Halloween Countdown Day 12: A Look at Halloween in the Geek-Cave

I love Halloween. Year round. I am always on the prowl at Goodwill, even in March, for great Halloween merchandise. Horror movies. Ghost story collections. If it goes bump in the night I love it.

So... it would stand to reason that there would be a bit of an influence on my environment due to this. So I would like to take you on a brief tour of the most Halloween-y aspects of the cave I call home. 

First off, here is the main shelf that I consider my "Halloween" shelf. This is the whole thing, but the next three pictures kind of break it down into smaller, digestible bite-sized chunks.

Here is the left end of the shelf. It's the end closest to my desk, so I make sure to keep the heavier hitters like Jack Skellington, Sam from Trick R' Treat, and the Headless Horseman right where I can see them. You may also notice the legless zombie from Walking Dead, a pair of Etrigan the Demon figures, and a trio of Freddy Kruegers. Yes. That is Daryl Dixon standing on his head. Because he's top-heavy.

Here's the center of the shelf. Many miscellaneous characters and items here, including a bunch of wind-up Halloween guys, a couple of Anubis toys, and various Halloween items like plastic jack-o-lanterns, werewolves, Frankenstein monsters, etc.

And finally, on the far right side we have a barbershop quartet of Jason Voorheeses, some more jack-o'-lanterns, and a host of ghouls and goblins like Pennywise the Clown and the Xenomorph. You will of course notice 1. there is a heavy Funko POP! presence here... and 2. it is INCREDIBLY crowded.

Right next to the right end of the official Halloween shelf is this little shelf. It is topped by my monster Mez-its, my set of Killer Panda Monsters, and my Monster in My Pocket figures. These guys are all beautiful to behold, and therefore get this shelf to kind of keep them out of the crowded mess that is the Halloween shelf proper. It's still not exaclty how I'd like to see all of these toys being displayed... but again, I'm runnin gout of room. Right below those monsters is my collection of skeleton pirates (plus three living pirates that had nowhere else to go). I have waxed poetic SEVERAL times on my blog about pirates, ghost pirates, skeleton pirates, and how they tie into Halloween so perfectly. So... I won't do it again now.

Right next to THAT blue shelf is an area mostly dedicated to Scooby-Doo, but also includes Monsters Inc., Aaah! Real Monsters, Stretchy Screamers, the Walking Dead Funko POP! and... Archie (I justify this because of the Afterlife With Archie series, which I am a rabid fan of). This is not the only Scooby-Doo area within the cave however...

Because over on my desk, I have a dedicated space for my Mystery Mates figurines! These guys are just great. I just wish they had released more monster figures before seemingly giving up. You can see I also have some Joker and Penguin figures in there, as an homage to the episodes where the gang meets up with them... and again the Monsters Inc. guys... just because. Real monsters and all that. 

On the curtain rod above that very shelf is my McDonald's trick or treat pail collection, featuring a couple of vintage McBoo pails and the three Scooby Doo pails from 2012. You can also see a couple of Scooby-Doo books poking out there as well.

One of my most recent additions to the cave is this PEZ dispensor set that my 5 year old son picked out for me for my birthday. When I received this, I didn't even know this pack existed yet! He saw it at Wal-Mart and told my wife she HAD to buy it for me. And just look at this thing. It is truly beautiful.

This little area sits directly behind me when I sit at my desk. The steam-punk-looking skull-thing is one of those light-up reusable jack-o'-lantern type things you buy at Wal-mart made of a sort of hard plastic-y foam that has been painted over. It is beautiful. The light boxes above it were bought by my wife from an online crafter with a now-defunct shop called "Morbid Decor" they are prized possessions. I had planned on adding a third light to the set with an image from Night of the Living Dead on it... but then the shop closed and it was no longer available to buy. Sigh. I  literally set the Ugly Doll figures on top because I had no where else to put them. It occurs to me now that I could have found something a bit more appropriately macabre to go there.

Here is the inside of the door to the cave. Some old-timey circus posters (reprints) some calendar pages from a Tales from the Crypt calendar, a "Fryin' Ryan" GPK poster, and a couple of postacards feature horror greats, Alfred Hitchcock and Stephen King. Usually there's a big vintage cardboard cutout of a teal-colored skull hanging here as well, but during the month of October he's doing his duty greeting company at the front door. 

Here's a look at the shelving unit right next to the door, where I keep DVDs and more toys. What's of interest here is the set of posters, post-cards, and other images I've collected together here. Everything from old movie posters (more calendar repros) to the X-Files and Scooby-Doo... to other things I'll let you discover on your own.

Here's my set of Monster 500 cars from Toys R' Us. Before anyone bugs me about why I didn't buy the 3-packs because they're cheaper... I like the way they look better individually packed. I don't open toy cars. This is how I display them. And I like the look to be consistent. I love this series because it combines everything cool about monsters with everything I consider to be cool about the old Rat-Fink style car artistry of yesteryear. They have a sort of Wacky Racers vibe to them as well.

About a foot below my Monster 500 cars are these bad boys. I realized as I was taking the picture that I also have this weird four-pack of post-it notes shaped like Hawaiian shirts, but with Halloween designs on them, hanging right next to the awesome ReAction figures. So I kept that in the shot too. I knew when they announced the release of the ReAction lines that Sam and Jack would be my first two purchases.

