MY COMICS /BOOKS /TOYS & COOL STUFF

Welcome to my blog, I am based in Nottingham UK & I love toys, comics, science fiction, horror ect. This blog is dedicated to my trips around the flea markets, toy shops & charity shops, toy fairs & E bay in pursuit of that elusive bargain and holy grail toy.
All the toys & comics reviewed are mine.
I shall be regulary updating my finds and trips out to various car boots & toy fairs.
Hope you find it of interest!

Wednesday 14 December 2011

HULK AND SUPERHERO 1970"s BOARD GAMES

Its been a bit quiet on the charity shop & car boot front at the moment, so most of my recent buys have been from E bay,these 2 great games are from the UK company Palitoy who you may know mainly for Action Man, they also did a great line in Board Games this is the Hulk game from 1979, featuring 'Abomination' i really love the box art its striking & colour full and looks pretty fab on display.

Instructions &  Hulk /Banner Counters
I like the fact that Abomination comes as a cube!, and the Banner/hulk counters are pretty cool, the cards depict buildings,something the Hulk likes to smash, I've not had chance to play this yet so i hope it works as a game a bit better than the Dollar man board game does.

Hulk Board Hulk Smash!
A great bargain for £8.00, I've seen some sellers with it listed at £30.00.
so merry Hulkmass everyone!


This is the other game i got just a few days after my Hulk purchase, I'm always on the lookout for vintage Superhero toys & games anything from the sixties or seventies, the artwork & design of those decades was fantastic, and a lot more imaginative than you see nowadays.
Made by the Bradgate division of Palitoy comes the 'Marvel comics Superheroes Game' i guess between the 2, this is my fave as it features not one but five superheroes all battling against the mighty' Mephisto', a character i must admit to not being familiar with, i would have thought 'Kang' or 'Doctor Doom' would have fitted the game better, but saying that, he does look pretty mean & cool.

Great Board Excelsior!
As you can see another great board, depicting the Five heroes in separate corners, and the middle kept for another Cube shaped Villain!..the designers at Palitoy seemed to like their cube shaped characters.

Iron man & Torch
Super Spidey
The inside is also super great featuring more character counters of the Heroes & their everyday counterparts ( excuse the pun) and that great Mephisto cube and a super spinner, no doubt left over from the Batman/Superman games,this is one I'm really looking forward to playing over the holidays.

WOW!


Mighty Mephisto..Cube!
Complex Instructions..

Hopefully I'll get a chance to do one more blog before Chrismas with a few of my recent charity shop finds..but if not.
Happy Holiday's everyone!

Monday 28 November 2011

SIX MILLION DOLLAR FINDS!

Although I'm not a huge fan, i still couldn't help picking up these odd few Six Million Dollar Man items i discovered recently, the first was in a charity shop and cost me £2.99 , its another of those classic Denys Fisher 1970's games that i like, those and any made by Palitoy with a Superhero/Science Fiction theme are usually Great with superb box art/graphics that even if your not a collector of that particular show,the box makes them worth picking up.



We had an attempt at playing the game one night, its pretty awful to play, but the board spinner & figure cards  look great..very basic, throw a dice, miss a go stuff, not very challenging even for the time, i remember a Friend having it but i don't remember it being so dull to play.
Most of the other Denys Fisher games had the same problem, ( except War of the Daleks) and used the same game play, They had a spinner instead of dice, carded figures..etc, they were obviously quick money making spin offs what saved them was, as I've said, they looked great.

Great board & bionic Spinner!

A total surprise was finding this 1970's poster mag in the box, hidden under the inside board!..it opens out into a huge poster of Lee Majors i can imagine this graced many walls in the UK during the 1970's.

Dollar Bonus Mag!
the great Steve Austin
Finding those great items inspired me to drag out this also very great Berwick mask & outfit set, i got this around 20 years ago very cheap from an old toy shop, as I've said I'm not a  collector but these SMDM items just seem to find me.

great Box

The actual outfit is hilarious. but as a child's dressing up outfit it kind of works, just a red suit of some kind would have been really dull, so i guess they overcompensated with this!..its madly Psychedelic.

