Goodwill Finds: The Joker, Giant Spider-Man, Electronic Dungeons and Dragons, Zombie Bert!

Spider-Man has something he wants to show you... 

There are some cassette tapes in this picture that I forgot to photograph. So you can't see those in this post.
You can KIND of see the titles in this shot. I'm too lazy to track them all down but the two coolest ones were probably the soundtracks for Raiders of the Lost Ark and the Coneheads Movie. Try to imagine them.

It's a pile of stuff I brought home from the Brewer, ME Goodwill store!!! YAY!!! As per usual, let's take a closer look at everything piled up here, shall we?

I'm probably jumping the gun here and showing off one of the best finds from this trip... but WHO CARES??? This thing was a SUPER exciting find. This is a Mattel Electronics Dungeons & Dragons Computer Labyrinth game.

Here is the gameboard. Testing it with a battery I discovered it no longer works. This does not phase me in the least. I love the look of this thing either way. This came out in 1980, and at the time I'm sure it was a technological marvel.

Forgive the fuzzy picture here, but I wanted to show off the interior compartment, complete with labyrinth walls, instruction booklet, dragon piece, treasure piece (next to the dragon) and two warrior pieces. From what I can gather, you explore the board, receiving signals from the game on which directions you can move, and then you plug in wall pieces as you go, to map the whole thing out.

I also found a copy of the Back to the Future novelization (this is a must-pick-up, no matter how many copies I may or may not own at this point) and Superman: Miracle Monday (which is a bizarre story of time travellers and demonic possession that has absolutely nothing to do with Superman II even though it is obviously merchandised for that purpose.

Terry Pratchett's "Thud!" is honestly a no-brainer. All Discworld novels are, honestly. Anthony's Xanth series, Aspirin's M.Y.T.H. books, and DeChancie's Castle Perilous series all desperately want to have the same sense of whimsy, magic, and heart as the Discworld books and while I genuinely enjoy all of those series, they will just never stack up. The Forgotten Realms book I picked up because it is an anthology of mystery tales set in Faerun. Couldn't pass it up.

I lumped these together... because... Holidays I guess? I'm adding Brian Jacques's "Seven Strange and Ghostly Tales" to my Halloween Read Pile. Not sure if I'll be reading "Secret Santa: Agent of X.M.A.S." to my kids this year or what. Time will tell. But they both look like fun.

I look forward to reading "Thank You for Smoking" because I like the movie so much. I hope they have a similar tone/feel to them. And "Which Way Books" are almost more exciting for m to find these days than genuine Choose Your Own Adventure Books. So "The Castle of No Return" was a nice score.

MUPPETS! These two books are some of the best Muppets books I've found in a long while! The color and the action in "Gonzo the Great" is awesome, and the illustrations in "Short Green and Handsome" (a sort of illustrated comic novella... thing) are some of my favorite renditions of the Muppets on paper.

A recent issue of MAD Magazine featuring Adventure Time on the cover came home with me, and yet another new book for the Halloween book shelf: "Tilly Witch". I don't have much more to say about them than MAD + Adventure Time = must have. Don Freeman was the author of the original Corduroy books, which were fun, so hopefully Tilly won't disappoint.

You may remember this 12 inch Spider-Man from his provocative pose above... here he is with my Toy Biz Wolverine for scale. I like this big guy! At first I almost didn't buy him. But he was a buck, and he's HUGE, and he's nicely articulated, so I decided I was stupid to leave him behind.

This bag of cake toppers contained these guys:

Aren't they magnificent? I love that Oscar is giving away a dirty sock as a gift and Cookie Monster is just eating his cookies like WGAF?

But my favorite one by far is this horrifying Bert figurine that makes me think that the zombie apocalypse has hit the Street quite hard.

