

Top Five Friday! Kick-off Edition!

Hey gang! I've had a lot of fun writing the weekly League of Extraordinary Bloggers assignments, and since last week's top 10 list, I started think about making something similar to add to my blog as a weekly feature. But coming up with a list of 10 things is hard, so I knocked it down to 5, and decided to call it Top Five Fridays. So every Friday, I'll come up with a list of 5 somethings. It may be my top 5 favorite somethings or top 5 least favorite somethings or whatever.

So here's the very first weekly list! I present to you...

My Top 5 Cartoon Character Childhood Crushes

When I was a wee lad, I developed crushes on girls quickly, and not even fictitious characters were safe from my amorous pinings, much less animated ladies. It really didn't matter to me that these lovely lasses were not much more than ink and paint on celluloid, all I knew was that they triggered something in me that made me want to send them a note at lunchtime and hope for a positive response by recess. Here's the list...

1. Ariel (Thundarr the Barbarian)

Pretty much the only female character in this cartoon about a devastated future Earth, Ariel spent a lot of her time getting into trouble and then needing rescue from Thundarr and Ookla. Not the most forward-thinking treatment of a female lead by the writing staff, but that didn't stop me from falling in love with her on the very first episode. Ethnically ambiguous, leotard-clad sorceresses are kind of my thing.

2. Daphne (Scooby Doo)

I know, I know... She never really did much for the Mystery Inc. gang, but she kicked off a long-lasting penchant for pink-tights-wearing redheads for me.

3. The Heavy Metal Chick

I have no idea what her name is, and we probably shouldn't have been watching this movie so much when I was a kid, but when I first saw this heroic female going toe-to-toe with a helmeted '80s-style baddie, I was smitten. There must have been something about that gray and white hair or that weird strappy bikini thing she had on that made me want to live in whatever twisted world she came from.

4. Wonder Woman (Superfriends)

This one is pretty much a given. Considering my very first crush ever on Lynda Carter, it was only natural that I gravitated towards Wonder Woman on the Superfriends as well. She was the kind of chick that could get things done all day long while wearing what amounts to a one piece strapless bathing suit.

5. Teegra (Fire & Ice)

Holy Toledo! What a woman! Animator Ralph Bakshi really knew how to make a zaftig heroine in distress step right out of a Frank Frazetta painting and come to life. She may have been a little whimpy (she was a pampered princess after all), but her lack of courage was easily ignored when faced with her non-stop jiggling in all the right places. Out of all of my animated crushes, this one borders on pure lust.

Honorable Mention: Diana (Dungeons & Dragons)

Diana didn't quite make the list, but she was super close. In fact, considering her fearless spirit and natural leadership abilities (she often called the shots to the rest of the gang), she probably should replace Teegra on the list, but, and I can't stress this enough, Teegra's jiggle is just too powerful. Sorry Diana.

Lite Brite Brutes! E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial!

Vintage Star Wars Thursday!

The World's Easiest Rubik's Cube

Like any kid who lived through the '80s, I spent a lot of time twisting and turning that classic cubic puzzle from Hungarian sculptor, Erno Rubik. In fact, I've managed to collect a bunch of cubes devoted a video blog to them a while back.

Well, it's been a while since I added to the collection, but when I saw this knock off cube version at a local book store for a whopping $1.99, I snatched it up faster than Feliks Zemdegs can solve a 3x3x3 (look it up).

Ladies and germs, I present to to you, the 3x3x1...

That's right, kids, it's a Rubik's Cube with only one single row. All of the colors are represented, but now the red, blue, orange and green squares are whittled down to just three each, leaving the white and yellow squares to take up the full nine cells of the usual cube.

I guess i shouldn't be calling this a "Rubik's" cube, since it's clearly a knock off, but much like people call all cotton swabs "Q-Tips", the Rubik name has transcended mere brand name status.

The cube turns from the central hub cell, like any other cube, but it makes for some weird shapes. You can turn the sides...

 
Or just the center...

