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- Reader Garrett points me in the direction of this tableau of horror, featuring Nancy and Sluggo by Jon Vermilyea. Possibly not safe for work, certainly not safe for restful sleep.
- In response to Mr. Spurgeon’s comment about the Classic Popeye book I wrote about on Wednesday…yes, that is really the actual cover of this reprint, the exact cover the original #1 had back in 1948, plus the “Classic Comics” banner, of course. I hope this series achieves its stated goal of reprinting all the Bud Sagendorf comics, but it’s, what, a hundred comics? That seems like quite the challenge, but even if they don’t get all the way to the end, I’ll certainly enjoy what I get.
By the way, I had a person in the comments lament the fact that his retailer doesn’t carry this sort of book. Well, I checked on Diamond’s website Thursday evening, and Classic Popeye #1 is still available for reorder, so march on in to your shop, tell ’em “I want one copy of Classic Popeye #1, Diamond order number JUN120397, please” and all it takes is a phone call, email, or visit to the reorders section on the Diamond retailer site, and they should be able to get it for you. While supplies last, of course.
And if your retailer can’t or won’t get it for you, I will. …Again, while supplies last, so act fast!
- Bully the Little Stuffed Bull’s pal John has been doing movie reviews for the past week over at Unseen Films, and this little linkie-thing here should take you right to them. It should also bring up older reviews of his on that site, which you should probably read also. You’d better…I’ll be quizzing you later.
Well, this is certainly my favorite comic of the week, a complete reprinting of the original
Popeye #1 published by Dell Comics in 1948. 48 pages of comics, plus inner covers and back cover plus a swell front cover, all filled with fights and jokes, which I know you people like, for only $3.99. Worth every single penny.
Mike Allred draws the new issue of
Daredevil, and…okay, don’t get me wrong, I think
Daredevil as written by Mark Waid is a great comic, and currently one of the best, if not
the best, Marvel has to offer right now. Even the non-Waid annual, which was written and drawn by Alan Davis, was a lot of fun. But there have been an awful
lot of Daredevil comics recently, and double-checking the invoices…sure enough, there have been three regular issues plus the annual released over the last five weeks. Of course, the indicia
does say “published Monthly except in May and August” but still, I don’t know you want to push your readers’ pocketbooks quite that much, especially with current economic conditions and with an audience base that’s looking for pretty much any reason to reduce their disposable income expenditures. Flooding the stands with consecutive issues of a series on what appears to be no set schedule is a good way to overwhelm your readership, and cause them to cut even titles they like if they think they can’t afford to keep up.
I mean, I get it. It’s a publishing and marketing strategy, designed to push other comics off the shelves, and force customers to devote more money to your popular “essential” titles while taking money away from your competitors’ titles (and hopefully not from too many of your own, though that inevitably happens). And it’s the kind of short term profiteering necessary in the current depressed comics marketplace, where you have to grab that money while it’s being shoved in your direction, as trying to build up a solid readership over an extended period of time takes, well, an extended period of time, and who has time to wait for that, amiright?
…That’s a long-winded way to say “I wish they’d stick to a schedule,” because cranking out a new issue of a series every one or two weeks causes my customers to increasingly groan “another new issue already?” even on titles they love. And that’s not an attitude anyone in this industry can afford to encourage.
Okay, wasn’t intending to rant about that. The new Daredevil is great. And let’s end this on an up note:
So this relaunch of
Supreme by Erik Larsen and Cory Hamscher, picking up from the Alan Moore run from a few years back, is a bit of a hidden gem, I think. It’s a hoot and half, despite that bloody cover I scanned up there which fits in fine in context, honest. There’s all kind of crazy stuff going on in this series, and
Invincible fans may want to pick up this particular issue. That the Moore issues which preceded this series are out of print and not always readily available in back issue bins is a shame, and may have hurt this restart’s chances with those stories being mostly out of memory. But, hell, just jump on in…it’s a lot of fun, and it’s not like you’ve read every single issue of, say,
Batman before you read your first Batman story. You’ll live.
So I get an email from Joe, and Joe sez to me, he sez: “there’s a new Swamp Thing toy out” and I sez “okay, well, off I go then, as there’s a Major Toy Store Chain along the path from my home to my place of employment at the Ventura Comic and Cardfight Vanguard Shop and Video Deli and I shall make a stop during my journey to work, oh yes.”
