MR. POTTER'S FUNTIME BLOG

TOPPS GUM GUM FOR DUMB DUMB

2012-01-09T20:12:00.000-08:00

Topps is famous for their yummy bubble gum. The most popular being of course Bazooka gum which has been around since shortly after WWII (I wonder if it was named after the weapon?).

Practically every kid on the planet has at one time or another peeled open the red/white/blue wrapper, read the Bazooka Joe comic, and chomped down on a piece of pink Bazooka gum.

Funtime blog readers are already aware that I (Mr. Potter) am a big trading card nut, and that's the gum that I'd like to blog about today.
Trading cards are often referred to as "gum cards" because a good number of them throughout time included a stick of gum in each pack. As kids it was a nice treat even though it usually lost it's flavor after 5-10 minutes. As grown-up kids and collectors it's quite annoying usually leaving a residue or stain on one or more cards in a pack.

Most trading cards don't have gum in them anymore. The last time I chewed fresh gum out of a pack of cards was when the first series of new Garbage Pail Kids came out in 2003, each pack had four pieces of "gross green" gum. I chewed the hell out of that stuff.

This is where I have to admit to a big nerd confession.
I not only collect trading cards, the wrappers, boxes, and ads....but I collect the gum too.
When it comes to 30+ year-old gum it's pretty much petrified. I found out a while back when ordering old boxes of trading cards and shelling packs that even though the gum is usually a pink rectangular slab that it actually comes in a variety of sizes and shades.
For example, a pack of series 9 Garbage Pail Kids from Canada has a shorter and pinker piece of gum than a pack from the U.S.
A lot of collectors search for the different wrapper variations while overlooking the gum variations inside.

Now, you have to ask the obvious question. Has Mr. Potter ever eaten the 30-year-old petrified gum? The answer is yes, but only once.

I'm one of many who opened an old pack of cards and put that crusty old stick in my mouth just out of curiosity. Everyone reacts the same way and says the same things:

#1 "It's not even gum anymore!"
#2 "It just crumbled to dust/powder!"
#3 "It's impossible to chew!"
#4 "It's pretty flavorless (until the aftertaste hits)"
#5 10-15 seconds frantically looking for somewhere to spit it out.

I've compiled a sample of Youtube videos for your funtime viewing pleasure, all of these include an individual trying to chew a piece of 30+ year-old Topps trading card gum. Enjoy....gag.

If anyone out there wants a try I got plenty for everyone!

BUNK'S JUNK 12-2011

2011-12-29T23:32:00.000-08:00

The bookshelf I store my Mad magazine collection on has long been filled to capacity so until I get a new one I've had to store my more recent copies in stacks around my studio.
When Tom Bunk mailed me some new sketches last month I held off on posting them on the funtime blog just to make sure which issues they were used for.
I recognized a lot of them from previous issues but wanted to wait till I went through the previous months mags to identify them.
Finally I gave up and just asked Tom.

The first set was from the JUNE 2011 issue of Mad #209
"Surprises To Watch For In The 2011 Baseball Season"

The best thing about this illustration is the tasers going into other fan's ears, mouths, and eyes. Also Tom can be seen in the crowd to the far right.

The next set is from the OCTOBER 2011 issue of MAD #511
"Dictators Next To Be Overthrown"

Babies with dynamite packs strapped around them.

This one is my favorite illustration from Tom's submission. Usually I would not laugh at children being bombed. It's my Garbage Pail Kid sense of humor. Mr. Bunk trained me young.

I've got to learn how to draw Waiters like this. Classic.

There is Tom in the crowd promoting himself (holding up the "More Bunk" sign).

Thanks again Tom for the sketches. You'll never know how much I enjoy them.

TOPPS A-TEAM 1983

2011-12-26T15:03:00.000-08:00

Yeah, another wonderful 80's trading card post. This time we have Topps A-TEAM cards from 1983.
I've already done some A-TEAM and Mr. T related posts in the past, but never shared the Topps cards. A-TEAM was one of my dad's favorite shows during the early 80's and I saw quite a few episodes but it was never one of my favorites. I think it was a little much for a young kid to understand at that time.
I bought the card set for a few bucks online.
Here are the packaging scans.

BOX FRONT

BOX OPEN WITH PACKS

CARD PACK

WRAPPER#1

WRAPPER#2

There are 66 cards and 12 stickers in the series. Here are the scans including card fronts and backs:

FUN FACT:The first episode aired after the 1983 Super Bowl. (IMDB)

FUN FACT: The gold that was worn by Mr. T during filming varied in weight, usually between 35 and 40 pounds. (IMDB)

Here are the 12 stickers

The backs of the stickers have puzzle pieces that complete one puzzle

Next: Grab your 3D glasses for Topps Jaws 3D 1983!!

EVAN'S ROBOT

2011-12-24T10:31:00.000-08:00

My nephew Evan loves to draw and I spent some time looking through his sketchbook recently while visiting my sister Catherine and her fiance Brian at their house.

He's only 6 but he's got some real talent. My two favorite drawings of his were a chicken with it's head exploding and this robot.

I told him I thought it was so cool that I would post it on my blog. I also drew my own version inspired by it.

Hopefully he'll let me borrow his chicken so I can post that one too.

MY FAMILY ALBUM

2011-12-24T08:10:00.000-08:00

My wife, Laura made me a family album for Christmas. She made it on Shutterfly. Pretty neat, thought I'd share it.

