Countdown to Halloween Day 2: Body Wars, Spider Wars, Mars Attacks, and More!

So this post is going to sort of serve as a dumping place for a BUNCH of Halloween stuff I've found in previous weeks but wanted to share in October. This was, for the most part, not all bought at the same time, although much of this is probably all from no more than about three different trips to Goodwill total. There's a good mix of toys, spooky books, games, and other junk, so it'll probably be a nice assortment with a little bit of something for everyone. Let's check it out!

I found this "Mars Attacks!" claw-machine refugee for a dollar about a month or so back. He looks great with my stuffed Walking Dead "Well Zombie" sitting around gnashing their teeth at one another.

These guys were a couple of awesome finds in a grab-bag with some other toys (there's Batman, a Gorilla, and a horse I think? Just out of frame here... but these two guys were the Halloween-iest) the fella on the left is a Kaiju by the name of Gigan. I have had a lot of really great luck either finding or being given a bunch of these Trendmaster figures featuring Godzilla monsters. These are exactly the scale I want these in, and since watching even a single Godzilla/Kaiju film is still an item on my bucket list, this level of commitment it perfect for me. I am in LOVE with the character designs, and have a bit of a crush on Mothra if I'm being honest.

Next to Gigan we have Shan Yu, the villain from Disney's Mulan. I'm not really a Mulan fan per se, but I am a fan of this huge, gray, imposing, zombie-looking warlord with a giant buzzard on his shoulder. Shan Yu's eyes in the movie are actually a thousand times more disturbing than they are right here on this toy... but I think if they had accurately reflected the depths of soulessness in Chan Yu's creepy peepers, kids would have been crying into their Happy Meals and defecating uncontrollably (and not just from the McDonald's food). He is currently menacing my Scooby Doo action figures, because honestly he looks like someone from a Scooby Doo episode, right?

"Creatures" is a collection of poetry compiled by Lee Bennett Hopkins and illustrated by Stella Ormai. I have vague memories of this book from when I was a kid, which was why I picked it up, honestly. But it was disappointing. I was expecting more monsters and less gnomes, fairies, and sprites. This book desperately wanted to appear to be a Halloween book (I mean look at that cover!) but unfortunately there are only about 4 or 5 poems in the whole book that fit the bill.

Some Scooby Doo Chapter books! The first one is the novelization of the second movie, which I felt was wholly superior to the first live action movie, although neither of them was truly what I considered to be "good" Scooby Doo. The monsters in Scooby Doo 2 were the really fun part. I've been compiling a collection of chapter books to share with my boys and, as is the case with "The Case of the Glowing Alien," Scooby Doo pretty much always comes home from Goodwill as my kiddos genuinely adore ol' Scoobs.

I brought these two books home together. I plan on giving Bruce Coville's "Book of Monsters" a bit more attention in this very countdown, so let's ignore it today. Instead, I want to talk about "The Haunting of Derek Stone: The Red House" by Tony Abbott. I found a book that collected the first two Derek Stone books together in one volume sometime last year and FELL IN LOVE WITH THEM. This is a great example of me picking up some random book by some random author at Goodwill and discovering a new series of books that I just fall in love with. Derek is facing the threat of an undead ghost army overtaking the land of the living, and even though this is a YA series, it makes your flesh CRAWL. I'm shocked at some of the stuff Abbott gets away with in these books! Great read, highly recommended.

This isn't a horror collection. It's a collection of sci-fi stories about... sci-fi story writers I guess? But the cover is absolutely horrifying. So I'm including it here. Behold and be afraid.

Here's a fun one! Spider Wars by Milton Bradley circa 1988. This is a nice looking game with fun pieces and a really fun looking web-style playing surface/thing. Check out those spiders on the cover, and the awesome spider-figures in the game! This thing screams Halloween in black and neon orange and green. This one came complete with the whole shebang, except for one vital thing:

I really desperately need to get my hands on a copy of the directions! There are some very basic mechanics of the game that don't make sense when we're trying to play. I have in fact play tested this with my 6 year old son and we did have fun, but I feel like there are some rules we are not observing that we probably should have to make this game a little less one-sided?