And what is this toy, you dare ask? Well, there are these things called “Squinkies,” it seems, which are little squishy rubbery toys that are indeed very very tiny and perfectly sized for fitting one or four into each nostril, not that I’ve ever done that, nor have I taken pictures of it, but there is a line of DC Comics Squinkies, and you can see Joe’s pics of his own purchases right here.
The deal here is that each package of twelve “Squinkies” includes three that are “blind-packaged,” so you can’t see what they are. Swamp Thing is one of those “blind-packaged” ones, apparently to avoid riots at toy stores as people rushed in and mobbed the aisles trying to get their hands on the latest Swampy item. The blind-packaged Squinkies not randomly packed, and if you were to pick up the package marked “Series 2,” you too could have a wee elemental that looks a little something…like this:
Here’s the little guy next to somethin’ to give you a sense of scale:
The other two “blind” Squinkies in the Series 2 package are Kamandi and Sinestro, the latter of which actually looks a little like a bee from the back, or maybe a member of Stryper, what with the yellow and black costume he’s wearing.
I almost, almost bought Series 1, since there was a little squishy Darkseid in that package, but, you know, it’s already problematic as it is that I purchased the one set.
So anyway, if you’re a Swamp Thing collector and you need one of these, look for the package with a picture of Green Lantern on the backer card in the lower right hand corner…also, note that a couple of other Squinkies in the package are Batman and Aquaman, to help you identify that you’ve got the right set. And when you’re buying your Squinkies, tell ’em Mike sent you…I mean, chances are pretty good they know a Mike, they’ll just assume you mean him.
Another comics legend passes: Joe Kubert died Sunday morning at the age of 85.
We recently acquired at the shop a good handful of classic Our Army at War comics, all featuring Kubert’s wonderful cover work. I think this was my favorite of the bunch, with such a great collection of character portraits on a single cover:
Mr. Kubert was a huge talent and a definite inspiration to many folks in the field. He was a teacher for
my pal Tom Foxmarnick and for many other of my favorite artists, including Steve Bissette, who has
his own memorial here.
A year or so ago, I wrote up a little thing about Kubert’s never-released Redeemer series, though it appears we may see a bit of it in the (hopefully still) forthcoming Joe Kubert Presents anthology, which will now be bit of a bittersweet memorial to one of the industry’s finest.
So long, Joe…you were one of the great ones, still doing significant and impressive work right up ’til today. You’ll definitely be missed.
HMMM, “PRO POG PLAYER”
SEEMS LIKE A GOOD CAREER CHOICE
from the depths of perdition itself (ca. 1994)
So get this: Thursday morning, we had a gentlemen come to the store carrying a couple of filled bags, who told us he’d just been cleaning out his storage unit and came across some materials and was wondering if we were in the market for them? He then opened up the bags to reveal what he was trying to sell…
…you’re way ahead of me…
…and it was POGs. …We pointed him to the corner of the store where we were trying to contain the vast amounts of POGgish items of which I’d only barely scratched the surface in these last couple of posts. I told him I didn’t know what to do with all the POGs we already had. He suggested I give some away with each comic book purchase. I replied that I wanted to keep my customers. And we both laughed, though I think my laugh was tinged slightly with hysteria and despair.
Okay, okay, it’s not as bad as all that. Everyone at the shop, customers and employees alike, are fairly amused by all this so far, and we even had a brief POG demonstration yesterday evening, run by Employee Debra:
And yes, we will totally have POG tournaments at the shop, if people want to play ’em. I mean, why not. Might as well dive fully in.
But enough about POGs, let’s talk about this other collection of stuff we got in…Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles merchandise from the early 1990s, like this big ol’ action figure carrying case:
“Holds 20 Figures,” it says, though none were inside. Instead, the figures were loose, scattered about the boxes in which this collection was stored. Figures like this terrifying Splinter figure, complete with faux fur:
…Or this poor bastard Turtle, who as part of his city camouflage, wore a manhole cover on his back:
I don’t know what’s going on here:
…except, well, what teenager
doesn’t have problems with acne?
I honestly have no idea (or just didn’t remember) what the deal was with this character:
…until a quick trip to the Turtles Wiki
explained she was a
fifth turtle mutated by the radioactive stuff that created the regular TMNT gang, who did not know of her existence.
Here’s a closer look…I didn’t know turtles had breasts:
Having this Turtle’s eyes on separate fingers freaks me out just a tad:
…and c’mon, he clearly just endorsed the glove for a paycheck:
…unless there’s a two-fingered / one-thumbed version he was able to personally try out and I don’t know about.
“Remember kids…crush the entire tissue in your fist and then just shove the exposed ends against your nose for best effect!”