Click here to view this photo book larger

Shutterfly baby photo books are the perfect way to preserve your baby's precious moments.

GPK RADIO WITH YOUR HOST JUICE

2011-12-16T17:03:00.000-08:00

I've been watching this show on youtube. I think it's great and I'm pretty sure you don't have to be a huge Garbage Pail Kid or horror fan to appreciate it. It's the GPK radio show hosted by Juice (the bully from the Garbage Pail Kids movie).

I'm pretty sure it's not really the actor Ron MacLachlan who played Juice in the movie since he was murdered shortly after the movie was filmed by all the midgets who played the garbage pail kids in the movie. It was kind of like that movie "Freaks" where they waited for a dark rainy night and squiggled on their bellies through the mud with knives in their mouths.
Anyway I thought I'd share the links to the first 8 episodes:

I hope whoever is making these keeps it up. There's also a Facebook page if you're interested.

BUNK'S JUNK 11-2011

2011-11-13T10:14:00.000-08:00

Tom Bunk mailed me some more of his sketches recently so I thought I'd share some of them.

In January of 2011, Mad magazine released a special Spy VS Spy issue that included 5 mini-posters by artists Jim Lee, Peter Bagge, Evan Dorkin, Bob Staake, and Tom Bunk.

Tom submitted an amazing 2 page poster with dozens of black and white spies having it out.

Tom sent me 4 sketches he did for this poster. 3 of them are poster size and not too easy to scan but I did my best. It's really neat to see the different gags and ideas Tom went through before completing one of his best illustrations ever!

The 2 above have a lot of pencil work that for some reason didn't show up in the scans? Here are some close-up photos of the last sketch which was too large to scan.

I love how Tom inserted himself as a spy in the bottom left corner.

He also sent me a small sketch that looked really familiar. It took me a bit to remember where I'd seen it but I finally figured it out.

It's for the Wacky Packages series 8 card #20 (Tutino's Pizza Wraps)

Here's Mark Parisi's original concept sketch for this.

Tom also mailed me a ton of other sketches for a few other things that I haven't seen published anywhere yet so I'll most likely post those later. Thanks again Tom.

RECENT ARTWORK 10-2-11

2011-10-02T14:50:00.000-07:00

Once again I've gone quite a stretch without blogging. Ooops.
I've had plenty to blog about just plain lazy and that's no excuse.
Here is some of my recent artwork to share.

A vintage Mr. Potato head. I was looking through an old toy catalog and was surprised to see what Mr. Potato head originally looked like. Check it out.

I had an idea for a spoof called "Angry Turds". After I drew this I found out someone had already thought of the idea first. Happens all the time.

I start to draw random monster/Halloween sketches around this time of year.

A couple designs I drew.

These next drawings were redrawn from a child's drawings I found in the recycling bin. I thought they were neat so I redrew them. I do this all the time because kids have the best ideas and imagination.

VOKMA

OOIN

LENA

ONA

There were a few more of these but I can't remember where I put them. One was called "Zokma" a blue creature with horns and flippers.

Twinkie the Kid. My dad used to work for Hostess as I was growing up he had to dress in a Twinkie the Kid costume.

Choo-Choo I copied this from an old coloring book.

This idea just popped in my head, the devil luring children with treats and a chance to swing on his horns.

I call this one "Free Refills"! For a "How to draw Gross Stuff" book idea.

These two I drew all in ballpoint pen.

Garbage Pail Kid "Dirty Harry"

A creature I created.

These next three were all in colored pencil.

A "Wacky Package" style drawing I did based on an old cereal box cover.

Garbage Pail Kid "Live Mike" Took three days to finish. I changed the color of the guitar, added ears to him, and a couple other changes. Here's a scan of the original card:

I redrew this from a story in an old Disney magazine.

The last four are my gross babies for a "How To Draw Gross Stuff" book I was trying to make.

Snot Baby

Pee Baby

Ink Baby

Blood Baby

I did a couple more wood carvings but I'll save those for later. All for now.

TOPPS E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL 1982

2011-06-15T22:20:00.000-07:00

Continuing with my 80's trading card posts, I've scanned my Topps E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial cards from 1982. I don't have the full set, but I have 56/87 of the cards and 3/12 of the stickers. Good enough for a decent post I suppose.

Voted the 24th best movie of all time, E.T. was destined for a trading card series.

Here's box and wax pack pics:

Rack Pack card

Here's the cards from my collection. I included a little extra trivia just for fun.

ET's face was modeled after poet Carl Sandburg, Albert Einstein, and a pug dog.

Elliot's last name is never mentioned.

The filmmakers had requested that M&M's be used to lure E.T., instead of Reese's Pieces. The Mars company had denied their request and so Reese's Pieces were used instead. As a direct result, Reese's Pieces sales skyrocketed. Because of this, more and more companies began requesting that their products be used in movies. Thus, product placement was born.

At one point during filming, 'Drew Barrymore' was consistently forgetting her lines, annoying Steven Spielberg to the point where he actually yelled at her. He later found out that she had reported to work with a very high fever. Feeling guilty, he hugged her and apologized repeatedly as she cried and cried. He then sent her home - with a note from her director.

Most of the full-body puppetry was performed by a 2' 10 tall stuntman, but the scenes in the kitchen were done using a 10-year old boy who was born without legs but was an expert on walking on his hands.

Harrison Ford was initially intended to have a cameo role in the film as Elliot's school headmaster, but the scene was cut.

