My Trip to the Belfast ME Goodwill, Memorial Day Weekend

So over the Memorial Day Weekend, my family and I took a trip out to Belfast, ME. This is where one of my favorite Goodwills in all of Maine resides. 

I'll be honest, this wasn't my most productive visit to the Belfast Goodwill, and considering the length of the trip out there, that was a bit of a disappointment. I didn't find any toys that really got me all that excited, but I did find a couple of game items that were pretty fun... and the rest of my finds were mostly book related. (It occurs to me now that this was not the most compelling way to sell this post and keep you reading on the edge of your seat. But... let's take a look anyway. 

I found this adaptation of RAMBO First Blood Part II for .99 cents... which to be honest, I'm questioning why I even brought it home. I think I just get excited any time I find movie adaptations nowadays... and this felt like it shouldn't be left behind. I've never seen a Rambo film in my life... nor am I really interested in seeing one. But here we are. 

I was completely surprised when I pulled this "Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck" off the shelf... and ecstatic! I've always wanted to break into the old-school Disney comics stories that the Duck Tales series were drawn from, and I hear that this volume is not only an excellent entry point... but an excellent book in and of itself. I paid 1.99 for this collected edition from Gemstone! 

A couple of great Choose Your Own adventure books! I seriously doubt I'll read through Playoff Champion... but I'm a collector so you know... gotta have! Heh... heh. But Beyond the Great Wall? I'll give that one a test-drive for sure!

More CYOA! This time the Mystery of Chimney Rock, which looks excellent, and old-school... and a "Find Your Fate Adventure" starring none other than Indiana Jones in the Lost Treasure of Sheba. Indy in a CYOA (style) book!!! I'm on a roll with the licensed gaming books baby! Especially since I found that Star Trek Which Way book last Payday Friday!

And closing out the CYOA craziness are these two "Dragonlark" Choose Your Own Adventure Books, Your Very Own Robot, and Indian Trail which are much more recent books and contain full-color illustrations. At first I was going to turn my nose up at these Dragonlark books, but I've actually found them to be pretty fun. All of my CYOA finds were .99 cents apiece.

Also .99 cents apiece were these three Little Golden Books. A couple of Richard Scarry classics in Duck and His Friends and Chipmunk's ABC. I was kind of a sucker for Raggedy Ann and Andy as a kid so I also snapped up this copy of Five Birthdays in a Row. Blame it on the nostalgia, blame it on obsession, or even blame it on the shiny spines I guess... but my LGB collection just keeps growing and growing.

Random assortment of other things here, the most exciting for me being The Count's Number Parade which is yet another old Sesame Street book I didn't already own. The Nestle Nesquik "It's Legendary" comic was put out by DC and was apparently a free giveaway at Wal-Mart in 2012. It's a truly bizarre little story involving an airship driven by anthropomorphic milk cartons and the Quik Bunny. They get attacked by sour milk air pirates. Garfield's Scary Tales is a book I may already own in paperback, but I couldn't pass up a hardcover copy of it either way. 

I can't figure out exactly how old this Snoopy and Friends Sticker Album is... because all of the trademark info inside it is from the 60's. But my guess is that its actually from the 80's? Not sure. Either way, I've done some soul-searching recently and I've discovered something: I'm really not a Snoopy fan. Not a Peanuts fan in general. Nope. They just don't do it for me. I know that's the nearest to sacrilege a geek can get... But they just don't do it for me. "Why did you buy this thing then?" You may ask... and I will tell you I may not be a fan of Charlie Brown and co... But I AM a sticker album fan. I miss these things! I can't find anything like these out in stores anymore! I used to have about a half-dozen of them as a kid. I'd love to have a couple for my boys to keep stickers in. They must be out there somewhere, right? Specialty shops, or craft stores, or educational toy stores or some other nonsense... I'll keep my eyes peeled. 

One of my absolute FAVORITE finds of this trip: Max Headroom: 20 Minutes Into the Future which is a sort of storybook/novelization of the TV movie of the same name that kicked off the old TV series starring the Titular Max Headroom. I was a big fan of Max when I was a kid. LOVED him. I was much more aware of him as an advertising mascot than as a sci-fi A.I. character... but that was enough for me. This was one of the few finds I made at the Belfast Goodwill where I gasped a little when I picked it up.

