Countdown to Halloween Day 22: Darling Pumpkinheads, Devil's Brew, Deathnote and Darth Vader Too

Hey! Welcome back! I'm finding the Halloween Goodwill finds to be getting a little sparse at this point, so hopefully I'll have more to write about in another couple of posts... otherwise I'm going to be getting very creative! But luckily, I have this armful of stuff right here still left to write about! 

Gaze at the riot of wonder and color that is this post's loot pile! Let's dig in.

I love pumpkin-headed ghosts. And when they're as cute as this guy is? There was no way this thing wasn't coming home. You don't see enough of these guys these days. There's something very victorian-greeting-card about the design of a jack o' lantern with a trailing ghost-sheet-body beneath. 

I almost didn't pick this pumpkin-headed flashlight thing but I just love that vintage, blow-mold looking face. It's so lumpy! I had a reeeeally hard time getting a non-shiny picture of this thing too. I'm trying to decide if I'm going to keep the head on the black handle or if I will remove it and stick it on top of another jack o' lantern to make them look like piled up pumpkins. We will see.

Found these two in a baggy for a dollar. I probably overpaid but I wanted the Frankenstein's Monster more than anything. There are no markings to tell me when these were made, (there is a 50 cent price tag from Brooks drug on the side of each tube) but the UPC stickers on the tubes don't look old at all so I have a feeling these are fairly recent... but it doesn't matter. They have that cheap, fun feel to them that Halloween should have.

They make great finger puppets too! I love Frankie's sideways little grin here.

This bad boy also has no markings whatsoever. He looks like he's meant to evoke a little bit of Casper the Friendly Ghost but the resemblance is does not seem to be official. There does seem to be a piece missing off the top of the ghost's tail, but I can't seem to find this thing online so I can't begin to tell you what could have been there.

I have no idea if this thing will be worth reading or not, but finding a "Mars Attacks!" novel titled "Martian Deathtrap" was pretty exciting. I don't think I've ever read anything by Nathan Archer before, so I'm going in pretty blind. May toss this in next year's Halloween Read Pile... or I may just pass on it entirely and send it along to someone else.

I'm not a Manga person, like AT ALL. But I when I saw the first two volumes of DeathNote for a couple of bucks apiece, I thought I'd give it a shot. And what better time of year to find a manga about a guy using a magic notebook to kill people, and having to deal with death spirits? I have no idea if this is the gateway book that will lead to my addiction with manga, or if it will just enforce all of the reasons why I've never really gotten into them.

There was also this fun looking activity book "The Halloween Grab Bag" which is your typical "Book of Tricks and Treats" with recipes, crafts, costume ideas, games to try, puzzles to solve, etc. Here's an example of why I picked this one up though:

Look at this s**t! Don't you want to try atomic fireball flavored apple juice with ginger ale mixed in? I know I do! Heck, swap out the apple juice for hard apple cider and you got me going! Devil's Brew indeed!

There was also this little four pack of sort-of-papercraft masks you fold and assemble to wear. I'm giving these to my kids, but I'm not sure when exactly.

I really wanted to get a close up look at the example on the bag to show you how not cool these things are probably going to be. But I bet my boys will love them either way. 

Finally I found a nice Halloween themed anthology. It says "Tales of suspense" but I'm not sure exactly what that means. I doubt many of these will be supernatural in nature... but a guy can hope. It includes Peter Straub's "Pork Pie Hat" which really is an incredible Halloween story, but still not one that has any real ghosts or ghouls in it. So I'm guessing crime stories. This one is definitely on next year's Halloween Read Pile for sure, but I'm goig to keep my expectations managed properly.

Well that's it for tonight kids! I'll be back with more Gremlinish Goodwill Goodies soon enough! Until then, Happy Haunting!

Remember, I'm doing this countdown 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.

Countdown to Halloween Day 10: Boo! Treat Pail, Slime, Baby Devil, Tiki Heads, and More!

Welcome back kids! Today we're going to take a look at a few Goodwill finds I recently made in the Halloween sections of the Bangor, ME store in their Halloween section! 

There's actually two group shots here to show everything off. It just all looked really crowded in one giant shot so I tried to break it up a little. 

As you can see there was quite a lot of fun stuff I discovered, so let's check it all out! 

This first one I hemmed and hawed over whether to include it with the Halloween stuff or not. In the end I decided to go for it. We'll pretend he's your brother-in-law, Gary, dressed up for a Halloween Party. In reality this is "Gustaf" from the Marx Toys line of viking figurines. There's not year stamped on the base, so I have no idea when this was produced. I really like the old-style feel of these Marx figures though.

This is more like it! This adorable baby devil dances when you place it in direct sunlight. I could honestly do without the base completely though. Or it would have been nicer in black. The devil is just the freaking cutest! I have a little devil collection going and this fits in quite nicely.

