I have a good friend, Miss M, whom I often podcast with (on both the Geek Fallout podcast and the Eclectic Mayhem podcast) whose blog, Diary of a Dorkette, is a MUST read, and with whom I also often exchange packages of pure FUN with on a semi-regular basis.
So another one of THOSE showed up a while ago, and in typical Goodwill Geek fashion, I have put off blogging about it for MUCH too long. So let's take a look at what Miss M sent my way, shall we?
First up there were some Star Wars toys included. The loose figure there is Zam Wessel, a shapeshifting bounty hunter whose right arm is removable as she gets it light-sabered off apparently? (Thanks Wookie-Pedia!) still on the card there is Jabba the Hutt lackey, Bib Fortuna! I freed him from his carbonite prison and quickly added him to my Star Wars shelf.
Here we have a Toothless and a Dragon trap from the series of toys put out to promote the second film (or the second film put out to promote the toys, depending on how cynical you feel like being...)
A few previous packages from Miss M had included X-Men characters that were missing some of the accessories. Miss M thoughtfully held onto these for me and included them here!
And finally, what I think are my absolute favorite items of the pack, this Miss Yvonne figure from the Pee-Wee's Playhouse line, and the Christmas card (this was meant to be a Christmas gift LAST YEAR... did I not mention that... since it is now MAY???) which definitely evokes Pee-Wee's Bicycle from the Pee-Wee's Big Adventure film. Miss Yvonne immediately started hanging off the shoulders of all the Masters of the Universe figures, which immediately made them all very uncomfortable, except for Prince Adam, who seemed to really get along well with her.
Here's one last look at the box of pure FUN sent to me by Miss M! I want to make sure I send out a heartfelt THANK YOU to her, and make sure everybody knows what a great person and friend she is!
Well that's it for tonight kids! But I'll be back soon with some Geeky Goodwill Goodies! Until then, Happy Hunting!
So last year sometime I went back to "Scottie's Books" a little used bookstore (that I have a feeling may be getting ready to let out a death-rattle within the next few months... man that place just never seems to be doing business) in the area where I occasionally find some fun stuff in. Here's a link to last October's countdown post featuring some face-meltingly cool finds I made there. Anyway, this was just your run-of-the-mill trip to Scottie's, but I STILL managed to make some fun finds. So let's check them out!
I brought home second copies of both Ray Bradbury's "The October Country" and Roger Zelazny's "Doorways in the and" for a friend. I love both of these books. Actually both of these authors. I have an extensive Zelazny collection, and my Bradbury collection is also picking up speed. I have certain authors that I consider to be "collectible," meaning I pick up books by them any time I spot one I don't already have, regardless of what I have or haven't heard about the books themselves. Both Zelazny and Bradbury are on that list for sure.
Another type of book I collect is movie novelizations. I rarely ever read them, but if the movie is good enough... or weird enough.. iconic enough... or just mind-numbingly bad enough... then I want a copy of the book they based off of that screenplay. Here we have a copy of X-Men 2, novelized by the one and only Chris Claremont. That actually has a pretty good shot of being read at some point. "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," even though it IS written by Steve Spielberg himself... is probably not going to get read any time soon.
This book is straight up WEIRD. Which is why I love it. It's not a comic-STRIP book per se, but a series of gags and one-liners, mostly illustrated. Maybe I'll explore this one more in-depth sometime in the future, and let you see the pages. It was an interesting find, and apparently, its just one in a series of this kind of ALF book.
Finally here are some 80's cartoon/toy inspired picture books I found. "Meet My Pet Monster" and "Wuzzles: Eleroo's Big Surprise," both of which I read to my kids that same night. I miss My Pet Monster so much! Yet another great creation from "Those Characters in Cleveland" who brought us Care Bears and Madballs!
So there you have it! 7 neato-cool books I found at Scottie's Books! I will of course be stopping in there for my annual "spooky books" hunt for my October Halloween countdown again this year... but just in case they permanently close their doors before fall gets here, I may want to make the trip sooner rather than later.
That's it for tonight kids! I'll be back soon with more Geeky Goodwill Goodies in the near future! Until then, Happy Hunting!
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!