I picked up this set of swappable build-your-own-dino parts for my kids. They were not as fun to play with as I would have liked them to be, honestly. If you look carefully, you can see a broken brown peg sticking out of the large blue piece (some sort of aquatic dinosaur's body) and the entire time I used these with my boys it felt like other pegs were going to let go. Too bad really.

This was a weird grab-bag. The Goodwill I frequent usually seems to at least clump some sort of like items together in a very general way in their grab bags... but this one wasn't even trying. BUT it was a buck and there was really just one item in there I was after, and I was willing to pay that buck for it.

The main item I bought the bag for was this guy right here. The Joker, not the bunny he won at the carnival.

This is of course the "Dark Knight" version of the Joker... sort of the Heath-Ledger-Lite version they produced for the kiddies. Honestly, I really like this figure's design. I like how it pays homage to the movie character in a simplified, cartoony kind of way. Here he is next to the Joker they released for the 1989 Batman film before they tired making him look more Nicholson-esque in later models. I still favor the one on the right because this was "my" Joker as a kid... but the new one makes a nice addition.

Another nice surprise in the bag was this fella here. This is the Ram Slammer from the 2007 Hot Wheels "Stunt Strikers" McDonald's Happy Meal line. Looking at it at first I assumed it would be some sort of vehicle belonging to the Spider-Man villain, the Rhino. But nope! I still like it quite a bit either way. It's some sort of pseudo-diecast vehicle, so it's got some heft to it for a Mickey-D's Hot Wheel toy.

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

A Package from the Trash Man!

You may have noticed by now that I have a habit of waiting waaay too long to thank people for stuff they've sent me. If you haven't noticed this, then you are about to notice. Maybe you're new here. 

So this post is going to be all about a package sent to me by my good friend Brian Farrell, otherwise known as the "Trash Man" curator of the Pop Pop! It's Trash Culture blog. He sends me stuff from time to time, and I return the favor from time to time. Let's dig in and see what he sent to me this time, shall we? 

First up, Brian and I try to help each other out as much as we can. Since he knows I don't frequent comic shops (there are none easily accessible in my area), and this Nebula MiniMate was a comic shop exclusive, I asked Brian if he would snag one for me if he could and save me the cost of going eBay-diving for it. As usual, Brian came through and really did me a solid. I am super appreciative, as this completed my GotG MiniMates collection.

My one complaint with this MiniMates line is that they made a duplicate Sakaar Trooper when they could have made the Collector, Korath, Corpsman Dey or even Nova Prime. There were several criminally overlooked characters that could have been packed in exclusively with Nebula. Oh well, at least the Sakaar Trooper is an army builder, so it works.

Also included was this View-MAster circa 1980-something, and some slides to view, starring none other than Toy Story, Knight Rider and the Muppets!!!

It would be weird if there were no collectors' cards included in a package from Brian, and he did NOT disappoint. I suspect very strongly that this Fright Flicks wax pack was hand-picked for me due to my absolute adoration of Pumpkinhead. I have not opened it. This is one of the wax packs that I will be keeping unopened and intact as an objet d'art.

I DID open the Marvel Universe Series II pack so I could see what characters I got. This series has always stood out in my mind due to some of the cards being illustrated beautifully by Arthur Adams. Thanos, Dr Doom, Speedball, and a battle between the Thing and the Hulk all have Mr. Adams's distinctive art on display.

Brian also knows of my weakness for Choose Your Own Adventure books. So he knew that Museum of the Living Dead, which is a "Plot-It-Yourself Horror Story" and Demons of the Deep which is a "Fighting Fantasy Gamebook" (Steve Jackson of Gurps and Munchkins fame???) would be right up my alley!

Also included were these issues of the (in my opinion) BEST Cloak and Dagger comic book series of all time: Strange Tales Featuring: Cloak & Dagger and Doctor Strange!!! This one even features Power Pack! Three more issues to put towards completing my run!

This Goodebumps-style book may not seem remarkable to you... but if you look closer you see there's just nothing right about this cover at all.