This ghostly fellow is a Mars Trick or Treat Pail! He used to have a Snickers sticker to make it look like he was holding a Snickers bar. The fact that it wa missing was almost a deal breaker for me. I felt bad leavng him behind though... and so I got an idea:

So I patched him up! It doesn't fit perfectly, but for my purposes he's just fine. My wife has the goblin holding the Three Musketeers Bar, so now all I have to do is track down the Pumpkin pail holding a Milky Way Bar and I'll have all three!

This was a nice surprise! In with the DVDs I found a copy of "Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit" which I will be watching with my boys this season!

Anything "Eerie Indiana" related gets an automatic pass into my shopping basket at Goodwill. So "Bureau of Lost" was a no-brainer. And "The Slime That Ate Crestview" has a couple of things going for it. First, it's about a blob-monster (a mold/slug/hybrid to be clear) and those are some of my favorite kinds of monsters. Secondly, it was written by Jahnna N. Malcom (which is actually a married couple, not an individual) who wrote the excellent "Scared Stiff" which I bought and read last year as a part of last year's Halloween Read Pile. This Slime book went onto this year's pile and was devoured in less than a day. While it wasn't quite the same caliber of creepy as "Scared Stiff" it was still a very fun read.

"Alfred Hitchcock's Daring Detectives" wasn't quite Halloween-y enough to make it into the read pile this year, but it's Halloween-y enough to share with you here! I have made it a new hobby of mine to collect anthologies presented by Alfred Hitchcock. Since last year I've accumulated a total of about 10-12 or so books. I have yet to be disappointed reading one of these volumes, and I actually have 4 different books on the Halloween read pile from the Alfred Hitchcock library.

I thought this book, "Death Watch" from The Undertaken Trilogy looked interesting. It has all to do with death, the afterlife, and the chosen few that protect the border between the two? Maybe? Or maybe not that at all. Anyway, it sounded interesting. And I can't resist a movie novelization even if it is for "Van Helsing" which I've never watched all the way through.

THESE GUYS! These looked fun, and though my original plan was to only pick up the green and white ones, the whole set begged me to bring it home, so I did. Only the black one on the far right was actually in the Halloween merchandise. The others were actually scattered all over the store, one in the toy department, and the other two on end caps near the front registers. These are some sort of custom jobs as they have artist stickers on the bottoms, identifying who did the paint jobs: The first one in brown was done by Craig Judd, the green and white were done by Larry Salazar, and the black one had no identifying sticker, but looking them up online it looks like another Salazar too. These things are called Hot Rod Underground Tikis and they come in about 4 different sculpts, and several different paint designs from different artists. While these are more items I don't 100% consider to be Halloween, I felt like they fit well enough.

A Darth Vader trick or treat pail came home as well. I don't really have a ton to say about this one, honestly. There it is.

Finally, it is a rare day when I manage to find a John Bellairs book that I don't already own. So "The Dark Secret of Weatherend" was a pleasant surprise indeed! "Horror Show: Terror in the Mirror and Other Stories" just might make it into this year's Halloween read pile... but it also might not. We'll see. It's pretty BOOKED up already! Ha! See what I did there?

Well that's it for tonight kids! I'll be back soon with more Grizzly Goodwill Goodies! Until then, Happy Haunting!

(UPDATE!!! Dex of AEIOU and Sometimes Why has posted an interview with me as a part of his Halloween Web series! Please be sure to go give that a look, as well as all of the other interviewees has already featured, and will continue to feature throughout the month!)

I'm doing this countdown 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.

Creepmas Day 12: A Few Leftovers

So this year I'm celebrating Creepmas! 

From the 13 Days of Creepmas website: 

"A reaction to the continuing incursion of Christmas into Autumn and Halloween, CREEPMAS is a good-natured chance for Halloween lovers to exact revenge by bringing some spooky good cheer into the holidays or, more appropriately, the Hallowdays..." Read more about the inspirations behind this 13 day celebration HERE. 

So for today's post I'm pretty much just going to throw in everything I either forgot to include in earlier posts or I didn't really have room for in earlier posts. 

First up is this Hotwheels "Street Creeper" which they put out as as a part of their 2013 Holiday Hotwheels selection. I don't usually pick these up (though I've bought myself 2 of the 2014 selection so far...) but last year I just HAD to pick this one up because it so perfectly embodies the spirit of Creepmas! It's a horror themed Hotwheels dragster done up in Christmas colors! What's not to love?

Next up, Darth Vader might not be considered a "horror" villain... but a super-powered murderer he most certainly IS. So dressing him up as Santa Claus most definitely fits the bill as something Creepmas-y. I would NOT want to see this guy sliding down the chimney in the middle of the night. This is a Funko bobblehead from 2009 that my wife picked up for me.