Twisted Sister, and Dee Snyder specifically, gnawing on his raw meat, scared the CRAP out of me as a kid. This cassette has "We're Not Gonna Take It" and "I Wanna Rock" included, which are great songs.

This is a collection of vampire lore compiled by Daniel Cohen called "Real Vampires," which I have to contest the title of a bit... but check out that cover art!!! Anyone know who this is? I can't find reference to the cover art in the book anywhere. Anyone recognize this work? I want to see more!

No Halloween season would be complete without a couple of cheap Ghost Story collections! We can see Mr. Daniel Cohen hard at work again with "The World's Most Famous Ghosts" and a Watermill Classic collection: "Midnight Fright: A Collection of Ghost Stories" I probably won't be reading either of these before next Halloween, but I've added them to the potential Halloween Read Pile materials.

This was a fun find! From "Those Characters From Cleveland" (The creators of Madballs, My Pet Monster, Popples, Strawberry Shortcake, and many more) an on-again-off-again subsidiary of American Greetings, comes Body Wars!

These were Mighty-Max/Polly Pocket style fold-out mini-playsets, featuring germs and anti-bodies fighting each other for control of various internal organs that folded out into battle stations! Unfortunately this stomach I found didn't come with any of its characters or accessories, but I still found it be be gross and endearing. Had Body Wars come along when I was a bit younger (These came out in '94 when I was about 16 and in highschool so no dice...) I would have been OBSESSED with them. This is exactly the kind of thing I loved as a kid.

I never say no to horror movie novelizations. It kind of irks me looking at this picture that I have the books out of order. Ugh. Who does that? Me I guess. But anyway. I love the original Jaws film, and because my friend Miss M loves the whole franchise with a level of passion bordering on public indecency, I have learned to appreciate the other films as well. This will not be the last time you see a Jaws novelization during this countdown. We're going to need a bigger blog.

And that folks, is where I leave you on this, m second post of the countdown to Halloween! I'm doing this as a part of the official Countdown to Halloween, so be sure to pop over there and look and see who else is participating this year. As always, I will be back with some more Garroting Goodwill Goodies sooner than you'd like... so until then Happy Haunting!!! 

Books and a Grab-Bag (More Than) Two Bits!

Hey there guys and gals! Today I'm just doing a little one. Focusing on one grab-bag and some books I picked up a while ago. 

Here's the obligatory "pile pic" so let's get digging in shall we?

A couple of lovely Halloween-themed Little Golden Books... which you can never have too many of! Here we have Scooby-Doo! The Haunted Carnival and Walt Disney's Mickey and Friends Haunted Halloween! Yes, Scrappy makes an appearance in the Scooby-Doo book... But I've decided finally that I do NOT hate Scrappy-Doo the way most of the population seems to. I never had a real problem with Scrappy. I think it's funny how much of a punchline he's become these days, sure... but I don't think he deserves all of the ire he seems to inspire. I have no real strong feelings about Mickey and Friends to share with you at this time. Sorry.

This is quite possibly the most exciting itme I picked up at Goodwill on this particular trip. A "Hawaii Five-O" novel Top Secret! No idea if I will EVER read this book, but look at how GORGEOUS IT IS. Hawaiian Crime is better than ANY other crime. Because it's prettier.

Here are the contents of the grab-bag. Pretty junky as you can see, but I picked it up for .99 cents specifically for one item and one item alone. (Not the Spongebob, I already had that one...) There's a bunch of this junk you're not even going to get a closer look at... and I apologize in advance if that's really what you find disappointing about this post.

Nope, not this army of plastic bugs... though they are pretty sweet.

Nope. Not this AWESOME bubble watch with a dinosaur floating around in what is undoubtedly "dino-brine" as we watch a chuckling crowd of dinosaurs in the background certainly awaiting their extinction level event to erupt. (My fingers. They are wrinkly.)

Not... this stuff... either. (Although Star Wars slinky? I ain't complainin'!)

It was this cold-hearted bastard that I was after!!! Mr. Freeze from the LEGO Batman Happy Meal toy line! Doesn't he look just exquisite? I LOVE him! Totally worth the .99 cents just on his own, nevermind the other tchotchkes in the bag! Not bad for a little quicky post huh!?