Gah, I bet it smells awful in there. 

Some of the absolute BEST and surprising items in the box were this Battle Beast, "Tarsier Tyrant" and this Monster in My Pocket, "Bigfoot". Both of these toy lines were ones I collected as a lad. Here you can see Tarsier Tyrant about to pimp-slap Bigfoot. 

He owes him money. 

But my absolute FAVORITE items above all else in the box were these three items right here. A 1988 issue of MAD magazine, featuring the California Raisins on the cover, the first California Raisins cassette "The California Raisins Sing the Hit Songs," and a "it-just-occured-to-me-how-weird-this-is-as-an-adult" pin-on button of the California Raisins all climbing into a hot tub together, that I actually owned as a kid. I am a HUGE California Raisins fan. There are few properties that I have such strong and clearly remembered nostalgia for the way I do for the C.R.'s. As a kid, I was obsessed.

So that was the entire package sent to me by the Trash Man, and as usual, he knows what makes me geek out. I wanted to send a proper thank you out to him, for being such a good friend on top of the cool swag.

Be sure to listen to us, along with our buddies Miss M of the Diary of a Dorkette blog, and Jason Roberts of the Nerdy Life of Mine blog on our fledgling podcast Eclectic Mayhem. At this point we're only a few episodes in, but we make up for it with pure insanity.

Well, that's all I've got for tonight kids! I'll be back soon with some Geeky Goodwill Goodies, so until then, Happy Hunting!

Funny Books and Comic Books... Sort of.

Hey! Here's some stuff I think I actually bought sometime this year! There's an almost-but-not-quite-theme running through this post... with a couple of significant exceptions that greatly just f--k things up for me trying to write this. 

GEE THANKS A LOT, AWESOME STUFF I FOUND. 

Well here it all is. As you can see, there's some pretty fun stuff in this pile. Let's get started so we can get with the fun... right?

So, based on the stuff I found in this haul, the theme I thought I'd go with was "Funny Books and Comic Books" and for the most part, I succeed. This MAD Power book is one of those rare gems that I love to find: A MAD Magazine comics print collection. These are ALWAYS a sure take-home item for me.

The holy triumvirate of 80's newspaper funnies for me are "Calvin & Hobbes," "The Farside," and "Bloom County" (along with "Outland" and "Opus" which are just continuations of Bloom really). While I am a fun of Garfield, it's mostly his animated adventures that catch my attention. Although many a happy hour were spent as a child poring over my Aunt's VAST Garfield collection, which included EVERY Garfield stri ever collected in book form. 

What was I talking about? 

Oh yeah! Bloom County! This copy of Billy and the Boingers Bootleg still has the plastic record-sheet inside that came with every copy of this book. 

Here. Give it a listen. 

The last book in the pile that without a doubt, unquestionably follows the theme that I am more than a little bit unhealthily obsessed with tonight is this one. Work is Hell by Matt Groening of "The Simpsons" fame. Many do know, but just as many don't know that Groening did a series of funny books back in the 80's starring a bunny named Binky and his zany cohorts, Sheba, Bongo, Ackbar and Jeff. I find these strips fantastically amusing, so any opportunity I have to pick some up for cheap is... a good opportunity that I take right away. Huh. Not sure where I was going with that, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't where it actually ended up. Anyway... I like this book! 

All right... my theme starts to get a bit shaky here. With Choose Your Own Adventure book You Are Invisible we could TECHNICALLY argue that the kids in this young-reader book by Susan Saunders actually have COMIC BOOK superpowers... but I'm not really going to fight that hard to convince you, honestly. These younger-aimed CYOA's are actually a LOT of fun. 

I really love the film based on Everything is Illuminated by Safran Foer, but I've never read the book. Here I also want to point out that I have abandoned my theme entirely. But we'll get back to it. The movie of Illuminated came out in 2005 and starred Elijah Wood. It is wondrous, heartbreaking, ethereal and yet groundedly REAL at the same time. I hope the book is as good. I've been let down in some cases, so I hope this isn't one of those times.