Of all the winter and Christmas-themed GPK out there (about 10 as evidenced by these Topps Licensed GPK Holiday Greeting Cards) this is the only one I own. I do have one of the "Where are they now?" cards for Sandy Clod... but I'm not a big fan of those cards, and so I chose not to include it here. Instead you have Snotty Dotty/Frozen Flo #386 originally from the old 1987 run... here presented as a 3D card that was included in the 2011 Flashback series 2 set. For some reason m camera REFUSED to get a clear picture of this card, which may be due to its lenticular/3D nature. Who knows. 

My Darryl Dixon (of AMC's Walking Dead fame) ornament had not been added to the tree when I did my Christmas Zombies post a few days back. So I include him now. He's really just one of those Funko Pop! mini keychains that just came out this year, with a Santa's hat added for some festivity. But it works (don't mind the Dunkin Donuts Munchkins ornament, I don't believe it in any way takes away from the full manliness of Darryl, having it there).

This is my recently purchased (this past summer) shambling mound figure from the old Dungeons and Dragons line produced in 1982. He is wearing a Santa's hat and dragging a bloody sack behind him. I only have a vague idea of why I put this together. What I WANTED to do was find a Krampus toy. But apparently you can buy action figures of Will Shakespeare, a Cat Lady, or even Joss Whedon... but not Krampus. So instead of Krampus I decided to make my own Christmas Monster. If I'd really thought about it, I would have decked him out like a Christmas tree... but hindsight is unfortunately 20/20 in this case and nothing more. Suffice it to say however that this guy is definitely out looking for naughty nerds this season... so you better be good for goodness sake!

There was one more book I had planned to write about, Dean Marney's The Christmas Tree That Ate My Mother. But I couldn't really drum up a whole post about killer Christmas trees. Apparently this is the first book in a series of books detailing various holiday items that try to eat people. Skimming through the text this looks like a fun, quick read. I may try it out. 

Also new this year is this sugar-skull blown-glass ornament that we picked up at Target for my daughter. This thing is glittered-out to the max. It simply brings the right feeling of the macabre to the tree that we just love.

Today I'll leave you with a link to iHorror.com's 8 Holiday Horror Films You Need to Watch This Month (from 2013) aaaand just for the heck of it... a link to the search for "Creepmas" on Pinterest.

Happy 13 days of Creepmas! I'll be back tomorrow with the final entry in the countdown, which may or may not involve a Goodwill Goody! Until then, Happy Hunting!

Goodwill Mailbag: CRPechonick Strikes!!!

So last time I got on here, it was to thank Miss M for the incredible gift package she sent me... and this blog post is going to be along a similar vein. I recently received a package from CRPechonick (Charles Raymond Pechonick) of Geek Show Ink fame, and boy... was it a doozy! Back when I received a package from the Trash Man over at Pop Pop! It's Trash Culture, I commented on the fact that I needed to track down the last 3 rings in the set of 9 DCU chromatic Lanterns' rings so I could have a complete set. This prompted Mr. Pechonick to volunteer to help track them down for me.

Well that snowballed a bit from this:

Into this:

I forgot to get the rings in this picture with everything else.

Charles Pechonick obviously pays attention because he knows almost all my weaknesses. Let's take a look at all the great stuff he sent me, shall we? 

First up, there was a slew of random mini-figure goodness included. From left to right here we have representation from almost everything I like: A Shock figurine from the Nightmare Before Christmas, a Daredevil micro figure, a Brain Christmas figurine from Pinky and the Brain of Animaniancs fame, good ol' Donald Duck himself, Kim Possible (looking kick-ass), a Clone Trooper micro figure, and a Farmer Grover. Could not possibly be happier with this lot if I TRIED.

This stand-off between Funko Mini Merle Dixon and Funko Mini Tank Walker and Funko Mini Bicycle Girl was brought to me by CRPechonick!!! I don't think anything has ever made me happier than that cute little half-bodied zombie dragging it's cute little desiccated entrails across the top of my desk. Adorable!

Also included were these Peanuts books. I am looking forward to checking these out... as I do not traditionally read a whole lot of Peanuts stuff. These look old and awesome. 

Also included in the package were these two Vampire novels by David Wellington. Of the Monster Island fame (which I featured here on the blog as a part of my Halloween countdown) which I still haven't read yet. I can't wait to take a bite out of these!!! 

Heh.

It got a little bit harder to categorize stuff as I went along, so I sort of lumped some of this stuff together to photograph it. Please pretend that the Dr. Who novel has something to do with the Batman merchandise. Here's a novel starring the Tom Baker Dr. Who, a set of The Batman "shoe charms" and a set of four Batman button/pins. These will be opened and applied to the ceiling of my car. I'm sorry if that devaluates them or something... but it's what I do with buttons. The charms will go in my nipples. 