That's really it kids! All I've got for now anyway! I'l be back soon enough with more Geeky Goodwill Goodies though! So until then, Happy Hunting!

A Package From Miss M!

So since I am still playing catch up with my back-log from last year's posts. I thought this might be the perfect opportunity to write about this terribly over-due post about a a package sent to me by none other than Miss M of "Diary of a Dorkette" fame, and my awesome co-host over at Geek Fallout! 

This was a semi-sort-of-Halloween themed package that unfortunately arrived the day after Halloween. So it didn't make it into that countdown, and it got buried under my November break, and the December countdowns for Creepmas and Christmas. But there was a hand-made card by Miss M, which I adore!

Also included were some Halloween-y accessories and decor. This awesome Trick-or-Treat sack, and ghostly bandana for example! 

I handed this item off to my daughter who hung it up in her bedroom. Dig that black cat!

Some random books and other fun items included: A Wizard of Oz LGB, a Jetsons Activity PAd, and a dart and target for Boom Co.

This Mario Bros. Wii U Happy Meal set I let my boys play with, as they are both Wii U obsessed, and love them some Mario Brothers. You fire the colored koopa troopa shells out of the Wii U Remote and into the target!

Blind-bgged mini-figures! I got Scooby Doo's Frankenstein's Monster and Cylindria from Pac-Man's ghostly adventures! I think my favorite guy is the blue ghost!

Slinky dog! This is a Burger King Kids' Club meal toy put out in 1996. I honestly can't believe that Toy Story was put out in 1995... making it a 20 year old film now. 20 YEARS.

Also included were these Mortal Kombat action figures! Rayden, Sub-Zero, Smoke, Johnny Cage, Sonya Blade, and Liu Kang! All my favorites!

Then we have the Street Fighter action figures Ken, Chun-Li, M Bison, Guile, and Sagat (With a Cobra Alley Viper from 1992 on the far right).

From the old Toy Biz X-Men line, we have GIDEON!!!! armored Wolverine, and Sauron (I found a Sauron at Goodwill already, but his limbs don't move because he was a part of some display piece thing that he was glued into once upon a time. It's nice to now have a poseable one). I think I was the most excited to have Gideon since he was one of my favorite villains back in the 90's.

One of the coolest items to appear in this package from Miss M was the Toybiz Magneto vehicle, "The Magnetron". Simultaneously goofy and cool in equal measures I want you to now stop for a moment and let it sink in that Toybiz made a CAR for MAGNETO. Not only that... but a CAR with GIANT U-SHAPED MAGNETS ON IT. This thing is a work of art. A true masterpiece. 

But the items that literally stole my breath away? These fellas. From the Kenner-produced 80's toy line "Superpowers" featuring the heroes and villains of the DCU... Aquaman, Lex Luthor, and (Hal Jordan) Green Lantern!!! I never owned any of these as a kid... but honestly if I could have picked out ANY three characters to track down and own now, it would probably be these three (Although Firestorm and Brainiac would round out my top 5). I always LOVED Lex Luthor in his watermelon color-schemed battle suits. Aquaman? Yes. Just yes. And I want to see Funko put together an entire set of Chromatic Lanterns in their ReAction line. Because I and obsessed with the ROYGBIV Lanterns. So any version of Hal is welcome on my shelves.

That's it for tonight kids! My thanks to the always generous and gracious Miss M for her donations to the Geek Cave! Be sure to check out her blog Diary of a Dorkette, and to listen to her on the Geek Fallout Podast! I'll be back soon with some Geeky Goodwill Goodies... so until then, Happy Hunting!

Halloween Countdown Day 21: A Trip to the Bangor Goodwill

Halloween is sliding into single-digits-away territory, and I still have some posts to show you about recent Halloween finds. Today I want to show off some stuff I brought home from the Bangor store a few weeks back. 

First up there was this lot. Goodwill has been LOUSY with hanging metal jack-o'-lanterns lately, and I wanted to pick up a handful to hang from the porch roof. Here you can see a couple of them flanking a tiny Halloween tree complete with ornaments that I also picked up.