E.T.'s voice was provided byPat Welsh, an elderly woman who lived in Marin County, California. Welsh smoked two packets of cigarettes a day, which gave her voice a quality that sound effects creator Ben Burtt liked. She spent nine-and-a-half hours recording her part, and was paid $380 by Burtt for her services. Burtt also recorded 16 other people and various animals to create E.T.'s "voice". These included Spielberg; Debra Winger; Burtt's sleeping wife, who had a cold; a burp from his USC film professor; as well as raccoons, sea otters and horses.

Steven Spielberg stated in an interview that E.T. was a plant-like creature, and neither male or female.

E.T. riding in the basket on Elliot's bicycle flying in front of the moon has become the trademark image of Amblin Entertainment.

ET's communicator actually worked, and was constructed by Henry Feinberg, an expert in science and technology interpretation for the public.

With the exception of Elliot's mom, no adults' faces are shown until the last half of the film.

The doctors and nurses that work on E.T. are all real emergency room technicians. They were told to treat E.T. the same way they would treat a real patient so that their dialogue and actions would seem real.

C. Thomas Howell's film debut.

E.T. provided the inspiration for Neil Diamond's song "Heartlight" but no mention is ever made of the movie in the lyrics.

ET's plants included some made from inflated condoms with polyester blooms.

Here are three of the 12 stickers in the set. I don't have scans of the rest. The backs formed a puzzle.

Not only did Topps create the trading card series in 1982, but also a sticker album and ET candy dispensers.

I wish I would have bought these back in the day since they now sell for $8-10 each on Ebay.

NEXT: TOPPS A-TEAM 1983

WOODWORKING 6-11

2011-06-08T21:30:00.000-07:00

I've been working on quite a bit of artwork attempting to amass enough new stuff to do an art show this summer. I wanted to do a variety of pieces using different mediums (sketches, paintings, 3D paper art, found art, etc).
For the last month or so I have had a urge to work with wood. I kept telling myself that my grandmother who passed away last November was nagging me. She was a fantastically skilled woodcarver and artist.
Whether it was her prompting or not, I think out of sheer laziness or disregard I put it out of my mind for quite a while. I've only ever technically "carved" was pinewood derby cars in boy scouts and a plaster sculpture I did in college (neither too impressive).

A week or two ago I was at work with idle hands and had burned myself out on paper projects. Once again I was staring down at a few pencils a coworker had donated to me and I got that absurd desire to carve them up. I had an exacto knife from cutting cardboard sitting there and without too much thought I started whittling away at one of the pencils. I was amazed at how satisfying it was to just sit there cutting away. before long there were shavings all over my desk and by the end of the day I'd carved my no.2 into a neat little tiki totem pole thing!

I realized I wasn't half-bad at carving and it is terribly addictive. Ever since that day I've been carving one thing or another. I carved some more pencils at first, kid's wooden blocks, crayons (broke to easily), and some wood scraps that belonged to my grandma. I painted a bunch and figure maybe I'll think about selling some if I ever get around to that art show. Here's some photos of some of the stuff I carved (sorry about the poor quality. It doesn't do them justice).

I carved a car into this pencil.

Some of the alphabet blocks I carved. An excellent lesson in wood grain.

It's difficult with these photos to see the depth in these blocks. In the mouths and eyes, and with the creature peering from the box I carved up to 3/4" deep into the blocks with limited tools. I've been using exacto knives, the pointed end of a compass, toothpicks, and a potato peeler! Eventually I'll probably have to get some decent tools.

I've been carving mini figures in the style of Fisher Price "little people". The one on the left I had just began to make a kitten. The one on the right is my attempt at a Garbage Pail Kid (getting it's first coat of paint.

The last few were carved from wood that my grandmother had saved. After I began I realized why she had saved these scraps, even though they were small the quality of the wood was many times better that blocks or pencils. The last figure (female nude holding up a ball) took two days to finish.

I'm working on two larger carvings about 10" tall now that I've got a bit of practice. They are still in the beginning "rough" stages.

I'll post some updates as I do more work.

MAKING MONKEYS 5/11

2011-05-10T23:08:00.000-07:00

I decided last week to do a new "recycled paper" project. I was looking through monkey photos for another piece of art I'm working on and I came across the classic monkey with cymbals toy. I have one of these in my studio and it's really fun and annoying when you turn it on.

I started out designing one while I looked for paper and cardboard to build it. I decided to make 3 of them.

After sketching out the measurements I cut all the patterns for the different pieces.

I cut all the paper for the body, face, and limbs. and glued them to the cardboard levels to make them 3-dimensional.

The toughest part was finding metallic paper for the cymbals and cutting them out. I ran out of the little bit of metallic paper quickly and miscalculated the number to cut (3 monkeys x 2 cymbals x 2 sides to each cymbal = 12). I ended up cheating in the end and making up for my mistake with tin foil.

They ended up turning out pretty neat.

TOPPS STICK-ONS 1981

2011-05-10T20:52:00.000-07:00

Topps Stick-ons released in 1981 were originally sold as "Put-ons" in 1968. I'm including them in the 1980s cards since this is the set I own.

You can tell the cards were originally from the 60s due to the Beatles references (I am the egg man, strawberry fields forever) and a few of the other ones (Love, revolution now, etc).

These cards are relatively small but have 4-6 stickers on each one. I still wish I would have bought two sets so I could have stuck a few of them on stuff. Oh well.