I wonder if kids blew their noses on these printed tissues in such a way as to give the Turtles’ faces, I don’t know, beards:
That would take some fine nasal control, I’d imagine.
I took a picture of this just because it’s a big rubbery Frisbee-type thing:
And I took a picture of this suction cup-fastenable Turtle face because it’s shifty-eyed and terrible:
These TMNT binoculars worked about as well as any other toy binocular set I’ve ever had:
…in that it made things look, oh, about an inch or two closer than just plain looking at that thing.
Most of the weapons and other accessories were separated from the loose figures and stored in this plastic bowl:
Of note was this weapons sprue, which I’m featuring here partially because I thought it was a bit sad that these accessories were never detached and used as intended, but mostly because I like using the word “sprue.”
And then there’s this:
I guess if a turtle can have breasts, then why
not a mustache?
Finally, just to bring it all around:
All roads lead to POGs, I’m afraid.
Before you say anything…yes, this set of Undertaker caps are already marked for shipment to a certain Mr. Chris Sims:
I mean, honestly, just
look at it. It comes with a
plastic coffin in which to store your caps. This is a beautiful thing.
Anyway, I did indeed return to the shop on Tuesday to find that the boxes from our shocking Sunday shipment had all been opened up and the contents sorted out, and I spent a few minutes picking through the entrails of this long-defunct POG store to see what caught my eye. I’m pretty sure I saw holographic foil robot unicorn POGs, but I’m going to have to go back and confirm before I admit to it here. Also, there are bags upon bags of Christian-themed caps, because why not.
I did pull a set of these McDonald’s cap sheets to throw on the eBay:
…and I’m pretty sure the Grimace cap alone sells the set:
There were a lot of
Peanuts-related POGs as well, including a series of five sheets of POGs advertising the Knott’s Berry Farm amusement park to which the Peanuts franchise has been tied for many a year:
I don’t know which is more disturbing: this POG from the above sheet featuring Snoopy actually speaking:
…or, from another sheet in this series, an actual licensed studio-produced drawing of Linus and Snoopy fighting over a POG:
Opening up the shipping cartons also revealed lots of sealed boxes of packs of caps, such as this one:
I should keep track (NOTE: no, I probably shouldn’t) of all the ways different manufacturers referred to their products without using the actual trademarked term of POG. Most used variations on the word “milkcap,” or just “cap,” like “coolcaps” on the above box. There were also multiple terms for the thicker and heavier “slammers,” used to throw down upon the caps during the course of what we will call a “game” for the lack of a better term. I’m pretty sure “slammahs” never caught on, despite Big Deal’s noble attempts, and the official POG term was apparently “kini,” as on this World POG Federation Micro Tournament Game Pack from Milton Bradley:
And by the way, remember that video I mentioned at the end of yesterday’s post? Well, we
did have volume one of that series, as well as this tape from another series (well, if there
was a series of them):
If I remember the back of the package correctly, this 20-minute video promises music from “two different Southern California bands!” which really narrows things down a bit. I have no idea who the bands actually were, so I’m gonna pretend they were “Steve Garvey’s Hair” and “False Confession” just to amuse myself.
Speaking of that video from yesterday, longtime reader Old Bull Lee found Milk Cap Mania Vol. 2 online, uploaded by one of the people behind the project. Of note is that person’s brief text commentary about the genesis, and the death, of this series. (As I skimmed through the video, I did notice a few scenes filmed within a comic book store, and I had a nostalgic twinge upon seeing some of the promo posters on the wall. …Hello, ‘Breed poster, it’s been a while!)
So, yeah, I told you I’d be presenting more from this collection. If I gotta deal with it, so do you. Despite all my supposed despair and bemoaning of this fate, I think I’m distanced enough from the actual height of the fad and my retail part in it to look at these things for the cultural oddities that they are. To appreciate their absurdity, and to examine the exploitative Gold Rush that surrounded them.
In fact, there’s only one word to describe all these fascinating treasures…
So the boss had some friends who came into the possession of a storage unit full of material that once belonged to the distributor of a certain product. Those friends had no particular use for said product, and they said to the boss, they sez “here, you can have it all, and see if you can get anything for it.”