And when you're caught with a single cell out of place...

You can just turn that one piece!

The best way to solve this baby is to do the old one-side-solve, which even my grandma can do. Solve the one side of this particular version, however, and the other side is also solved, natch.

The trouble starts when you  have the "plane" sides solved, but the side cells don't quite add up. There's only a few ways that these cells can be jumbled, so the solutions are pretty easy. And lucky for me, they are included on the back of the packaging.

Ka-BAM! I'm a frickin' genius! Well, okay, maybe not. I've never been one of those people with the kind of mind that can solve these types of puzzles out of sheer deduction and mathematics, but give me a set of instructions and I'm good to go, as long as I can memorize the algorithms for later use when someone is all like, "Hey, smart guy, solve this!' and then I do and totally look like I have a brain the size of radial truck tire.

If there are any other puzzle collectors out there that would like one of these, I'm pretty sure I can hook you up. Because I'm a genius and I'm cool.

League of Extraordinary Bloggers Weekly Theme: Reality TV Treasure Hunters

This week's topic: Pawn Stars, American Pickers, Hollywood Treasure, Storage Wars, Toy Hunters, Auction Hunters, Auction Kings — the list of reality TV treasure hunting shows goes on and on. If you could spend a week with the crew from one of these shows (or one that I missed) who would it be?

Well, this one was pretty easy for me. I hate all of the fatso phonies on Pawn Stars, the "treasure team" on Hollywood Treasure are a bunch of blood-sucking scumbag Hollywood hairdos, most of the people on Storage Wars are annoying jackasses and they could could barely hide the sheer humbuggery on Toy Hunters.

So my decision is easy as pie: If I'm going to have to spend a week with one of these Reality TV Treasure Hunters, I'm going with American Pickers. I genuinely like Frank and Mike and the cross-section of good old-fashioned American folks out there that they meet is unbelievably charming.

However, by spending a week with them, I really mean spending a week alone in their main warehouse with their assistant (and budding treasure hunter), Danielle.

In her spare time she is a burlesque performer and on a roller-derby team. She's also inked to the gills and built like an hourglass made of high carbon steel. Yeah, that's pretty much everything I'm all about in a woman.


'Nuff said.


Please see the complete list of posts from the Extraordinary League of Bloggers and show their blogs some love. Thanks!

The Return of the McRobots!

I posted a couple of pics ages ago showing of my humble collection of McDonald's transforming little cheeseburgers and french fries (man, the toy world is weird). Here's the original shots...

I had always meant to get around to finishing off the collection, but never did, because there are umpteen-gazillion other toys and collectibles that call to me and cause me to have the collector's attention span of a puppy in a kiddie pool full of squeaky balls.

But thanks to Brian's Box of Plenty that he recently sent me (thanks again, Brian!), I've now been able to add a few more to collection...

Da-da da da daaaah! I'm lovin' it!

Check out those awesome little robots disguised as a quarter pounder, a milkshake, a small fries and the paint variation of the new large fries.

I love these toys to no end. I'm not so stoked about the later dinosaur versions, but I am totally re-energized in my efforts to hunt down the rest of the robot series.

And if any of you are sick of me blogging about the stuff Brian sent me, too bad. That box was full of awesomeness, so buckle in. ;)

Lite Brite Brutes - The Breakfast Club

Ninjas! Luchadors! Zombies! Oh My!

Here's another installmet of self-indulgent attention-whoring on my part where I show off some of my favorite designs that I did back when I worked at my old T-shirt design company.

The last stuff we looked at were designs that never made it past the concept stage, but today's stuff not only made it into production, but apparently sold pretty well in Walmarts all over the country.

These designs were for a huge Halloween campaign where we were really trying to corner the market on "costume hoodies", a category that has become massively popular today. For this particular program (as we called them), I was assigned to do a series of "skeleton" themes. I came up with doing a skeleton luchador, a skeleton ninja and, one that borders on redundancy, a skeleton zombie.