I featured the cover of this copy of H.G. Wells's The Island of Dr. Moreau in my recent spooky pulp-covers post. But I also picked it up because I genuinely want to read the story at some point. The odds of the next book, Bites being read is going to go up extremely high extremely soon because it is the next book in my Halloween read-pile. As I may have mentioned before, September and October are my Halloween-read-pile months, and I am trying to squeeze as many anthologies into the mix as I can. I've had great luck so far (mostly) and I hope to get at least this one more book read before Halloween gets here!

A couple of fun Halloween-y gaming books here in the form of Scooby-Doo Mad Libs (I love that there are "Ridiculously simple directions inside"), and a book of Spooky Mazes!

I don't usually go nuts over Halloween craft books for the most part, because so many of them often turn out to just be patterns upon patterns for sewing your own bat wings or Princess dresses. But this one has a nice blend of crafts that look genuinely cool for Halloween.

A Halloween Mask For Monster was a cute little Halloween book that got my boys laughing ridiculously hard when they saw the following pictures:

I personally side with the monsters in the book and find these masks utterly skin-crawling. In the end Monster finds ALL the masks too scary and just goes as himself. But he's living in a world full of monsters he's just that kid with no costume... and according to the Swinging Neckbreakers: No Costume? No Candy. I would turn that kid away empty handed.

One of the best treasures I picked up was this set of Thrills & Chills Magazine from Scholastic back in 1994. I plan on dedicating an entire post to these things... so keep an eye peeled!

Clive Barker's The Thief of Always is not a specifically "Halloween" book in and of itself, but there are Halloween elements to it (as well as several other Holidays) and tells an eerily similar tale to Neil Gaiman's Coraline which is also an amazing book (I am quietly compiling next year's Halloween read-pile, which I believe will contain both of these).

Barker both wrote and illustrated his story of children who are tempted away to the "Holiday House" where they wake to Christmas presents, go on Easter Egg Hunts, eat Thanksgiving Dinner and then go Trick-or-Treating every single day they stay there. But there is a sinister motive behind this children's paradise... as there always must be.

Next, to the distinctly NON-Halloween items I found during this trip, I picked up yet more old cassette tapes for my burgeoning collection. Both Whitney Houston's self-titled album and Lionel Ritchie's "Dancing on the Ceiling" are old favorites of mine, though I would never have admitted that back in highschool.

I found a couple more of Prince's albums on tape as well, which I will never NOT buy. "Around the World in a Day" and "The Love Symbol Album" are now permanent members of my collection.

And what an odd couple we have here! The best of Sam Cooke is pretty much an ingrained part of my high school soundtrack. Almost every single song on this album is a good one. And I was OBSESSED with Counting Crows, and mainly the "August and Everything After" album though I continued listening to them up to when "Hard Candy," their fourth album came out, which I also liked. I still occasionally listen to Counting Crows although I feel like I should be listing it as a guilty pleasure? But I don't care. Fake dreads or not, I like the music.

I found this foursome of Choose Your Own Adventure books, Dinosaur Island, Master of Martial Arts, Earthquake!, and Superbike. All great additions to the collection, and with a story about a Super bicycle waiting for me to read/play it... how can I go wrong?

A couple of novelizations in Virtuosity and Close Encounters of the Third Kind (which I already owned but this is an older copy with photos inside the cover... so it has replaced my original copy). Virtuosity is the first movie I ever remember seeing Russell Crowe in. I remember vaguely liking it? Now I kind of want to track the movie down again and see how ridiculous it is by today's standards.

A Ducktales book! The Great Lost Treasure Hunt makes it sound like the Treasure HUNT is lost, not the treasure... Right? Right?

And this Big Book of Muppet Stories is from the very early 90's but includes all kinds of goodies, including a Muppet Babies story or two!

Finally, a foursome of Little Golden Books round out the haul, with appearances by Peter Pan and Wendy, Donald Duck in Disneyland, The Happy Golden Alphabet, and Hansel and Gretel.

That's it for tonight kids! I'll be back with more Gothic Goodwill Goodies soon enough though! Until then, Happy Haunting!