COOL BEANS 10-10

Just a few recent things I've been meaning to blog about.

This last weekend I went to "The Worlds Biggest Garage Sale" which probably isn't really the worlds BIGGEST garage sale because that would be ridiculous, but I like it and I go to it every year anyway.

This year they held it at the local cattle congress fairgrounds (yeah, I'm from Iowa) and my sister was one of the people who helped organize and run the event. She said they opened the doors at 7:30 am and there would be a long line of people waiting to get in so I should try and get there early.
I woke up at about 6:00 am so I could be good and ready. Sure enough by the time I got there a large hoard of people had already formed a line. I could see my sister in the doorway of the east entrance where she said she would be stamping peoples hands. It costs a buck to get in.
There was about 300 people waiting to go in the door. I overheard a couple people mention that there was another entrance around back so I followed them around the building and got right in.
I've got an exceptional ability to scour a large flea market quickly for stuff I like so it only took me about twenty minutes to make my rounds through the different vendors. The local comic shop had a large booth and since they recognized me I had to stop and chit-chat with them for a few minutes.
There wasn't a whole lot of antiques and old collectibles this year, it seemed to be a lot of stuff that was from the last 20 years and kind of disappointing. I guess they try and cater to what they feel Iowans would dig so the vendors bring out all their Nascar, wrestling figures and collectables, baseball cards, country records, and crafty stuff.
I always scan the whole place before I buy anything. By the time I was finished I had found very little I was interested in.
I ended up paying a quarter for a blue dinosaur Diener eraser that I dug out of a bag of rubber dinosaurs and five Mad magazines I talked the vendor down to $1.00 each. I already had two of them in my collection but they were in good condition so I just got them all.

Here's my loot:




Mad Super Special #8 1972


Mad Super Special March 1994


Mad Sex and Dating November 1993

This one has one of my favorite Spy Vs Spy Vs Spy cartoons where the third female spy outsmarts the other two.




Mad Collectors Series January 1993

I remember my mom bought me this issue when I was a kid and home sick with the flu. I must have read it cover-cover a dozen times that day.


Mad Collectors Series 11 August 1995

This one was a good find too because it still had the poster in it illustrated by John Pound. He's they guy that painted all the early Garbage Pail Kids.



Overall it was worth the dollar to get in and I got to see my sister.

I've also been meaning to post these awesome sketch cards that G.P.K. artist and pal Brent Engstrom mailed to me and my kids. He started doing these really cool sketches on the peeled off backs from old GPK cards. He did two of those for each of us and also a colored sketch of us as Garbage Pail Kids. Freaking awesome!!



He drew me up as "Cleaved Steve". I commented, "That's all I need is another scar on my head."

He also drew me up "Sewer Sue" and "Nasty Nick"





He sketched my son Jack as "Jack Frost"



He also did the GPK "Jack Frost" and "Jack-O-Lantern" for him.





For my daughter Sam he drew her as "Snooty Samantha"



Brent also sketched her "Snooty Sam" and "Soft-Boiled Sam".





Once again, these are freaking amazing. Thanks a bunch Brent.



Another thing I wanted to post is that I finally got around to stopping by my local Target to see what they had for the new Wacky Packages series 7 stuff. I was hoping to find the blister packs so I could get the bonus cards but didn't find any. I was surprised to see that they had the mini cereal box sets which I ordered off the Topps website because I didn't think they were released in stores? (see previous WP series 7 post). I did find the Garbage Pail Kids silly bands though. For some reason they saw Garbage Pail Gang which is weird ( In Australia the cards are called "The Garbage Gang"). The bands which are rubber bands that kids wear on their wrists and when removed retain some specific shape (ex: dog, flower, car...) they are currently a big fad for kids and come in all different styles and colors. They even have scented and glow-in-the-dark bands. The Garbage Pail Gang ones are shaped like poop, fart blast, garbage cans, etc... too bad they didn't make them smell. I've been wearing the poop one for the last couple days. I'm just a big kid. Samantha said her school banned silly bands because they were a distraction and some kids were putting them around their necks.





That reminds me, there is a funny spoof of silly bandz in the latest issue of Mad:


Mad #506 December 2010



Made me laugh.

Last of all, before I hit the hay I wanted to share something neat. The great Wacky Package/Garbage Pail Kid artist Jay Lynch had mentioned on Facebook that he ran across a box of old personalized pens he had left over and he said if anyone wanted to mail him a self-addressed stamped envelope he would send you one. I guess he has about 500? So of course I mailed him a letter and I'll post something when it comes. I drew him up an envelope based on an old Wacky Packages card. Here's the pics:






Done nerding out, time for bed.