All right... consider this your warning: This post is going to be LOADED with mostly books. Absolutely no toys. So if that's not your thing... turn back now. But I hope you don'! There's some pretty fun and funny book finds this time around! Stick around and check it out!
This is everything, all piled together. Last chance to turn back!
First up a couple of cassette tapes. "The Carpenters: And Old Fashioned Christmas" and the self-titled "New Kids on the Block" cassette! Not a whole lot to say about either of these, honestly... I'll probably have more to say about the Carpenters when December rolls back around. I was never a huge New Kids fan, but I do have a certain amount of nostalgia for them since I had friends (or friends with older sisters) who LOVED these guys. Look at those clothes. And mullets!
Roger Zelazny is hands down one of my top 5 authors, so the rare occasion where I find a book of his that I don't already own is pretty great. Isle of the Dead looks to be a great read in typical Zelazny fashion. I never read SeinLanguage when it was really popular, so I'll be interested to see what I think of it when I finally crack the spine on this one. Seinfeld was one of my favorite sitcoms (as it was for most folks I guess) at a certain point in my life.
Choose YOur Own Adventures very rarely DON'T make it home with me, so Grave Robbers should come as no surprise... and although I am a self-avowed X-Men fanatic from waaay back, it is rare that I pick up comic book novels. This one, Prisoner X, is written by Anne Nocenti and involves the Mojoverse however... so it's just a no-brainer this time.
I realized I don't already own the Little Golden Book version of Mickey's Christmas Carol. So... fixed that finally. Phew. I also found this HILARIOUSLY racist copy of Bugs Bunny and the Indians which is also a Little Golden Book which has been stripped of its Golden spine. How racist is it?
It's THIS racist.
A couple of Muppet-family books to be excited about: a Muppet Babies paper dolls book, and Imagine... Big Bird Meets Santa Claus which I feel is a bit wishy-washy honestly. I get that they're trying to be "honest" here by going with the whole "IMAGINE" concept... but if you want to avoid having to acknowledge the existence of beloved mythical holiday characters (by having them interact with your "real" giant bird puppet character. Ahem.) maybe just try not cashing in on them at all?
Sorry for how blurry this one came out... probably the very best finds out of this lot and I got a crummy picture of them which I didn't realize until much later. Ah well. There's a Real Ghostbusters Pop-Up book The Birthday Ghost, and a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles junior novel, Sky High. I'll go way more in-depth into the pop-up book in the future sometime. It's in good shape, but the pop-ups are really low-effort and kind of lack-luster honestly. But still a fun find! And anything TMNT is always welcome!
Well that's it kids! That's all he wrote! See, that wasn't too bad was it? Some pretty neat books in the pile, right? I thought so. I'll be back soon with more Geeky Goodwill Goodies! Until then, Happy Hunting!
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!
All right... this bin I found at a yard sale last September has been an EPIC in the making for this blog. This is the fourth installment in the series, and believe it or not, I still have one more to go!!! (Be sure to see what I included in parts One, Two, and Three)
The last two posts had a certain kind of focus or theme to them, and this one is much the same. I'm going to showcase the last of the super-hero action figures that were in the bin, be they Marvel or DC.
First up we have a couple of classic characters from a couple of classic lines.
Here is Captain America from the Secret Wars toy line in 1984. He was originally packed with a lenticular shield, but mine is sans this accessory. His paint job has also seen better days, but I still can't help but smile when I look at this guy. I had an Iron Man figure from this line when I was growing up, and he was a favorite member of the forces of good, fighting against the legions of Hordak. Seeing Cap here in the bin got my hopes up that I might also find good ol' shell-head, but alas, he was not included. Still, a pretty welcome addition to my collection.
Here we have a Mr. Freeze from the third series of DC Super Powers action figure line. I don't have a lot to say about this one as I didn't have it as a kid and I wasn't a huge Super Powers fan, unfortunately. I had a few of the ones pertaining to the Batman action figures, like the Joker, Penguin, Robin, Two-Face, and a few others. Unfortunately this Mr. Freeze is missing his helmet, some hoses, and his freeze ray.
All right! Here are a trio of Marvel action figures!