And thus, on a warm Sunday afternoon, the boss pulled the rental truck up in front of the shop, and this was the scene within:
And here we are, a little closer and at a slightly higher angle:
Yes. Oh, yes indeedy. So, we meet again, my old enemy:
Yes, that’s right, boxes and boxes and boxes of POGs and milkcaps and slammers and carrying tubes and oh sweet mother an entire CASE of Ultra Pro POG sleeves and uncut cap sheets and a generous handful of SLAMINATORS:
This fellow was apparently a distributor and / or manufacturer of cap products during the height of fad, in the early ’90s, and these rare jewels have apparently been resting in storage for nearly two decades since. I haven’t had much of a chance to actually go through the boxes, since mostly we were just hauling them out of the truck and making a giant POG box pyramid in a corner of the shop. However, one employee drew the short stick and he’s going to go through and sort everything out…and when I’m back on Tuesday, I’ll begin the process of getting these things on the eBay and finding homes for them.
Yes, this means I am back in the POG-selling business. …Don’t you judge me.
As we were hauling boxes into the shop, I was carrying a smallish box which caused some wag to call out “Hey, Mike, way to pitch in!” to which I replied “Here, you hold this box” which was filled with brass slammers and thus heavier than your mother:
And if you don’t know what “slammers” are, please don’t ask me to explain. Speaking of which, another customer, a young fellow of about twelve, asked us what POGs were as he’d never heard of them, and I envied him his youthful innocence.
By the way, SHAQ POGS:
And all of these caps were presided over by their true and rightful king:
Just to allay any concerns, I took this pic on top of one of our glass cases, so Pogman
isn’t directly sitting on top of our copies of
Daredevil #7 (1965),
Marvel Tales Annual #1 (1964), or
X-Men #8 (1964), as it may appear.
There was one of these as well, a videotape sealed in its original shrinkwrap, and thus presumably the “6 Collectible Wackers” are still included:
The back, since I know you’re curious:
Oh, there are no winners here.
Most terrifying part of this video?
Yeah, there was more than one in this series. Seriously, I am tempted beyond all belief to pop this open and watch it.
In an odd sort of way, I’m sort of excited, just for the sheer “OH MY GOD WHAT’S THIS” entertainment of it all, not to mention seeing what actually does sell and for how much. And believe you me, I’ll be taking full advantage of the “pogs” category on this site if I find any more treasures.
In the meantime…drop by the shop! Scale POG Mountain! See Mike just kinda stand there and shake his head in bemusement!
§ August 3rd, 2012 § Filed under pins § 6 Comments
So I have to admit, a not-insignificant portion of my reasoning for buying these from a collection brought into the store on Thursday was so that I could scan ’em and put the pic up on my site, like so:
Okay, to be completely honest I wouldn’t have bought them if I didn’t think I could sell them. And while this still-sealed “collector’s” button set from 1990, complete with serial numbering (#0823 out of, like, a million, probably) has all the appearances of something that would do well on the eBay, the truth of the matter is that sets like these generally sell for around zero dollars there. However, I do have enough people passing through the shop who still are stoking the smouldering embers of interest in our favorite demonic motorcyclist, despite the
best efforts of Nicolas Cage, that I’m reasonably certain I might be able to sell this in-store for, oh, a couple of bucks, maybe.
The set might have benefited from the buttons featuring more icon-y poses like this:
…as opposed to using three of the buttons to show Ghost Rider just fightin’ dudes:
…as that level of detail may not be “read” easily or appreciated properly when the button is used as intended (on a Levi’s jacket, backpack, or, perhaps, a baseball cap), where generally only a fleeting glimpse of said image is likely. Or rather, as buttons
usually are used as intended, rather than as the “collector’s” item this, and other similar comic book button sets released by Marvel and DC in the ’90s, were supposed to be used…bought and packed away into your long boxes, where they sat and waited for that far-off day, a decade or so into the 21st century, when you would pull them out and take them over to the local funnybook store where the guy behind the counter may take pity and give you a buck for them because he might want to talk about them on his website.
REMINDER: today is the day that Swamp Thing and Animal Man finally meet (after that sorta fake-out in the Animal Man annual), kicking off that “Rotworld” crossover hoohar in their twelfth issues. …They meet, they fight until they realize they’re on the same side, and then they team up and fly off into space to fight Galactus. It’s totally awesome. (You can see the diptych image from both covers on this page.)
Also out this week is Spawn #222, which will not only kick off a whole new round of people saying “oh, Spawn, that’s still coming out?” but also gives us another Spidey-tweaking cover to join last month’s:
Specifically,
Amazing Fantasy #15 and
Amazing Spider-Man #316, respectively. …I don’t know, I kinda think these are funny, especially with that “SPAWN IS AMAZING” cover coming out the same week as
The Amazing Spider-Man movie.
In other news:
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