This one is one of my faves because of the Wacky Packages cameo of "Gadzooka" from the 1st series.

There are puzzle backs on the reverse sides of the cards which form a red and blue bordered set of puzzles.

There is a lot more info on the Put-on/Stick-on card sets on bubblegumcards.org including the wrapper and card variations

http://www.bubblegumcards.org/PutOnStickers.html

ARTWORK 4-24-11

2011-04-23T22:00:00.000-07:00

The month is almost over so I thought I'd share my April artwork.

First I wanted to do an update on my Fisher Price chatter phone that I've been constructing out of 100% recycled paper (scraps from the recycling bin). It was a bit tougher than I thought it would be! Almost finished.

One of the hardest parts of this project was searching for paper scraps that matched the original colors. If they were off by the slightest bit it looked goofy.

The wheels took two days to create. I wrapped the paper around tubes to glue and dry, and tried to do my best to duplicate the outer indentations. Anything curved is hard to replicate.

The last thing I have to build is the receiver which may take a bit due to the semi fluorescent red paper I'm going to be keeping my eye out for. It would be a lot easier to go out and buy some, but I've come this far and I'm determined to use only recycled paper.

Most of the drawings I've done this past month are just doodles in my sketchbook (which is almost full). I started the sketchbook in early July 2010 and am now on page 109. About 340 sketches so far. Not too bad.

I was in a Ghostbusters mood that day.

Easter coming up and all.

When I have drawing slumps (like writer's block) I draw designs.

I'm working on a monkey project.

One of my favorite Garbage Pail Kids!

I'm making a happy meal box for my next art show. I just got started. I changed the arches on the handle to my initials S P.

This is a character from Masters of the Universe named Rio Blast.

Nothing too spectacular but a lot of times it's the little drawings and doodles I do when I'm bored that people seem to really dig.

I'll post some more next month.

MAD ENVELOPE OF THE MONTH UPDATE 4-11

2011-04-19T22:19:00.000-07:00

Back in late January I had posted pics of my most recent Mad "Envelope of the Month" submission.
I just got the new Mad #509 (June 2011) in the mail today and it totally made it in. It made my day to see a little bit of my art published in my favorite magazine once again. Even more thrilling is being included in the magazine one page away from my favorite artist Tom Bunk's illustration.
I'm such a dork.

Here's some pics.

Here's a scan of the envelope art I mailed.

Mad #509 June 2011

This is a great issue, hilarious as always. If you get a chance buy yourself an issue!

TOPPS SUPERMAN 2 MOVIE CARDS 1980

2011-04-18T19:44:00.000-07:00

Time for the next installment of my Topps 1980s posts!!

SUPERMAN II- MOVIE PICTURE CARDS

Here's the wrapper in the classic Superman red, yellow, and blue.

As far as wrapper variations go, the only one I've come across is the Bazooka gum ad.

Like the majority of Topps movie cards around this time, the set has 88 cards and 22 stickers (and of course a stick of gum).
There is a lot of reminiscent charm involved with collecting these for me. Peeling open the wax wrapper, smelling the gum and the brown cardstock, shuffling through the stack sorting them, throwing out the miscut ones and the ones with offset printing, reading through the corny card titles... kind of like a trip back in time.

Enough of that, let's check out the cards!

All the best 80s sets had a header card which looks great on the top of your completed set. I wish they made these for current sets.

Most of the 80s movie sets also started out with character cards introducing all the major players. In this set they are called "Kryptonian Crystal Bank Archives" which I guess means they are from the information stored in the crystal banks at Superman's arctic hideout? Stupid.

Actress Margot Kidder played Lois Lane in all four of the 80s Superman movies. That's back when the movie industry did it's best to keep the same actors/actresses in the sequels.
As a neat tidbit Margot posed in the March 1975 issue of Playboy.

(How do you like my censoring job?)

Terence Stamp who played General Zod in this movie played Chancellor Velorum 19 years later in Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace.
He also returned to his union with the Superman franchise as the voice of Superman's father Jor-el on Tv's Smallville in 2001.

Jack O'Halloran who played the strong but silent character Non was an ex-heavyweight boxer and actually came up with the idea for his character to be mute.

Sarah Douglas who played the beautiful but deadly Ursa also played Queen Taramis in the movie Conan the Destroyer with Arnold Schwarzenegger in 1984. Type-cast as a comic book villainess (unfortunately never posed for Playboy).

Allright, it's Ned Beatty. No Deliverance Jokes.

If Marc McClure, the actor who played Jimmy Olsen, looks a little familiar you may have seen Back to the Future as many times as I have. He also played Marty's brother Dave McFly in the first and third movies in that series.

"See ya later, Pop. Whooo, time to change that oil!"

So that's the main cast, now lets get along to the story.

Watch the whole battle on Youtube.

The reverse sides of the cards that don't have character profiles, star quotes, or movie summaries have pieces to form puzzles A-F.

Complete a Superman 2 card set with 22 superiffic stickers!

MR. POTTER'S PAPER ART 3-29-11

2011-03-29T00:17:00.000-07:00

Taking a break from sketching, I spent the last week working on some of my recycled "paper art". I get a kick out of taking paper/cardboard scraps from the local recycling bin and creating 3-dimensional figures and objects out of them. With some scissors, a bit of Elmer's glue, and a LOT of patience you can make about anything.

I've posted some of my previous creations here on my funtime blog so I figured I'd share a couple new projects.