First up we have this Toybiz Archangel. I also received one of these from Miss M about 2 months after buying this bin. The one she sent me was in MUCH better condition, so this one flew off to a new home shortly after that. (True story: I found ANOTHER Archangel action figure at Goodwill only about a week ago, missing his wings completely. I opted to leave him there... but it has almost literally been raining Archangels around here for a while.)
This handsome devil is the Hulk villain, the Leader! I really like the idea behind the Leader. The idea that the gamma radiation that made the Hulk a rage monster and gave him super strength could do the same thing to someone else's BRAIN. I love this guy's translucent head! My research online revealed that he was from the 1997 Smash & Crash line, and was originally included with some sort of battle-bot. He used to have juice in his head that would pump around and make his brain look all gross but it has long since leaked out or dried up. Either way I really like the color and look of this action figure!
This is X-Men 2099 villain Brimstone Love! He was the creator of the Theater of Pain... a sort of torture-as-performance-art sort of thing. He was a badass and possibly a mutant who had... devil? powers? He could summon magma, create illusions, was super strong, and looked the part physically... so the whole thing was very Dante-does-DUNE-ish. I have a soft spot for this villain as a big fan of the X-Men 2099 series. The cape you see him wearing here was a random one included in the bin, and not his actual red cape (though it is very similar, so he's keeping it).
Here's another pile of 90's Marvel might... but this time it's ALL X-related. I lumped these all together because they sort of epitomize the 90's x-machine, with its buckles and pouches and extra padding galore. I'm not really in love with any of these figures, to be honest.
First up we have X-Force era Cannonball, in his Externals-period costume. This is not really my favorite X-Era by any means. I collected and read X-Force through this period, but it was far from my favorite book even back then. This figure is even less impressive to me than the design in the books at the time. I NEVER understood the aviator goggles (even though they have survived through several costume changes right up to today). Sam Guthrie is invulnerable to harm when he is blasting through the air. Why would he need eye protection? And those ones on his forehead are so tiny I doubt they'd do much... and they can't move down off his forehead as they are sculpted on. I'm just picking now, I know.
One of my absolute LEAST favorite X-Villains of all time, Omega Red had tentacles and basically killed people with his B.O. (Sorry... "Death spores" Suuuure.) He was also russian. I never liked him and every time he showed up he just made less sense and was less relevant than the last time.
Cable is one of those characters that I have always had a love/hate relationship with. He heralded the end of everything I loved about the New Mutants, and was the absolute epitome of the 90's bad-ass with giant guns, cybernetics, and a costume made up more of pouches and straps than anything a superhero would normally have worn. The character's main saving grace was the fact that he wasn't a complete moron, and he has been put to much better use in the years since then he was at inception. This action figure is both hideous and kind of cool in even parts.
Another 90's gun-toting badass, Bishop here is a tiny die-cast figurine from back when that used to be a thing. Believe it or not though, I do actually like Bishop quite a bit. I think because he put a new and interesting dynamic into the X-Men at the time. He wasn't the leader of the team, and instead was forced to get his militaristic attitudes and his comfortability with murder and suicide as battle tactics under control. I remember a Danger Room session where simulation-Apocalypse has Bishop in his clutches and is using him as leverage against the other X-Men. Bishop simply places a gun to the side of his OWN head and tells faux-Apocalypse he is more than willing to blow his own head off rather than be used to force his team-mates into compromising. The exact line evades me right now but at one point Bishop tells holo-Apocalypse that he'll be tasting Bishop's brains on his lips. That kind of stuck with me. I hate that he has now been turned into a homicidal maniac villain. That's so cliche.
Next up is this legion of Batmen, possibly a mix of figures from both the first and second Tim Burton films. These are all those famously ridiculed variant costumes the 90's became famous for:
As demonstrated awesomely by this clip from Batman: The Brave and the Bold.
Front and center are the two Batmen from the first Tim Burton Batman film. The one on the left here is the original "fat-face" Batman that I personally felt like looked more like Michael Keaton in the movie. He was the one I actually had as a kid. The one on the right replaced fat-face after a while because they supposedly wanted a sculpt that looked more like the actor. The capes in the other picture here don't go to ANY of the capeless Batmen pictured in any of these photos as far as I can tell.