WILD!

I love the side of the box too..great little graphic, i also have the Batman dressing up outfit from around the same time, but the box is nowhere near as good.

Good  Side!
I also have this projector, another accidental buy when i saw it going really cheap on the E bay i decided on a last minuet bid and got it for £2.99..again, seems to be a good price for Vintage Dollar Man the box is faded, but i have no intention of keeping it and I'll have to sell it on along with the mask. space is at a premium at the moment in the Toy room..

Shame about the faded box

The slides look great, but its no longer working but i do love those old Chad Valley projector sets, i have a few more Dollar Man items scattered around the Toy room, my fave being this Old Oscar Goldman doll who's fallen fowl of the Mighty Jaws..


Poor Oscar he'll need Bionic legs now!
And here's Steve..hiding in the darkest corner of the Room..

Steve and his pal The Green Goblin!
I have one more Dollar Man related item, which I'll blog about later in the week..bet you cant wait!

Monday 31 October 2011

SHIVER & SHAKE ! JUNK SHOP FIND

I also found this great IPC comic from 1973, another i remember from my child hood, i found these 11 issues in a junk shop while out hunting on Friday.


Shiver and Shake began in 1973, the first issue containing a free gift, a rubber chocolate biscuit! i tried it on my dad, carefully concealing it amongst 3 others on a plate whilst he had his regular Saturday afternoon coffee..and yes it worked!
I love  The back page creepy creations! by Leo Baxendale
Frankie stein was the most popular character and he went on to appear in his own comic.


Happy Halloween Everyone!

HAUNTED HOUSE! CHARITY SHOP FIND


Yes i was lucky enough to find this Denys Fisher classic game on Saturday, while out for an afternoons rummage around the local charity shops, its not complete but it still displays great and bought back a few fond memories i had of owning one in the 70's


I always remember Gertie dropping it down the chimney!..that's one of the witches by the way.and nothing to do with my private life!


The game is missing a few bits, including the part to get the broom handle to swing, and one of the clips to hold a wall in place, but for £2.50 i was more than happy to bring this classic home..

Great Game Board
It has all the cards & mice's..and even dirty Gerties original Ball..
Happy Halloween Everyone!

Sunday 30 October 2011

CHRISTOPHER LEE DRACULA & RARE BOOKS

Yes its nearly upon us so as my little Halloween special i thought I'd blog some of my other half's Vampire bits & pieces, first is the rather fantastic Product Enterprise Christopher Lee Dracula, this is a truly great figure, and one all horror fans should have in their collections


The box is no great shakes really, i think a film poster in the style of the Sideshow figure
boxes would be better, the back of the box is a little more interesting showing the figure inside & the accessories


The figure itself is As I've said pretty fantastic, featuring a great likeness of my fave Dracula with a face Straight from the Hammer classic  'Taste the Blood Of Dracula' this looks great on display.
It also comes with Harkers Diary, A Flaming candle and a Crucifix.


The outfit is very well made with great detail, this figure was an absolute E Bay bargain for us costing £20.00, on one of thiose odd rare E Bay moments where, for what ever reason no one else is bidding, they usually fetch
upwards of £40.00 so yes, we were very pleased with him!

Drac on display

Some other Vampire bits, this great old Pan Book 'The Vampire'.presented by Roger Vadim! this is the firs edition from 1963 i love the cover its very creepy and of the time, the inside contents are all short story's by various classic authors..


In search of Dracula has some fantastic illustrations and drawings and is a factual account by 2 researchers to trace the steps of the real Dracula, or Vlad the Impailer, once again a rather fantastic ' Taste the Blood Of' cover and an excellent read,  dates from1973 and is well worth seeking out, its pictured along with 'Dracula's Gold' from the New English Library, this is a bit of a daft story! but worth having as part of the Vamp collection.