I made a generic Smurf with some blue and white paper I found.

I figured later on I could get fancy and make a Papa Smurf or Smurfette? Who knows.

I brought my old Fisher Price "chatter phone" to work one day to draw it and my co-workers got a big kick out of seeing it on my desk. It seemed everyone was happy to be reunited with their old pal (I guess every kid grew up with this thing).

I was working on the Smurf and I had commented to one of the new guys that I should build the chatter phone to scale out of paper. It would probably take a lot of work but I figured it would be a fun task to complete.
I spent the next three days measuring the original phone, cutting patterns, gluing, and assembling the pieces. I should have photo-documented the process up to this point but I figure I still have quite a bit of work to do. I've got the basic "body" finished and some of the smaller pieces drying. Here's some pics of the current state of completion:

Today I built the dial and started on the wheels.

I'll post more pics of this work-in-progress as it is completed. I've got some neat ideas for it!

TOPPS WACKY PACKAGE ERASERS 2011

2011-03-28T23:45:00.000-07:00

I just recently found out that Topps released these and had to get my hands on some (thanks Kirk Liebig).
I collect erasers and Wacky Packages so it was exciting to see the two melded into a creative collectible.

You can buy these at Target in the trading card section of the store. They are marked at $2.99 a pack but surprisingly ring up at $1.99! Each package comes with three erasers shaped like Wacky Pack products and coinciding stickers. There are 24 in all, the last 4 marked "rare".

I bought the majority of the box and am still missing two (#7, #11). I ended up with quite a few duplicates. Here are some photos:

These are really neat to see in 3D and a great addition to any Wacky Package collector. I only had two complaints. First, one of my erasers came out of the package with a shard of glass jutting out of it? (not too safe for kids). Second the outside stickers were sloppily adhered to the erasers in some cases or misapplied (one was actually upside down). Other than that I think they are excellent.

MR. POTTER IN A GARBAGE PAIL KID GRAVE

2011-03-06T22:50:00.000-08:00

Garbage Pail Kid artist Brent Engstrom let me know that he put my name on one of the new Flashback series 2 cards. He did all the "Adam Mania" cards for the series. It's too small to see on the printed card but close examination of the painting shows the name "POTTER" etched into a gravestone in the background. Thanks a bunch Brent, it is an honor to be buried next to my favorite artists. We can all rot together!! These cards are in stores now.

GARBAGE PAIL KIDS FLASHBACK 2

2011-03-04T21:48:00.000-08:00

The Garbage Pail Kids Flashback 2 series began showing up in stores February 23rd. Like the first "flashback" set, this one has various reprints from the OS (old series) 1-15 along with "Where Are They Now" cards showing grown-up versions of classic GPKs, Adam Mania cards with variations of OS 1 Adam Bomb/Blasted Billy, 3D cards, and multiple parallels (different colored borders).
If you are real lucky, you have a chance of finding a hand-drawn sketch card done by one of the GPK illustrators or a printing plate used in the production of the cards at Topps.

The first 65 cards of this series are the reprints from the OS series from the 80s.

Topps accidentally labeled card #14 "Michelle Muck/Sewer Sue" which is a mistake. The character is named Off-the-wall Paul/Zach Plaque.

Topps messed up again with card #33 "Surreal Neal" which was actually already used in the 1st Flashback series. Ooops again. Bad Topps.

Besides the obvious mistakes by Topps, fans spent time ranting online and pointing out design errors, typos, and offset printing mistakes. Fans are fans though and we will keep on buying these cause we love them, mistakes and all.

The reverse sides of these cards have a spoof of Facebook called "Fakebook" where Garbage Pail Kids message eachother. Pretty funny.

The next 5 cards (66-70) are "Lost" Garbage Pail Kids that were scrapped in the earlier OS series.

This is one of my favorite parts of the flashback series is getting to see these paintings finally make it on to cards.

Cards 71-80 are "Where Are They Now?" cards depicting the kids as they would appear today.

These are all so great, and funny. Only complaint, Topps spelled Valerie (Valarie) wrong on card 78b.
Mark Pingitore did Smelly Sally, Jolly Roger, Potty Scotty, Ghastly Ashley and New Wave Dave.
Tom Bunk did Half Nelson, Loony Lenny and Valerie Vomit.
Brent Engstrom did Tanya Hide.
and I think Joe Simko did the Chris Hiss one?

A couple new things with this series, There are 10 Adam Mania cards (variations on os1 Adam Bomb/Blasted Billy). The odds of finding one of these are 1:8 packs.
There are also 5 3D cards which are awesome and can be found 1-12 packs.
Along with the parallel borders this makes the full or master set virtually impossible to collect.
If you are poor like I am, you can cheat and weigh the packs with a tobacco scale to get the full 3d set (heavier packs). Or use "fanning" which is spreading the cards lengthwise inside the wrapper and peering through the semi-transparent wrapper. The 3d or Adam mania cards can be found 3 cards down the stack by looking for their red card backs. Or a sketch card 1:469 packs with a blue back. Works every time.
Most collectors discourage this method called "cherry picking" but usually do it themselves. It sure takes a lot of time and patience but saves money. Hardcore fans/collectors spend thousands of dollars every time a set like this comes out because rare cards sell on ebay for large sums.

Anyway, here are the scans:

Brent Engstrom did all of these cards which are amazing.

I'm going to do a "part 2" of this post on Flashback 2 because it's a big series with a lot of info. I want to discuss both of the sketch card sets offered with this, bonus cards and posters.