In the first picture, from left to right, we have what I believe is Thunder Whip Batman, Air-Attack Batman, and another Batman I simply couldn't place. In the second picture, on the left, we have Tec-Shield or Aero-Strike Batman. On the right, Deluxe Blast Shield or Bola-Strike Batman. (Thanks to the Legions of Gotham web-site for their awesome action figures archive!)
Here are a trio of somewhat less identical-looking Batman action figures.
This charming fellow is "Future Batman" from the Legends of Batman line. Instead of a cape he had a sort of exoskeleton piece that fit down over his head and shoulders.
From the figure line for the Batman Forever film, Neon Armor Batman.
And finally, this frigid figure from the Batman and Robin Movie line... Ice Blast Mr. Freeze
Here's a freaky-tiki foursome! A mix of characters from DC and Marvel!
I smell tuna melt!
I didn't bother to look up what line this Night Wing figure is from. I have never really been terribly interested in Night Wing. He always seemed like a character that got too big for his britches, got new britches, got replaced by someone who fit the old britches... and then sort of lost relevance. He was kept around because people liked the guy more than they just like Robin... and the problem with that sort of story-telling is that you end up with guys who all used to be Robin stacked up like cord-wood all over your universe.
Her bewbs have antennae.
Hey! Remember when The Wasp was a weird insect lady all the time? Me either. I had to look it up. I mean... I sort of remember seeing the design back in the day (This version of the Wasp debuted in 1996) but I was never an Avenger fan back in the day, and that was around the time I was quickly losing interest in most of the comics on the market at the time. Apparently this action figure was actually from a Spider-Man line of figures that all featured insect-armor as accessories. The armors could be removed from the characters and put together to create large mutated-looking insects as well. The Wasp's armor/ally was a big mutant lady-wasp that also included her wings.
Groin strain!
A character with some similar issues is Kyle Rayner. He's one of... how many human Green Lanterns in a literal LEGION of Green (and other colored) Lanterns? I count at least 5 different completely human Green Lanterns from Earth. And while I have a soft spot for the character, and the GL legacy... that's just way too many characters to actually keep them all relevant and thriving and vital in our universe. Then add the dozens upon dozens of other alien Green Lantern characters... plus the Red, Yellow, Blue, etc. colored Lanterns, all vying for your time and attention and poor Kyle just kind of looks like a reject from a reboot in the 90's. But I really like the sculpt on this action figure!
I know... I'm not Magneto. :(
Here is Joseph. Joseph is a young clone of Magneto. That isn't enough to make him into an action figure. So they stuck a sabertooth skull to his shoulder and packed him in with Amphibius of the Savage Land Mutates (whose name they correctly misspelled as "Amphibious" on the package). I don't give a crap about Joseph, honestly. He was a dumb sort of plot development that didn't really seem to have much point. If I had found an Amphibius action figure in this bin however, I would have completely peed my pants:
Oh... what could have been.
All right. We've come to the end of this post. The last trio of figures this time around (Don't forget, there's one MORE installment in this Yard Sale Bin saga before it's done) are from the animated Batman series of action figures.
This is Street Jet Bruce Wayne, who came with a racecar-esque vehicle.
This is Ninja Robin. Sans ninja cape. His right arm is stuck like that. It's spring-loaded so when you push it down it flicks right back up again. I'm guessing to throw something ninja-y.
And finally... Man-Bat! Man-Bat is a sort of favorite Batman character for me, regardless of how on-the-nose he seems to be, metaphor-wise. But there's just something kick-assingly groovy about anthropomorphic bats, be they Batman villains or TMNT allies or whatever. I think this was one of the most exciting finds for me out of the entire bin, to be honest. I mean, there were a lot of great finds in there... I mean a LOT... but I loves me some Man-Bat. This guy is currently suspended from my ceiling by some string, in mid flight.
All right kids! That was fun! That's all I've got for tonight though. And believe it or not, there's still ONE MORE WHOLE POST worth of toys out of this Yard Sale Bin! But before we get to that, I'll be back with some more Geeky Goodwill Goodies! Until then, Happy Hunting!