I'm just kidding! I don't have nipples. 

Who does have nipples? The Hulk. As in the Incredible Hulk. Included in the package was this five-part mini-series "Ghosts of the Future" which I have never read before. This was just before the whole Onslaught debacle took place, so you can sort of see that Thor is wearing possibly one of the worst costumes they EVER gave him. But I'm curious to see what this mini is all about, even despite that. 

A couple of neon Darth heads (I believe these may be some sort of Easter egg variant-things? Maybe? Doesn't matter. I love them. Day-glo Vader? Yes please) and a wind-up TOMY robot for m'collection of robots. I love this little guy. Easily one of my favorite items in the whole box. 

And let's not forget what got this whole ball rolling, okay? Here is my complete DCU Lanterns collection, with my set of rings included. They go in order by ROYGBIV as they should. AS ALL THINGS SHOULD. I have no idea why this collection obsesses me so... I don't even really follow the Green Lantern comics. I do love the idea of color-based powers, and an emotional spectrum that reflects that... I know the system they developed for the comics is sort of flawed... but it's a pretty great idea. And it made the whole idea of a "Green" themed superhero seem a little less arbitrary... ANYWAY. 

THANK YOU CRPechonick!!! I cannot thank you enough for this incredible pile of loot. You can definitely expect to see a package of thanks wending its way back atcha sometime in the future. You were incredibly generous with this bounty, and it humbles me to think that someone could just decide to give away a box full of goodies on a whim "just because". You're pretty awesome in my book. All you reading this be sure to head over to Geek Show Ink and check out the blog, and look at some of CRPechonick's impressive artwork over at his deviantart gallery as well! 

That's it for me today folks! I'll be back with some Geeky Goodwill Goodies before you know it! Until then, Happy Hunting!

Goodwill Geek Mailbag: A Little Something from the Dorkette!

In the last year or so of blogging I have made some truly great friends. Some folks I really follow religiously blog-wise, and who I love talking with. When those elements come together and the person in question is another pop-culture/look-what-I-found kind of blogger, like myself... I tend to feel the need to send goodies. So having gotten to know Miss M over at the Diary of a Dorkette blog over the course of my time as a blogger, I felt she definitely fit the bill. So I sent her a package of stuff that I wanted to give a better home than I could.

Well Miss M seemed to appreciate the gesture, and sure enough, a package found its way to my home that had HER name on the return address. She put a lot of thought into the items she sent my way, and it really shows:

Here is the total pile of goodies I received! First off, before I go ahead and dissect the contents... I want to THANK MISS M!!! She is really an awesome person, and awesome blogger, and she's been facing some challenges in her life as of late. Challenges that would probably have kept the average person from sending out packages to her online friends... but Miss M don't roll like that. 

First off, she sent me this quartet of X-Goodness. We have a couple of different Gambit figures, an archangel, and JUGGERNAUT!!! These kick so much butt! (There's more Marvel goodness to come, but I'm saving it)

Also included was this sandcastle made of real sand. I remember these from when I was a kid, and believe it or not I have ALWAYS wanted one!!! This one is just the right size for my cave collection as well. It was promised by Miss M herself that this item would bring me "a lot of magic". So it shall be displayed with pride. Also:

I couldn't NOT post that video along with that gift. 

Next up is a little pile of odds n' ends, including a Miss Piggy PEZ dispenser, a Tazmanian Devil PVC, and a Big John thumb wrestler!!! All extremely cool! 

Next up: Literally some of my favorite items from the package. Sesame Street and Muppet Babies stuff!!! Those Bert and Ernie finger-puppet-things are just awesome. And I have another vintage die-cast vehicle for my Sesame Street collection! Gonzo was really excited to see my Muppet Baby Kermit toy too! And I meant to get a pic of the little plastic firehouse opened up, but forgot. But it's pretty neat. 

These two items may very well be two of my absolute favorite items, period. A Toybiz Nightcrawler just like the one I had as a kid, and a 1996 Invisible Woman Happy Meal toy! She color-changes in cold apparently. (I was too lazy to investigate and take pics, sorry)

Finally there was this HUGE Darth Vader Rose-Art activity case. It definitely brought back memories of those old-school action figure cases they used to make for Star Wars figures when I was a kid. It is pure awesome and will look fantastic in my Darth Vader collection! Look at this thing!

I want to take one last moment to genuinely thank Miss M over at the Diary of a Dorkette blog. She's a really gracious, kind, and supportive blogger, and someone I am proud to consider a friend. I can't thank her enough for the cool loot, and I hope things are going well and looking up for her, always! 

That's it for today folks! I'll be back soon enough with some genuinely Geeky Goodwill Goodies! Until then, Happy Hunting!