WHAT'S IN THE BOX? 2-23-11

2011-02-23T00:11:00.000-08:00

In my previous post I promised to reveal the remaining contents of the shoebox (80s time capsule) that I bought from the thrift store.
Along with the stack of Atari catalogs and manuals, there were 81 mini-comics. The majority of these came along with action figures during the 80s and contain stories regarding whatever character they were packaged with.

There are:
57 Masters of the Universe
7 Sectaurs
2 Robo Force
3 Captain America
and 2 Transformers

Most of these have some sort of ads for the other figures/vehicles/playsets in the series and fan club mail-aways.

Here are scans of the Masters of the Universe comics:

Here are the back covers with pics of the other toys in the line.

I never had any of these as a kid. I remember going over to other kid's houses and playing "HeMan" but I didn't know anything about the characters and I only watched the cartoon a handful of times.
In the late 80s they had a "white elephant" sale at my school's fall fun-fair and I traded in a bunch of tickets for a huge box of Masters of the Universe figures. My best friend and I took them back to my house and spent the rest of the afternoon on the roof of my bike shed dropping large rocks on to them.
It makes me cringe every time I think about how much those things are worth now. Ughh.

Like most toys I lost or broke (or never got to get as a kid) I've amassed quite a collection of them as an adult and still pick them up if I run across them at garage sales or whatever.

The next set of figures I found mini-comics to I vaguely remember...

Sectaurs which are genetically mutated characters mixed with bugs. The story is really windy and it's hard to tell who the good guys/bad guys are or what the plot involves but pretty much they are just bug-people with their own powers and a personal bug creature that comes along with each one. According to the fan site there was a short-lived cartoon (5 episodes) and a line of comics.

http://sectaurs.fansector.com/

Here are the mini-comic scans (missing one I forgot to scan)

In a stroke of coincidental luck, I actually found one of these action figures at the thrift store a week ago still in the box!? I bought it for $3.

It has a beetle that you can use as a grappling hook. I thought about taking it out of the package to play with it but I saw on Ebay that it's worth $30-40.

Another toy series I remember but never got into was Robo Force. There were two mini-comics in the shoebox for this line.

I do remember my brother got one of these for Christmas one year but we didn't really know anything about them. I thought they were made by Tomy but I guess not.

I didn't scan the rest of the stuff but there are duplicates of the majority of these. There was also 3 copies of Captain America meets the Asthma Monster, some Transformers comics magazine, and manuals for electronic handheld games (M.O.T.U., Double Dragon etc).

TOPPS TATTOOS 1981

2011-02-20T22:19:00.000-08:00

box scan

box ad (Bazooka)

wrapper front

wrapper back

Topps "24 Tattoos" came out in 1981. I ordered a box of these not too long ago. There are 12 different sheets to collect with 24 tattoos on each sheet. There are duplicates on some sheets and in some cases smaller or larger versions of the same image. The sheets are perforated to rip apart the separate tattoos which just adhere with water.

Coming up next: Topps Stick-ons 1981

THRIFT STORE FINDS 2-8-2011

2011-02-07T22:03:00.000-08:00

A couple months ago I was at the thrift store and came across an old shoebox. It was full of small catalogs, mini-comics, and game manuals from the early 1980s. I like finding things like this because it is like opening a time capsule from my childhood years.
After getting it home and taking a closer look, I found that about 50% of the box was filled with old ATARI manuals and catalogs. Some were from games I grew up playing and others were one I'd never heard of before.
My 13 year old son got a thing this last Christmas that has a whole bunch of ATARI games on it from his grandma. It was fun playing those together and watching my kids make fun of the poor graphics. I tried to explain to them that as a kid video games were a lot different. Even when the Nintendo first came out it was not the kind of thing a kid would just get as a Christmas gift for themselves (unless maybe they were an only-child?) it was a gift for the whole family to share. When I think back to the ATARI even more so. I can remember the whole family playing Pong and Frogger all sitting around together taking turns. It was a lot different back then I think.

Anyway, let's take a look at the manuals. It's a shame I can't scan the insides. It's already going to have to be a two-part post.

AIR-SEA BATTLE (1987)

ASTEROIDS (1979) <---I'm highlighting in green the games I remember playing!!
BASKETBALL (1978)

It looks like the basketball players have a penis? What is that supposed to be?

BERZERK (1980)

BERZERK

BOWLING (1978)

BREAKOUT (1978)

This game and a lot of others have a small cameo in an excellent short film "PIXEL". Check it out.

CHOPPER COMMAND (1982)

E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL (1982)

The rushed production of this game (six weeks) to meet the 1982 Christmas holiday season resulted in one of the worst video games ever made, and according to the Wikipedia, "one of the biggest commercial failures in video gaming history."
E.T. is frequently cited as a contributing factor to Atari's massive financial losses during 1983 and 1984. As a result of overproduction and returns, unsold cartridges were also buried in a New Mexico landfill.
Due to high anticipation and unexpected competition between 2.5 and 3.5 million cartridges went unsold. (see more at Wikipedia)

GALAXIAN 1983

GHOSTBUSTERS 1984

JR. PAC-MAN 1986

KANGAROO 1983

KRULL 1986

I watched about half of this on late night T.V. a few months ago.

