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I’m reasonably certain we do sell comics.

§ August 10th, 2012 § Filed under pogs, teenage mutant ninja turtles § 16 Comments

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.

And then there was that time the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic strip became self-aware.

§ November 30th, 2010 § Filed under newspaper strips, teenage mutant ninja turtles § 2 Comments

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic strip, 8-12-1992, by Dan Berger & M. Kelleher,
as reprinted in Comics Revue #80


Not quite at Morrison’s Animal Man / “I can see you!” levels of “we’re all just characters in funnybooks” awareness, but still a somewhat amusing and unexpected (if certainly not intentionally critical) bit of self-commentary on the “final battle” cliché.