The Dr. gets it

 Something Trumpers don't understand is that it isn't about winning, too many of them care too much about winning and losing, when it's really about being kind. As the Dr. so aptly puts it. 

Comic Book Coloring Appreciation Post: Tom Vincent's Silver Surfer (over Ron Lim & Tom Christopher)

 

Thanks to the Marvel digital app, I've been re-reading the 1987 Silver Surfer series, started by Steve Englehart & Marshall Rogers, and it has been a blast. I read these when they were originally published, and those early issues were fun, but for me, things really kicked into high gear when Ron Lim started as regular artist. Lim was the first artist, with inker Tom Christopher, to make the Surfer actually look metallic, with skin that reflected light. Before then, the Surfer was merely a white figure who surfed in space -- a pretty cool character, no doubt, but not 'silver,' as far as I could tell. 

Note the pink highlights on the Surfer, as he stands across from Galactus

Something I don't remember, though, but which really stood out to me during this read-through, was the coloring of Tom Vincent. He really took the reflective surface to a new level with his work, subtly coloring the Surfer to reflect not just light but also the coloring of his surroundings, at times, particularly if those surroundings were hulking antagonists like Galactus. 

  

And notice the brown highlights...

...mirroring the color of the Surfer's opponent

I only noticed this coloring toward the end of my read-through of those first 50 issues, but I have to guess that Vincent was doing this for far longer than the images I took from the last couple of issues, here. Regardless, it's an attention to detail that strongly appeals to me and makes me appreciate this fun series even more. 

And one last time, note the surface of the planet reflected on the Surfer's skin. Just fabulous!

WATCHMEN (digital edition): What is Wrong With DC Comics?

 

 ...and why do they continue to show disdain for Alan Moore, who is responsible for a wealth of their evergreen sales since he landed at DC in the early 80s?

The above image is one of the most iconic cover images in western comic book history. So, why, on the DC Universe app, did DC choose to replace that image with the following one, for the first issue of Watchmen? 

Answer: I don't know.
Another Answer: They don't care about history.
Yet Another Answer: They don't have the first idea about the approach that Moore & Gibbons took, when working on Watchmen and somehow forgot(??) that the cover image of every single issue of Watchmen WAS ALSO THE FIRST PANEL OF THE CHAPTER AND LED DIRECTLY INTO PAGE ONE, PANEL ONE OF THE BOOK. 

What the hell, DC Comics?

Star Wars toys were the best . . . for the most part

 

Star Wars (the film, the toys, the trading cards, the comic books, the novels, all of it) was a phenomenon, and I was smack in the middle of it in 1977, at 5 years old. It was . . . glorious! Star Wars was probably my second major collection -- after Matchbox cars, which my grandfather started me on -- and it was likely the first one I chose consciously. And the major part of that Star Wars collection has to be the toys.  

The smaller scale of the figures -- 3.75" compared with the previously standard 11.5" inch size of figures such as Barbie or G.I. Joe (original with kung fu grip, natch) -- meant they were less expensive, so children like me could buy more. Since we could only see the movies when they were in the theater during the late 1970s and into the early 80s, these were the best thing to keep us interested in the pending sequels. A handful of figures and a backyard, and my friends and I were set, crafting myriad adventures in that galaxy far, far away. 

Of course, there were also some great ships that could be used to enhance our play. These ranged from Tattooine's favorite mode of transport, the landspeeder, to many of the ships we saw our heroes, and villains, pilot during the space battles. In keeping with the smaller scale and subsequent economic feasibility of the figures, these ships were built so the figures could readily fit inside. Thus, they too were less expensive than what might have been. It was, as stated above, glorious! 

The attention to detail, particularly when dealing with the ships was top-notch. (The figures were great as well, but with the smaller size it was challenging to get a good likeness in the face, and don't get me started on the cantina aliens, which looked like their filmic counterparts but were oddly attired in a wholly different manner, which didn't really matter to us, as kids, because they were still the bomb, yo!) These were the ships we had seen in the darkened theater, and now they were in our sweaty palms soaring through the sky -- at roughly 3-4 feet off the ground rather than through the vacuum of space, but we didn't quibble, we had the nation of imagi- (get it?). Heady times, those, especially since, despite the relative affordability it was still a challenge to fully outfit the rebel and Imperial crews, since my family was staunchly middle class. But with your group of friends, you might be able to pull together a full complement of Star Wars vehicles and playsets and figures. If you were lucky. 

Anyway, the detail was amazing on these things . . . with one glaring exception. The Star Destroyer. I don't know what was going on with this thing. Maybe -- likely -- it was the fact that it was a ridiculously huge starship in the films and would have been impossible to produce to the scale of the figures. I really don't know. What we got, though, was worthy of a side-eye. 