KUNG-FU MASTER 1987

MATH GRAN PRIX 1987

MILLIPEDE 1984

You can play this game online at

http://www.atari.com/play/atari/millipede

MISSLE COMMAND 1981

MOONPATROL 1983

MS. PAC-MAN 1982

OTHELLO 1981

PAC-MAN 1981

PITFALL 1982

Here's the commercial for pitfall featuring 13 year old Jack Black.

POLE POSITION 1982

Q*BERT 1983

SPIDERMAN 1983

STREET RACER 1978

SUBMARINE COMMANDER 1982

Is it just my artist's imagination, or does this island from Submarine Commander look like a dead rabbit?

a little photoshop...

VOLLEYBALL 1982

WARLORDS 1981

YARS' REVENGE 1982

Along with the manuals were an assortment of Atari game catalogs featuring listings of available games of the time and some ATARI FORCE mini comics that were included with the games.

1983

1981

1981

ATARI FORCE was the name of two comic book series published by DC Comics from 1982-1986.

Along with the manuals, catalogs, and Atari stuff there were also 63 other 80's mini-comics in the shoebox. If anyone can comment a guess on what they are, I've got duplicates and I'll mail them to you???? I'll post the answer and pics in a week.

BUNK'S JUNK 2-5-11

2011-02-05T19:19:00.000-08:00

I came home to a pleasant surprise a few days ago. I received an envelope full of stuff from my favorite artist Tom Bunk!! He found one of my envelopes in his studio and was nice enough to mail me some recent sketches for things he has been working on.

He sent two really neat cards (one he made for New Years) I know the scans don't do them justice.

He sent the sketches for his illustration in Mad #507 (Feb 2011)

There were actually 5 different stages the last one being my favorite. I really wish sometimes that Mad would do a better job of printing some of these a bit larger. There are so many excellent details readers might miss out on. Getting the sketches from Tom, I kind of feel spoiled to get a deeper look.

He also sent a couple sketches from one of his gorgeous pin-up girls. The rest of these beauties can be found on his blog

http://bunkart.blogspot.com/2010/08/bunks-pin-up-gallerycreated-out-of-pure.html

He also sent his preliminary work for his new Mad spoof of Donald Trump's "Undercover Boss" from the latest issue of Mad (#508 April 2011) which should be in stores now.

( These images have been removed temporarily. When I got my issue with my subscription I was unaware that it had not reached the shelves quite yet. Sorry Mad, and sorry Tom. Won't happen again!)

Thanks again Tom and keep up the great work!

NEAT FINDS FROM HOARDER'S STASH

2011-01-27T22:28:00.000-08:00

I was on my way into work last Saturday to make up some hours and I noticed a sign near the curb. It said "1000's of books/Artwork" with an arrow pointing into the parking lot.
First of all I thought it was odd that there would be a garage sale in the dead of winter, and secondly there really isn't anything behind the parking lot at my job besides a couple small dilapidated houses and a dead end.
I followed anyway and parked to look around. I knocked on the back door of one of the houses and a lady told me to come inside. She said that her father who was an art professor at the college had passed away and that she and her siblings were trying to clear out his houses.
I found out that he had owned both of the two run-down houses that sit behind the building I work in. I always wondered if anyone even lived in them and my wife and I had commented on them quite a few times in the past when she would drop me off at work and use the dead end to turn the car around.
The woman was there with her brothers and sisters who looked like they were in their 40's and there were other people from town walking through the house looking around.
The woman explained that the house was a bit overwhelming but I was free to wander through the rooms and look at anything I wanted. Her father was a hoarder and they had no idea what to do with all his stuff. They hadn't even begun to go through the house next door which was also filled with his stuff.
I started looking around. There was several rooms all lined with bookshelves to the ceiling filled with thousands and thousands of books! There was artwork leaned against the walls two feet deep of all different kinds. I must have spent three hours skimming through the shelves room by room. The majority of the books dealt with art, an entire wall of Japanese art books, a wall of Mexican art books, another huge shelf of books on surrealist books. Everything was very well organized.
There were lots of cookbooks, religious books, craft books... old books spanning the the entire century.
After scouring half-a-dozen rooms I had to take a break because I was getting dizzy.
One of the man's sons told me they already filled three industrial-sized dumpsters with stuff to haul away and they were on their fourth.
Earlier on that day a guy had stopped by and bought the entire load of Jazz/Blues records the guy had amassed over the years. He must have made out like a BANDIT!
The children were selling the stuff by the box-full for practically nothing. I got a big box of books for $3. I finally had to stop to get in my hours at work but the children said they would open the place up again and had to get everything out by the 31st.

I thought I'd share a few of my favorite finds. I'm hoping to get in there again this weekend and maybe get a peek into the second house. If there are any books my blog readers want me to keep an eye out for post a comment please and I'll do my best. I'm really good at grabbing things I know my friends are looking for.

I found this 1st edition copy of The Yum Yum Book by cartoonist R. Crumb which he originally made for his girlfriend back in the late 60's.

I got this copy of Little Black Sambo which I've only ever found once before with the cover ripped off.

I got this demonic looking book on the occult.

I found this neat Charles Addams book called Nightcrawlers which is excellent. I never really read any of his old cartoons and his dark humor made me laugh so hard I almost crapped my self.
Here's a couple I scanned:

I got a whole stack of books with old stag party cartoons and a bunch of old children's books I've been looking for. I also got a bunch of Mad and humor related paperbacks and of course so drawing books. I found some great old comics and am hoping there will be more when they open up the attic/basement or the house next door. The day after I went through the first house I went back and no one was there so I peeked in the window of the other house and could see it was full of large bookshelves also.