I also have a little table full of dragons, dinosaurs, and kaiju. This is stretching the Halloween theme a bit, I know, but I feel only a little. Dragons and Kaiju (and even dinosaurs to an extent) can all be categorized as monsters easily.

 And to wrap things up, we'll end at my desk, in the tiny little alcove where my very favorite Halloween toys hang out. Here we have yet MORE versions of Jack Skellington and Sam from Trick r' Treat, alongside a LEGO custom I made of the Headless horseman. Two of my all-time favorite Halloween PEZ dispensors in the back, and some tiny Halloween tchotchkes in a Crazy Bones orange and black cyclopean ghoul, a tiny metal Jack-o'-Lantern ring, and a portly vending machine devil. But by far the star of THIS show is Garfield in disguise there, from his Halloween special. He was an eBay find, and I believe he was produced and sold in Germany back in the 80's, making it very hard to find here in the states these days. But Garfield just IS Halloween to me. So he's a very prized possession of mine indeed.

So that's it! There's actually SO much more to the cave than this very specialized and fine tuned Haloween-themed tour, but we'll get to all of that some other day. I'll be back soon with some Grizzly Goodwill Goodies sooner rather than later. Until then, Happy Haunting!

Goodwill Geek Mailbag: A Package from Brian Napoleon Lapsley

Woof! Where does the time go! Suddenly you realize you haven't updated your blog in something like 10 days... and just woof. 

So I've had absolutely no good reason to put off posting this particular post for so long except... I don't know why! Just been damn lazy I guess. 

I know a LOT of genuinely kind and generous people out there in internet land, and one of them happens to be Brian Lapsley, artist, fellow thrifter-extraordinaire, and blogger over at Awake Oh Sleeper. He is another fine example of a supportive and generous fellow who has sent kind words... and now a fun mystery package my way! 

So first off... THIS is what arrived at my home. As I briefly mentioned above, Brian is a talented artist. I know he draws quite a bit, and he also makes amazing digital pieces such as this piece of his that he photocopied and adorned my package with! 

Inside, a note: Telling me to enjoy. And... I did. 

First up was this Classic Science Fiction Films book, which reads as a sort of movie catalogue with titles, dates, and brief synopses of each film. I love how some attitude creeps into a few of the entries:

"Just plain garbage" and "Makes Missile to the Moon look brilliant". Genius. 

Anyone who knows me knows that comic books are the way STRAIGHT to my heart. Couple of Amazing Spider-Man issues (part of the "Round Robin" event) and an issue of Ultraman.

I have always wanted to read the book Jumper by Steven Gould. I only vaguely recall the movie back in 2008, but I know I wasn't blown away by what I saw of it. I had heard that the book was head-and-shoulders above the film however, and I have been itching to read it. So I did! I read this almost immediately after finding this in the package! And I can tell you, I LOVED it! What a great concept, and executed very well. It's hard to describe the book in any meaningful way, but I can tell you I kept comparing it to Ready Player One in my head the whole time I was reading it. The subject matter of the two books couldn't be more different... but there's a very palpable sense of wish-fulfilment for geeks in both books. The protagonist of Jumper is likable and is using his newfound talents to get himself out of a horrible life. 

Back in the day, I had a complete set of these "Freaky Fighters" which were a bunch of bat-wielding monsters from Hammer films. You could find these at Dollar stores and the like. They were bizarre, and I think I ended up giving my set away to a friend online. I'm glad to get this one back however, because Werewolves are some of my all-time favorite monsters!

Here's a shot of the back. I think this fella will be staying firmly in his package, because I just love the look of the whole thing together. 

This Rad Badge is from Burger King from back in the day! LOVE this thing! The turtles pop up from behind the shell to say hello! Lookit those guys!

Speaking of Burger King and famous cartoon stars that I happen to love, there's this Scooby-Doo plush from Burger King circa 2000! Mr. Lapsley is hitting ALL the right notes here with this mystery package you guys!

Probably my absolute favorite item in the whole box was this little Big Guy! It's a Stay Puft Marshmallow Man pencil sharpener from a 1987 Real Ghostbusters themed McDonald's Happy Meal! Gaze upon the tiny plastic form of the Destructor!

So here it all is! Toys and books and comics from an incredibly generous individual! So generous in fact, that I have already received a second mystery package from him that I will share with you all at a later date! Thank you Mr. Lapsley! I truly appreciate this collection of the weird, the wild, and the nostalgic! Be sure to check out Brian's blog (linked above) and be sure to also check him out on Instagram! 

That's all I've got for tonight kids! I'll be back soon with some Geeky Goodwill Goodies! Until then, Happy Hunting! 

Day 8: The Great Pumpkin Came!!! The Great Pumpkin Came!!!

The Great Pumpkin Gift Exchange organized by Dex over at AEIOU and Sometimes Why has been a smashing success... in my opinion. 

I myself played Great Pumpkin for Jaime over at Shezcrafti, and I hope I did enough for her. I sent her a parcel containing several cool Goodwill finds, plus some candy and books and other goodies to make her season a little more Autumn-y. I also tossed in some original Halloween poetry as my "magic" portion of the gift. 

And my own package came yesterday!!! 

I found out who my Great Pumpkin is: Reis O'Brien from the Lair of the Dork Horde!!! Reis is an incredibly cool guy, and he made my Halloween that much cooler and creepier with his generous and fun "Great Pumpkin" gift. 

See what my Great Pumpkin sent me after the jump!