Next up we have this USA for Africa "We Are The World" 45. 

This single came out in 1985 and I remember hearing it A LOT. It brings me crashing back into my childhood in a big way. For those of you who may not know what the deal with this is... it was this incredible collaboration between a WHOLE LOT of artists including Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Cyndi Lauper, Tina Turner, and most of the Jackson family, just to name a handful. Even actor Dan Aykroyd pitched in and sang. It was all in an effort to raise money for African famine relief. It was most notable though for being a crossover of talent so huge that it has since only been rivalled by the Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue anti-drugs special. Yeah. It's that big.

I almost left this package of Hildebrandt Brothers art collectors cards behind. But I honestly really like these cards, and I had a bunch of them back in the 90's when they were originally released. Plus anything with a pink tag on it was half off! So I got these for .99 cents. 

I wasn't disappointed! There's a lot of really fun art featured in these sets. There are a couple of different serieses mixed together in this pile but they're all from the Hildebrants. Really love the giant cat-whale thing in the front-most card there. Also pictured are some Star Wars, Ravenloft, and Greek Mythology artwork. 

My son actually discovered these Shirttails ball-in-the-hole puzzle/game things in the package. I have no idea if these are actually vintage or not, (the packaging seems to sort of indicate not...) but since they feature an assortment of characters from a show I really enjoyed as a kid... it didn't matter to me one bit either way. Which leads to to the final and most exciting find of the day... this "board" game: 

Hangman from Milton Bradley, circa 1976! And look who graces the cover of the box with his spooky presence! Vincent Price!!! I have literally not even untaped the cover of the box to check the contents. That is how much I love this box art. I would have bought the box empty. There's a commercial on youtube starring Mr. Price himself, that is embedding disabled... but you should check it out here.

Look at this sinisterly smarmy man. Look deep into those confidently creepy eyes. He wants to see you dancing on air... swaying in the breeze. 

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

Boxsome Part 2!!!

It's been a while since I've talked about Boxsome on here... in fact it was back in May. Back then I GUSHED about the contents of the package that I had ordered from Tommy and I revealed at the end of the post that I had already ordered MORE. 

Well, it's been a LOOONG while since that package arrived, and I have been planning for a while to post what was included. So... here you are! 

Last time I was a bit more curious about some of the more weird and obscure wax-packs up for offer... but this time I knew exactly what I wanted. I ordered two Boxsome packs that each had an ALF wax-pack and a Dinosaurs Attack! wax-pack included. 

That's right. I ordered two of the exact same Boxsome packs. Essentially, I could have just ordered one with two ALF wax-packs, and one with two Dinosaurs ones... but what's the fun in that? 

Here's my first pack opened. And boy are there some great extras included! As always, there's a pizza point! Also included are some great properties like Howard the Duck, Gremlins, ALF, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Return of the Jedi. There are some Darkwing Stickers, and the obligatory Pongs. There's also a pack of those AWESOME California Raisins World Tour stickers that I GUSHED about last time! 

First up is the ALF pack. I owned a copy of ever single card pictured here as a kid. I didn't really appreciate them all back then, but man do I love them now! The four photo cards from the show take me back! The sticker is great too, and out of these wax packs as a kid, I was almost as excited for those as the Bouillabaseball cards!!! But not quite. In my youthful mind, those fictitious sports cards were on par with Garbage Pail Kids. They were the whole reason I bought ALF cards at all. 

More awesome Dinosaurs Attack! cards. Nothing super special to report here, I needed almost ever single one of these for my own personal collection, so that was pretty cool. I do want to repeat again how much I love these completely disgusting and horribly inappropriate pictures of terrible things being done to people by dinosaurs in ridiculous ways. 

And then I cracked open those sweet California Raisins World Tour stickers and got Poland, Scotland, Spain, Argentina, and Russia! Each one has a ridiculously cheesy pun, riddle, or joke on it. Love these!