Finally we have this "X-Men: Crisis in the Danger Room" board game, that had me picking my jaw up off the floor when I spotted it! Almost all of the pieces and tokens are present and accounted for, and the construction of the Danger Room play area is intact and fairly easy to construct.

The game includes pawns of Wolverine, Cyclops, Beast, and Gambit. I cry foul that Storm or even Rogue or Psylocke were not also included... but c'est la vie I guess. It would also have been nice to see Cyclops touching his visor, readying himself to fire his optic blasts... but I guess I'm just a stickler that way...

This is one epic build of a board game! The platforms and balance beam still go in nice and snug, and look great put together! I love that we get Professor X there in the control booth, overseeing the proceedings.

There's a couple of towers that are a part of the build too, and I'm including them here just because I can basically. I was SOOO excited to bring this home you guys! This is LOOKs like such a neat game! Maybe when my kids are a little bit older I'll even get to play it!

Well, that is ALL for tonight kids! I'll be back with more Geeky Goodwill Goodies in the near future! Until then, I suggest you enjoy some Happy Hunting!

Of Comics and Books and Comic... Books.... wait.

So I thought I'd finally use some of the thousands of pictures I have mouldering away on my hard-drive to actually show off some of the stuff I've been finding at Goodwill while I've been off having my mid-life crisis. I thought I'd get some of the books out of the way this time around, as they seem to be the majority of what I've been finding lately. 

First up, a couple of Darkwing Duck Books! The first one I was kind of disappointed to find featured Tuskernini as the villain, who I never really got behind as a D.D. villain in the first place. They always played him as a weird mix between The Penguin and Mysterio... but a walrus movie director supervillain just feels kind of sad. 

Next up we have this copy of Darkwing Duck: Just Us Justice Ducks which is an adaptation of the tv show. This is the story where the heroes that Darkwing has met throughout the series all come to help him defeat a team-up of his most dangerous foes. The adaptation is a little sloppy, and is definitely aimed at kids, not "all audiences". It feels rushed, and the panels are crowded together to fly through the story as quickly as possible. It's a shame too, because they could have done a great deal more with what they had for material. For instance, there are no splash pages that show the villains all together. The best we get is pretty much just this:

Always loved those episodes of D.D. because it gave the show the same shared universe feel of the comics it was parodying, and you got the goofy, anthropomorphic version of the Avengers or JLA, but Darkwing style. Gizmoduck from Duck Tales makes another guest appearance here, and we get returning heroes like Stegmutt the dinosaur, Neptuna the fish woman, and Morgana the sorceress. But of course, this kind of story is all about the villains. I really loved the villains in the roster of the Fearsome Five: the plant controlling Dr. Bushroot, the electrifying Megavolt, Darkwing's evil twin from the negative universe, Negaduck, the watery salesman Liquidator, and the Mad Jester of crime, Quackerjack! This was a neat find, but honestly if you're a Darkwing Duck fan, I recommend just sitting down with the DVDs and watching the two-parter instead of trying to track this graphic novel down. 

Next up we have this Choose Your Own Adventure book: Mystery of the Maya. I haven't had a chance to play through this one at all yet, but it looks like some good old-fashioned Tomb Raider/Indiana Jones style adventuring, except with kids. Long-time readers will remember that I am a CYOA NUTJOB and I collect just about any of them I find. 

I'm also a pretty big fan of Monsters Vs. Aliens (The movie and the Halloween Special, not the abysmal TV show on Nickelodeon). I am also a huge fan of the wonky old Weekly World News-style craziness that used to be available in the grocery store checkout lanes. So when I flipped through this book and found that they were telling the story in that format:

I had to pick it up. I honestly don't even know if this book would interest ANYONE other than me... the subject matter is a bit young for most kids who are capable of this sort of reading level... and it's too densely packed for an kind of bedtime-story read aloud... so I'm thinking they were marketing this book (and in most cases the movie) to me and me alone. 

