Sweet hat, coat and beard not included.
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And now, a special message from Disturbingly Off-Model Superman, Robin, and Batman.
from ad in Stanley and His Monster #112 (Oct-Nov 1968)
They’re all dead now.
CLICK TO GALAPAGOS TORTOISE-SIZE
…Or maybe some of them are still patiently waiting, no longer baby turtles, in some out-of-the-way warehouse somewhere in New York, where a few times a week a guy in his 80s pops in, refreshes the water and the Turtle Chow in the tank, and checks the mailbox looking for any newly mailed-in coupons, hoping that someday — someday soon — his burden will be lifted.
ad from the back cover of Love Problems #22 (July 1953)
Surely you can see the connections among all these events.
Detail of “truth about UFOs”-type ad from Super Star Heroes #1 (December 1978):
“A UFO is sighted over Centreville, VA in December 2002…exactly one year later, Mike Sterling starts his comics blog. Coincidence?”
BONUS: to fight the coming (or, rather, ongoing) UFO invasion, we’re gonna need a well-armed populace. So scrape together your eleven 1978-dollars and send in for this:
I suspect what kids were expecting (“HA! Take that, car!” [shoots gun, car explodes]) was quite a bit different from what they ended up with (“Oh, look, I can shine a red dot on the wall for the cat to chase”).
Progressive Ruin presents…the End of Civilization, 1980 Edition.
ad detail from Fantastic Films #20 (December 1980)
Five hundred dollars? In 1980? That’s like a billionty dollars in 2011 money. …Oh, okay, it’s closer to about $1,300 or so, according to that currency conversion site I checked it on. But still, that’s a lot of scratch for someone to dole out for a sci-fi collectible at the time. Or maybe it wasn’t…I don’t know, I was only 11 at the time, I was too busy keeping tabs on my couple of bucks’ worth of comics-buying budget to worry about slapping down five bills for something that dear, and, let’s face it*, completely awesome.
By the way, this isn’t a sculpture…it’s a “custom limited edition mask” (it says elsewhere on the page) from Don Post Studios, which “comes complete with its own attractive display case” and “each [mask] is individually crafted as your order is received.”
It also says each set is “serialized and recorded,” so…I wonder if you could contact the studio today with a serial number to verify that the mask is authentic, or establish chain of ownership? I’m guessing so. I’m sure it’s all computerized, but I still amused myself by picturing a beat-up old notebook, with each purchaser’s name scribbled in it along with the serial number, with “PEOPLE WHO BOUGHT THE FACEHUGGER MASK” in felt tip pen on the cover, sitting on a shelf somewhere in the office.
And you know, the more I think about it…I’m betting as rare as this item likely is now, that $500 price tag was probably a bargain.
* Almost wrote “let’s face-hugger it.” So glad I resisted the temptation.
I would pay DC Comics one American dollar to revive this ad campaign.
house ad from Challengers of the Unknown #51 (Aug/Sept 1966)
Shown, but not mentioned: “Sweatin’??”
I will happily link to images of that Burt Reynolds centerfold for pretty much any reason.
So something caught my eye in that issue of Popeye #148 recently pulled an image or two from recently. On the inside front cover was an ad for (mostly) celebrity posters, each with a tiny thumbnail image, which also included this fine example of pseudo-Star Wars ephemera:
Sadly, I could find no good larger-sized image of the actual poster, as opposed to this tiny pic from the ad, but did find this year-old Tumblr post featuring a similarly-sized scan, as well as pics of the Adam Rich poster and the full ad in question.
I couldn’t track down any more info about this poster, which shouldn’t be too surprising, but even just this tiny image, blown up as it is, tantalizes with the ’70s cheesy Star Wars knockoff goodness it surely contains.
Alternately, this ad also featured this Bullwinkle poster, a parody of the famous (and possibly NSFW) Burt Reynolds Cosmopolitan centerfold:
This, I could find better images for, at an auction site, which gives a lot of two posters and an iron-on transfer of this image a $400 to $700 price range or starting bid or some darn thing. That listing also notes a possible legal action that removed the name “Burt Reynolds” from the original version of that image, which I can’t find verification for, but there’s no denying “Burt Reynolds” is no longer on that poster.
So anyway, there’s a little something that isn’t half-panicked DC Comics news. Please enjoy this little oasis of goofiness.
Yes, the “$3.50” is handwritten.
BEHOLD: the backer-board-sign-thingie that slipped into the top of the counter dump for Jack Kirby’s Battle for a Three Dimensional World:
Used to be that I’d see copies of this thing (the comic, not the counter dump sign) all the time. Now I can’t remember the last time I’ve had one pass through the store.
(updated 8/2017)