All right! On to pack number two! Another great mix of extra cards here, with more appearances by Gremlins, Return of the Jedi, and TMNT. There's a Batman card and a Mario/Donkey Kong card in the mix this time! Plus: PONGS! There's a nice custom Boxsome sticker included in this pack as well. 

So here's another pack of Dinosaurs Attack! to check out... and what's this? I was shorted a card!!! Not the fault of Boxsome, fortunately. This was a Topps error all the way. Luckily I didn't have any of these yet either. 

In my ALF cards, I received a bunch of less familiar-looking cards. The sticker I remember vividly, and the Bouillabaseball card is, as always, the desert!!! Gods how I love them!

And what is this? In addition to the two Boxsome packages, there was a loose pack of U.S. of ALF "super stickers" included as well. These were obviously cut from the exact same cloth as the California Raisin sticker cards above and the sense of humor is exactly the same... SO I LOVE THEM. It was also really cool to receive them as a free gift with my order!

I want to end this post by saying EXACTLY what I had to say last time:

"All in all, I can't recommend Boxsome ENOUGH. If you were a card-collector in the mid-to-late 80's you will find a GOLD MINE on Boxsome. PLEASE for your own good, go check it out. The prices are incredibly reasonable, and the packs are such a random load of fun that you will have absolutely ZERO buyer's remorse."

Because I feel it still holds completely true. Thanks again to Tommy Day for running such an awesome service over there at Boxsome!

I'll be back soon with some Geeky Goodwill Goodies, but in the mean-time, Happy Hunting!

Goodwill Geek Mailbag: Strange Kids Club!!!

So I took it upon myself recently to order myself some geek-tastic wares from some of the internet's geekiest vendors. These include The Strange Kid's Club and October Toys.

Today I'm just going to focus on what I got from the Strange Kids Club. What did I order? Well let's take a look-see shall we?

The first thing I ordered from the Strange Kids Club was their "Strange Kids Official Sticker Pack: Series Two." Series one was completely sold out, or else I would totally have picked that up too. I tore this poly-bag open post-haste and spread my booty-loot out to examine it better. 

First up are the featured stickers in the set. These are three MadBalls-like caricatures of Strange Kid and a couple of 80's pop-culture icons. 

Representing Gizmo from the movie Gremlins is the Kevin Luong designed "Mogwad". He is literally BURSTING with fetal mogwais as if his head has just been exposed to water, and it is splitting open his skull in a frantic bid to let his offspring out. Plus, he's picking his nose with his tongue. Classic. 

The Strange Kid sticker, designed by James Groman, exhibits all of the classic MadBalls features, including exposed brains, skin blemishes, blood-shot eyes, random stitches, dangling tongue, and copious amounts of splattering bodily fluids. 

Representing the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man from Ghostbusters is "Stay Puss" also designed by Kevin Luong. With a face only Gozer the Gozerian could love, Stay Puss looks like a marshmallow that's gotten a little bit toasty/melty... and a little bit contaminated with biohazardous ecto-plasm. Would you have him any other way?

Also included in my sticker pack were these collector's cards and a sticker from the Series 1 sticker pack! The Punch Out and TMNT cards were appreciated... but the Catwoman card from the Batman Returns series is by far my favorite. She's going to be displayed somewhere prominently. Let's take a closer look at the series 1 sticker:

This sticker is called "Melmac Attack" designed by James Callahan. It's from the Strange Kids Club Official Sticker Pack: Series One. They threw it in as my "random" sticker. I just wish I could get my hands on the other three stickers from series one somehow!

Finally, I ordered two issues of the Strange Kids Comix Magazine. They are sold out of issue #1, but issues #2 and #3 were in stock, so I snapped them up! #2, pictured above, is Halloween themed! The comics are short but fun, and in several different styles. There was also an interview with cover-artist David Hartman, who is also a powerhouse in animation apparently. This completely reminded me of old magazines like MAD and Cracked, and it was well worth the purchase price. 