But what're you gonna do? All the rest were phenomenal toys that afforded me and my friends hours and days and months of play. And everyone is allowed a mulligan now and then. Maybe one day we will get a great Star Destroyer toy (though it would probably have to be large enough to fill a room or two in my house). Until then, let's not forget that one of the toys that was made solely for the toy market and never seen in the films is now canon, thanks to the Mandalorian. I give you, the Troop Transport.

World's Greatest Super Hero Cups - Mission Accomplished

In my last post, I mentioned how I'd searched for any information on these 1.5" plastic cups I would get from the vending machines at Ames, during my childhood in the late 70s/early 80s. But I always came up blank. And for a long time I figured that maybe they all had just been destroyed or lost. They were terribly fragile, and so many items of my youth went MIA with no discernible reason that it seemed plausible. Until early this year, when I finally unlocked the Google Search Code [TM]. 

Then I started scouring eBay and Etsy and Google, hunting down any of these cups I could find (knowing, as revealed in the previous post, that there were 12 total to acquire). I quickly managed to snag 10 of the 12. Unsurprisingly, the two that were proving elusive were the female characters -- Wonder Woman and Batgirl. Now, there was a Batgirl cup for sale on eBay, but it was priced at $99.99. I had been paying between $3-7 each for these cups; no way was I shelling out a hundred bucks for Batgirl. It was a quandary . . . 

I continued to do my searches, though, and discovered an eBay listing for the full collection of only 12 stickers, plus 4 stickers from the Marvel cups offered in 1978. These were priced at $244.95. Ha! No way! But . . . that got me thinking I should search for the stickers, because it would be nice to have a full set of those, in addition to the cups. This turned up a listing at the Superman Store for the full set of stickers -- 10 bucks on sale; done! At this point, a plan started to form in my brain. 

I decided to order two sets of the stickers from the Superman Store, which was still less than 10% of the cost for the full set on eBay, and less than a dollar per sticker -- so, a good deal. I then put in an offer on a listing of a pair of these cups with characters I already had, and the seller accepted. Once those two cups arrived, as well as the sticker sets, I put my plan into action. Peeling the stickers from the duplicate cups, which was surprisingly easy, I then applied the Wonder Woman and Batgirl stickers to the now naked cups, and voila, a full set was born. 

I gotta say, putting together this small set of cups from when I was seven years old was incredibly satisfying. I'm so happy to have them as part of my "full-to-bursting" collection of comics, Star Wars toys, statues, posters, prints, original art, et al. 

Excelsior!

World's Greatest Super-Heroes Cups & Decals (1980s vending machines)

 I have been scouring the internet for years trying to find information on these little plastic cups that I collected, back when I was a kid. And finally -- FINALLY -- I crafted the correct phrase to land this. Here's a link:

https://www.kandorarchives.com/p/wgsh-cups.html

And, just to be on the safe side, I copied the whole damn piece (it's short), just in case the blog disappears into the ether.

1979 : DC World's Greatest Super-Heroes Cup Decals

Collect 'Em All and Be Popular!

World's Greatest Super-Heroes cups and decals were released by DC Comics in 1979.
The miniature plastic cups were dispensed from toy capsule vending machines for 25 cents each.
Each bubble capsule included a cup and one of twelve different pressure-sensitive decals.

A similar collection of cups and stickers featuring eight Marvel Superheroes was released in 1978.
The cups and decals were sold with various Marvel and DC novelties including five Superheroes Flickers,
Giant-Size Hero-Stickers, magnets, puffy stickers, and iron-on felt patches.

The series was illustrated by Dick Giordano.
Superman appears on three different decals.
Each plastic-coated decal label measures approximately 1 x 3 inches.
The mini-cups are 1.5 inches tall and about an inch in diameter.

The World's Greatest Super-Heroes series of eight-inch dolls from Mego Corporation
features characters from both DC Comics and Marvel Comics. 
World's Greatest Super-Heroes debuted at E.J. Korvette department stores in New York City
on November 8, 1972. The Superman doll remained in production until 1983. 
The World's Greatest Superheroes newspaper comic strip ran seven days a week
from April 3, 1978, to February 10, 1985.

1978 : Marvel Superheroes Cup Decals
The Amazing Spider-Man
Captain America
Fantastic Four
The Incredible Hulk
The Mighty Thor
Ms. Marvel
Spider-Woman
The Thing
1979 : DC World's Greatest Super-Heroes Cup Decals
Aquaman
Batgirl
Batman
The Joker
Lex Luthor
The Penguin
The Riddler
Robin
Superman (Violet)
Superman (Green)
Superman (Blue)
Wonder Woman