I had an absolute blast with these and was thrilled one day when I saw them hanging on a rack in a store. We did both hoodies and what's called extended sleeve versions which came with matching gloves and mask beanie.

Anyway, just thought I'd share...

I was even able to dredge up one of my original pencil sketches for the Ninja design. This is what I woudl scan in and then trace over in Adobe Illustrator.

And digging back in my closet, I found a couple of the actual mask/beanies! I forgot I had these and don't remember how I got them, but they were in a box from when my work shut down and I cleaned out my desk to officially become a "tele-comuter".

So, thanks for indulging me. Hope you all enjoyed a little look into the bizarre world of what people have paid me to do.

1982 Rough Riders A-Team Van!

First off, extra-special thanks to Brain from Cool & Collected for sending this sweet piece of pop-culture machinery my way!

Now, you'd think after all of the nostalgic blogging I've done over the years that I would have covered just about every toy I ever had and loved as a kid. Well, you'd be wrong, because despite my penchant for waxing poetic about the playthings of my youth, there are a few truly beloved toys that I haven't even touched on for one simple reason; I can't friggin' get my hands on them today.

There is a small list of toys in my head that I keep hoping to score once again and then I can open up a veritable floodgate of blog posts about them, but until I actually get one in my hands, I'm trying to keep tight lipped.

Today's little gem is a cousin of one of those toys. Ladies and germs, I present to you, the 1982 LJN Rough Rider A-Team Assault Vehicle...

When I was in 3rd grade, the entire 6 to 11-year-old male population of my school became obsessed with these little motorized 4X4 toy trucks called Stompers. Every single kid I knew had at least three of them. They were such a simple toy. Basically a toy truck that rolled forward, had headlights that lit up, and could climb up a small dirt hill or over a pile of pencils (logs). The beauty of the Stompers was in the removable chassis, which was brilliant because once your Stomper's mechanical components broke (and they would eventually), you just bought a new one and now had two interchangeable chassis for your rig.

I fondly remember having massive trading sessions with kids over chassis. I probably only ever had two working vehicles at a time, but up to 7 or 8 chassis to swap out. It also got to the point that if the motorized part got too busted, kids would just gut the whole things and roll their Stompers around the old fashioned way, which by all accounts should have made us think, Aw, crap. It's broken. But for some reason we just thought that was yet another cool aspect to Stompers.

Soon, LJN (makers of the classic Dungeons & Dragons action figures) would get in on the action and release their version of Stompers (which were released by Schaper) called Rough Riders. Now, usually kids can smell a knock off a mile away and usually avoid them, but we didn't skip a beat. We just bought them up with or allowances (or begged for them from our parents) right alongside the regular Stompers. In fact, so welcome were the new vehicles, that we just called them Stompers, too.

This particular vehicle, The A-Team Assault Vehicle, was one that I have seen only once in person and that was 30 years ago. A kid in my 4th grade class had one and we all thought it was the most beautiful thing we had ever seen.

The only Rough Riders I ever remember owning personally were two Army-looking vehicles, one was like a Jeep and the other was this sort of fantasy tank thing.

Rough Riders made several improvements on the Stomper idea. The first was the "gear shift" at the top. Where Stompers had an on/off switch on the bottom, Rough Riders made access to the switch much easier by putting it on top. Then they took it a step further added three settings to the switch; off, climbing mode (slow, steady crawl) and turbo (high speed).

Another added feature came in the form of the Rough Rider's protruding cone shaped hubcaps...

These gave the vehicle the ability to do that killer movie stunt where the vehicle rolls along on two wheels. I know this sounds silly by today's toy standards, but in 1982, that blew our minds.

So, here's the thing; I've been eyeballing Stompers and Rough Riders on eBay for a few years now, and due to their high secondary market prices (around $40 each if they're running), I've managed to avoid getting sucked into officially collecting them. But now that I've got one of these babies in my hands again after all this time, I feel the bug biting.

This just may be the start of a beautiful collection.

By the way, if anyone out there can find me one of these (in any condition), let a brother know.