Issue #3 is dedicated to classic 80's television (mostly kid's shows) as you can probably tell from the cover. There's a mild TV Guide-parody feel to the cover and first page or so, but again, this brings back memories of MAD and Cracked. The interview with Jason Edmiston is great, but I think my favorite piece is a Ghostbusters vs. Beetlejuice crossover comic that ends up spilling into Pee-Wee's Playhouse. If that's not enough to get you to buy right there, this is not the magazine for you. 

Tucked into one of the magazines was this postcard drawn by Nigel Ward, depicting Beast Man, and Mer-Man standing in front of Catle Greyskull with Strange Kid as he brandishes... the Sword of Omens? This was an awesome little surprise to find, and it topped off the whole package perfectly! 

Well, I think that about wraps it up. I'll be going over the stuff I got from October Toys very soon, so keep your eyes peeled. I'll also be back soon with more Geeky Goodwill Goodies! So until then, Happy Hunting!

The Goodwill Geek's Mailbag Returns!!!

So it's time to return to the Goodwill Geek's Mailbag! (Gotta come up with a better name for this...) 

This came to me in the mail last week, and I am just now getting the chance to blog about it. I recently ordered one of the Cult Film Club's "No Tipping" Sticker Packs. I guess the money goes to help them with hosting and production costs... but I'm not so sure. They're a sketchy crew over there at the Cult Film Club. Jaime Hood over at Shezcrafti gives me reason enough to be suspicious. Pax over at the Cavalcade of Awesome plays it a bit more straight and narrow... but man that guy just seems too squeaky clean. You know what I mean? 

Anyway, this envelope arrived, decorated with a kick-ass Karate Kid trilogy sticker. It felt like the red-carpet treatment from the very beginning, you know what I mean? 

It IS something people call me.
Just sayin',

Included were these neon-colored protective index cards... one of which had a more-awesome-than-I-could-ever-hope-to-be piece of original artwork from Shawn Robare. I'm still decidining how I want to display this in the cave. Just tacking it up somewhere seems dismissive. I'm going frame shopping.

Also included were these two random vintage collector's cards. What Shawn may or may not realize is that he could not have picked better cards to select for me specifically because I love GPK and I love Gremlins 2, and specifically the Grandpa Fred character because he is a horror host with aspirations. And because: "Fire. The Untamed Element, Oldest of Man's Mysteries, Giver of warmth, Destroyer of forests, right now this building is on fire. Yes! The building is on fire! Leave the building! Enact the Age Old drama of Self-Preservation!" Because I want that as a ring-tone when I finally get a big-boy smart phone. 

Anyway... here are the sticker-packs themselves. I ordered two because I F**KING LOVE CULT FILM CLUB!!! And I want it to go on forevers. If you look closely on the left, Shawn signed the header of the pack for me. That one doesn't get opened. It's so f**king money, baby. 

Here are the stickers from the pack I opened. There was actually a Branded in the 80's sticker included as well, but I didn't realize it was in there until after all the pictures were taken. It was stuck to the back of one of the other stickers I think. Not sure. But it was awesome too... just not awesome enough for me to over-come my laziness and get an additional picture of it. Sorry Shawn. I think my absolute favorite one is the ticket-taker... but the CFC projector-skull is just such a sweet design I can't decide... and Steve Buscemi has never looked better than he does as a sticker. 

Here's what it looks like though:

(BUT if you buy some stickers and then post a comment on Shawn's Branded in the 80's blog, he'll toss one if for you too!!!)

Here's (almost) all the loot together in one shot! 

I have not decided what I want to stick these all over yet. I'm thinking I'll slap them on a binder and put AWESOME stuff inside. For now, I just have them in a card collector sheet until I decide. If they're durable enough to go on my car that's definitely where at least one of them will go. 

Soon I'll write a post on the stuff I got from Boxsome! I thought about just including it here, but I really wanted to let Shawn's stickers and the Cult Film Club shine here. The blog is great, but be sure to check out their podcast! But wait! There's more! Join the club and watch the movies in time to listen along! You can also follow them on facebook and twitter so look for them there!

I want to send out a genuine thanks to Jaime, Pax, and Shawn for coming up with such a great, addictive podcast, and for such an incredibly cool way to support and promote it!

I'll be back soon with some Geeky Goodwill Goodies! Until then... Happy Hunting!