All of these books were obtained years ago by my girlfriend, in the long dark days before E Bay, when you could still find such Books pretty cheaply at Flea markets & book fairs.
Ladybird Books, are better known for their Children's titles, more so than any horror based Books, but this one dating from 1985 is Superb, its still of course aimed at children, but it has some really atmospheric illustrations inside.

Ladybirds Children's Version, still Pretty Creepy!

Love the bottom right illustration
Variation On the Cover Picture By Angus McBride
Next is this great Dracula 7" single On power records, a sub label of 'Peter Pan Records' who also did a lot of Superhero & film titles, usually a book & record..if this did come with a book, its long gone but what a great little item, with a really cool cover, front & back. I'm saving this to play tomorrow night at a little Halloween get together were having.



Lastly is this British Publication by comic master Dez Skin 'The Halls Of Horror' i have a few of these but this one features Christopher Lee so it fits in well with this Blog Post with very visually Striking cover art by Ricardo Villagran, i shall be blogging these great mags in the near future


Wednesday 26 October 2011

FORBIDDEN WORLDS

I recently won these great Forbidden Worlds comics on E Bay i usually just stick to my Marvel & DC as there are enough titles there to keep me busy and empty my Pay pal account, but as these were going cheap i couldn't resist,and also because i hadn't Blogged any of my recent comic buys and theres been a lot of those!, if your not too fussed about condition, which I'm not,as long as no pages are missing or cut out i don't mind the occasional crease or mark so the following Forbidden Worlds can best be described as  very good, or Reader copy's if you like.




The devil cover with the story 'The Gift Of Guts' is my fave so far, i like Devil associated items and that is a great cover the others feature more of the  super hero type characters,rather than the one off 'Tales of Terror' style story's the comic started with due to pressure from the senate which saw the rise of the 'Comic Code' and the more horror type story's dropped. All the issues are enjoyable, and feature good artwork including Marvels John Buscema.






The comic ran for 145 issues from October 1961..and yes I'm getting my info from Wiki, otherwise i wouldn't have a clue about this comic! but after enjoying these 4 issues thoroughly I'm after more!..oh no, that's how things start getting out of hand ,and before you know it, your very poor,but comically richer!

First story from issue 113
The Hypno Coin!.classic ad.
Cover story 'The Gift of Guts!'

NEW CUSTOM HEADERS DINOSAURS & HULK


Here's some of Steve's new headers he's done for me, the Dinosaurs one is my fave, it has a great authentic 70's Hong Kong feel to it, which as regular readers of this blog will know, is one of my favourite areas of Toy Collecting, the dinosaurs are just generic ones I've found in various Charity shops during my hunts for cool items for the Toy Room, as is the Skeleton i found in a box of toys at a Car Boot.

This is the Hulk glove puppet i found at Donnington Toy Fair i believe it originally came in a box, not a header, but the recreation of a box was a bit beyond Steve's capabilities..or time, so the next best thing is this great 70's style Marvel Header..looks pretty convincing don't you think?

Hulk trapped in Plastic Bag!..that'll make him angry.

BEN COOPER CREATURE PEOPLE


I was lucky enough to be given this great Ben Cooper Creature Person as an early Christmas pressie by my good friend Steve yes the guy who also does the great custom header cards for me, you can imagine how pleased i was to receive this as a gift, i know how rare they are but he also knows its gone to a very good home where it will be looked after well in the company of other Monsters & Creatures in my Toy room.


How cool is that!

The Header is of course one of his excellent custom jobs, but fits the figure perfectly, I've googled the Creature People but i cant see a header card for them, either no one has one, or they never made one? it may have just had a tag i guess if anyone knows please get in touch.

cool custom header
Ben Cooper also made a female version, which Steve has and i think is planning to E Bay at some point, so keep a look out for that.

I love this, its so Creepy & weird!
Let Me Out!..I Need Blood..Human Blood!