It's funny how often Disney and Golden Books put out these "picture stories" of their properties, which were really just comic book adaptations. I'm a sucker for the Fox and the Hound, so when I saw this I had to pick it up. Here's a little sample of the interior:

Straight up graphic novel. 

A couple of MAD magazine comic cartoon compilations from the 70s and 80s. I was really excited to find these, as browsing through MAD magazine was another grocery store pastime from my youth.  

The Mr. Bill Show book! I always found the Mr. Bill segments on the old SNL episodes to be hilarious when I was a kid. They seemed like a really demented version of Gumbi, which was another love of mine back then. Flipping through this book is much the same as watching the shorts on SNL as Sluggo and Mr. Hands torture, maim, disfigure, dismember, and emotionally scar Mr. Bill in some new way on almost every page. 

This one even still has the free soundtrack record included! It's been removed from the perforation and was actually tucked into the middle of the book when I bought it.

Frequent visitors to this blog will also be able attest to the fact that I am a Sesame Street person as well. I collect just about anything pre-90's (and some stuff beyond that... but it has to be really special). I'm certain I either owned this book as a child or I obsessed over it in my school library because the illustrations are sooo familiar. This book really stands out for having a picture of the 2-Headed monster from the wait down: 

Freaky right?

Here is a pile of random comics I picked up, the most notable of the two being the Marvel Comics Presents issues. This comic often told seriously long-haul serialized stories, such as the Colossus story you see featured here, which was a 13-parter (!). There was also a Black Panther story that ran on for 25 instalments!!! I sort of made it a personal goal to collect the rest of the Colossus story at some point, so finding these two issues was pretty cool. The Adventures of the X-Men .99 cent issue is pretty awful, but it features the Man-Thing... so I wanted it. I found another issue of Excalibur I didn't yet have, a part of the excellent "Cross Time Caper" back when comic books were still able to tell their own stories and go crazy places and not have to kowtow to the upcoming Summer crossover event. And I never don't buy What-If? if I find it cheap. And neither should you... not... not buy it? I don't know how write. 

I am a HUGE fan of advertising mascots and campaigns, and the "Got Milk?" campaign with its milk mustaches is one of the most famous and ubiquitous ad ideas of the past few years. So when I found this book detailing the history of the Go Milk ads with a bunch of the ads collected together in one book? I was pretty excited. The book is broken up into categories, such as athletes, cartoon characters, and musicians who have all participated in the campaign. Really enjoy flipping through the book Below are shots of some of my favorites:

Spongebob, Mario, and Kermit have all worn milk mustaches.

Crimefighters in the night, Batman and Angel count themselves among the thankfully lactose-tolerant.

And guys who like greasepaint on their faces like their milk as well, as demonstrated by Ronald McDonald and the members of KISS.

Finally, the last book of this post is the one I was the most personally excited about. Because I used to read this book obsessively as a kid. Everything You Need to Know About Monsters and Still Be Able to Get to Sleep by Daniel Cohen. I used to check this book out from the library (in the town of Bar Harbor when I lived there for a couple of years as a kid) on an almost weekly basis. I loved monsters as a kid and I especially loved werewolves. I would check this and a couple of other books out and pore over the pages lovingly over and over again. What is ESPECIALLY exciting about this particular book is the fact that it is the copy that came from that library. So I found a book at Goodwill that was the exact same copy I used to check out and obsess over as a kid. I now own that book. And it is a book about monsters. I mean... look at that guy on the cover! That mean green guy! He actually looks kind of worried.

Anyway, that's all I've got for tonight folks! I hope you found at least one of these books as interesting as I did. I'll be back with more Geeky Goodwill Goodies! Until then, Happy Hunting!