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Monday, August 27, 2018

Dino Drac Fun Pack August 2018

I'm a little late on this as I got my pack in the mail a few days ago. But life gets in the way of cool stuff from time to time. Anyway, here we go into yet another fun pack from Dinosaur Dracula.





Some fun stuff this month. The highlight being the Super Monstruos figure.


This month's figure is a cool lady vampire named Vampiresa. She goes well with my Dracula, Dr. Jekyll and Hunchback. More about this fun line of figures can be found here.

Next up are the assorted trading cards.


Jaws, dinosaurs, music stars and Nintendo stickers among these.


Also got a pack of gum from South Korea. Good stuff actually.

Though I'm not really a fan of the movie these buttons are neat.


Two villains from The Super Mario Bros movie.

Finally the usual mini-poster and stickers.


So that's it for this month. Not a bad collection this time around. If you think this stuff is cool you should check out Dinosaur Dracula. He's just started his Halloween 2018 Countdown last week and there is all kinds of fun stuff on his site.


Sunday, August 26, 2018

6 Little Golden Books #1

Tonight I think I'll talk about Little Golden Books. These were a major part of my childhood. In fact I still have all of mine. So I think I'll talk about a six of my favorites from my collection.



#1

Donny and Marie : The Top Secret Project
by Laura French
Illustrated by Jan Neely
I used to watch the Donny and Marie Show as a kid and I had this one book about Donny thinking he could build a robot. It doesn't turn out quite the way he wanted and so Marie and their little brother try to outdo him.

#2



The Black Hole A Spaceship Adventure for Robots
by uh, well my book doesn't give any credits.
From the Disney movie that I enjoyed it focuses on the robot characters of V.I.N.CENT and Old B.O.B. as they explore the spaceship and try to avoid being caught by Maximilian. A fun little story even if it doesn't actually fit in the with story from the film.

#3 



Underdog and the Disappearing Ice Cream
by Mary Ann Forn
Illustrated by Jason Studios
There's no need to fear Underdog is here. So his catch phrase went. An entertaining story. Ice cream disappears, Polly disappears, aliens show up and Underdog saves the day.

#4



Woodsy Owl and the Trail Bikers
by Kennon Graham
Illustrated by Frank McSavage
70's environmentalism. Remember kids, "Give a hoot, don't pollute."

#5



Woody Woodpecker at the Circus
by Stella Williams Nathan
Pictures by Frank McSavage
Woody along with Splinter and Knothead(niece & nephew I believe) decide to join the circus. Hilarity ensues.

#6



SHAZAM A Circus Adventure
by Bob Ottum
Illustrated by Kurt Shafenburger
And for our last book, how about another trip to the circus. This time however the circus train is delayed so Captain Marvel and Mary Marvel put on a circus themselves. Because real super-heroes aren't afraid to put on clown makeup and get hit in the face with pies.

Well, I hope you've enjoyed this look back at a few of my Little Golden Books. If so, not to worry I have more and will be posting about them in the future.

Monday, August 13, 2018

The Return of Mego


Mego figures are back. These were the big thing back when I was a kid. I remember having a few of their toys. Only a couple of the 8" figures which I'll get to in a bit. First I want to talk about the return this year at Target.

I am so glad to see these figures in the stores again. I found them at my local Target today. The end cap was pretty full and there was only one figure they were out of. I didn't find Jimi Hendrix this time, but I'm not too worried.

A word from Marty President of Mego

Of this first wave of figures there are three that I want to get.

First up is one of my favorite characters. Dracula. And not just any Dracula, but the version as portrayed by the great Bela Lugosi. So glad they were able to get the rights to do this one.


Next up, Action Jackson. Admittedly not a character I'm familiar with. That said he looks really cool and seems like one I would have enjoyed as a kid.


And last but not least, the aforementioned Jimi Hendrix. One of my all-time favorite musicians and a must have.

Of course this is just from the first wave. I'm sure that there will be more to come in the not too distant future. I am hopeful for some other characters returning, namely CHiPs. These were the two I had as a kid. I even clearly remember getting Ponch at a department store in a mall while visiting my grandmothers and playing with it in the car on the way home. So it would be great to have them again. And to go along with them it would be nice to add Emergency!, Adam-12 and Dragnet. Fingers crossed, we shall see them one of these days.

Tuesday, August 7, 2018

Atari Force Comics

Back in the middle school I had a workbook where one of the pages was there to list some of your favorite things. I listed my three favorite comics at the time, G. I. Joe, Atari Force and Rocket Raccoon. A bit ahead of the curve on that last one I think. It was 1985 after all. Anyway I'll be discussing all three of those titles here, starting with the Atari Force.

The comics were published by DC, which like Atari at the time were owned by Warner Bros. They started with the Mini Comics packed in with some of the Atari 2600 VCS games in 1982. These were followed by the Star Raiders Graphic Novel in 1983. Finally they launched an ongoing series in 1985.



The Mini comics featured the original Atari Force team in their ship the Scanner One. These were packed in with the games: Defender, Berzerk, Star Raiders, Phoenix and Galaxian. I didn't have these originally and was unaware of them even until later. The Team, handpicked by A.T.A.R.I (Advanced Technology And Research Institute), consisted of Martin Champion, Lydia Perez, Li-San O'Rourke, Mohandas Singh and Dr. Lucas Orion. Later they were joined by Hukka an alien named for the noise he made when he spoke. 

The Star Raiders Graphic Novel that followed the Mini Comics I knew even less about, only learning about it in recent years. It doesn't actually feature the Atari Force as such. But it does include a member of Hukka's race. I have read that this was also the first ever original graphic novel. It was the first volume in DC's series of graphic novels at the time.


The ongoing series of Atari Force is the one I am most familiar with. I started reading it with issue #4 when it came out. I stuck with it to its end but missed out on the follow up One Shot that came out in 1986.


The new Atari Force was made up of two kids of the original team. Tempest, son of Martin Champion and Lydia Perez and Dart, daughter of Mohandas Sing and Li-San O'Rourke. The rest of the team consisted of Hukka, Morphea, an empath who looked like a praying mantis, Babe, a large toddler they rescued from slavers,  Pakrat, a rodent like thief, Blackjack, Dart's lover along with Taz and Kargg. They fought against a being know as the Dark Destroyer.


I enjoyed these comics when I was younger and are the only ones that I still have my originals of. I never parted with these and have added to the collection. I need only two of the Mini Comics and one issue of the Ongoing Series.

As of 2015 Dynamite Comics has the rights to the Atari properties and are reprinting the Atari Force Comics. So far they have a collection of the Mini Comics available. Hopefully they will soon have reprints of the Ongoing series.