The fourth dumpster was full and covered with snow but I did dig down enough to find a couple boxes full of old art supplies and a few cigar boxes full of old rubber stamps which are really cool. I used a bunch of them the next day at work for some neat designs. Here is a couple pics of that.

Since I work next door, I'm going to keep a lookout this weekend for when they open it up again and I will post any updates.

WHAT MR. POTTER IS READING 1/21/11

2011-01-21T01:56:00.000-08:00

"Hey kids, let's take a look at what Mr. Potter is reading!"

True Experiences With Ghosts, edited by Martin Ebon (1968)

The World According to Mister Rogers: Important Things to Remember, by Fred Rogers (2003)

The Ultimate Elsewhere, by J.H. Brennan (1975)

Freak Brothers #6, by Gilbert Shelton (1980)

MAD MAGAZINE ENVELOPE OF THE MONTH ADVENTURES

2011-01-19T21:58:00.000-08:00

Ever since I can remember, Mad magazine has had an "envelope of the month". Readers can submit a letter with an illustration on it and hope to get it published in the letters page. Often times Mad gives away great prizes or free subscriptions to readers who mail in letters. Just the honor of having your letter published in Mad is enough for me.

I often thought about submitting a letter in the hopes of it getting published. I was just to lazy to do it I guess.

In early 2005 I decided to give it a shot. I drew up an envelope with a gag with Alfred E. Neuman as a toy called "Barrel of Neumans" instead the classic "Barrel of Monkeys".
I mailed it off and a couple months later I was at the grocery store and saw the newest issue on the shelves. I paged through it and was thrilled to see that my envelope was printed in the letters page! Thrilled is kind of an understatement. I don't think I stopped smiling for hours, I even showed the check-out girl at the register. I bought two copies of that issue (#453 May 2005) along with the one I got with my subscription.

Tomorrow I will once again mail a letter to Mad in the hopes that it will be printed in my favorite magazine. Since this month marks the 50th anniversary of the Mad strip Spy Vs Spy, I decided to use them as the subject for my envelope art. I dug through a pile of old Spy Vs Spy paperbacks from my collection and found an image on the back cover of one that I thought was perfect and used it for my reference.

Here are a couple scans of my envelope:

So hopefully we will see this in the pages of Mad in the future?

I want to go back to that issue where they printed my envelope so I can tell you a dumb story.

You may have noticed that goofy looking guy's photo above my envelope. His name is Jim Hutchings from Ontario, Canada and he mailed in his photo hoping to have it drawn into a Mad fold-in by artist Al Jaffee. Mad has a "Make a Dumb Wish Foundation" and that was Jim's dumb wish. Jim has mailed Mad dozens of envelopes of the month in the past and is a great artist. He's had many published in past issues.

The editor said after consulting Jaffee he would not be able to grant Jim's request because, "after what happened last time, he would never draw another Canadian!" The editor then went on to make fun of Jim's strange photo.
Further down the page the editor had commented that Al Jaffee may decide to draw me in one of his fold-ins because I hail for the good ol' U.S. of A.!

It wasn't until after that issue that I went back into earlier issues in my collection and found handful of Jim Hutching's previous envelope submissions. Here are a few scans:

June 1998

November 2000

November 2003

July 2004

So being the odd guy that I am, I actually struck up a friendship with the Canadian artist Jim Hutchings and we became friends on Myspace and chatted from time to time. We were both huge Mad Magazine fans and cartoonists and had much to talk about.

In November of 2005 Jim messaged me to tell me about an envelope he had tried to mail but had dropped on the way walking to the post office. He had lost it in the snow but had luckily photographed it beforehand and was still retracing his steps in the hopes of finding the original.

The next year in March, Mad published Jim's sad story along with the photograph he sent them. They also created a simulated photo of how his lost envelope may appear after being submitted to the Canadian elements after all this time (typical Mad humor).

March 2006

Two Months later a guy named Scott Borger from Ohio sends a letter to Mad claiming that he's found Jim Hutching's lost envelope and is holding it ransom. As evidence, he enclosed a photo of the aforementioned envelope which is in reality an arrangement of objects and poorly re-illustrated garbage meant to be passed of as the unrecovered original.

Now as if the story has not gone far enough, Jim messaged me on Myspace shorty after to let me know that Matt Handfield from Holyoke, Ma had submitted an envelope challenging him to a envelope of the month battle and along with his submission had sent the editors a drawing of him burning Jim's photo from the same issue I had my envelope posted over a year earlier.

June 2006

Of course, Mad who looking back was probably excited to have inadvertently sparked up submissions was happy to print the whole ordeal.

It wasn't until November of 2006 that Jim's response appeared in the letters page. He had depicted a boxing match between himself and Handfield and a challenge for an art competition.
(I should have jumped in the ring at this point and whooped both of their butts, but oh well...)

November 2006

Between November 2006 and Jan 2008 Jim Hutchings and another letters page contributor named Dan Root got into it and continued to battle. I don't have scans of Dan Roots letters but here is the Star Trek themed response from Jim from August 2007.

Eventually in early 2008 Matt Handfield mailed in his final insult in "The Envelope Strikes Back" which was a intensely illustrated depiction of Jim Hutchings frozen in carbonite surrounded by Star Wars characters and being congratulated by Darth Vader.

January 2008

There has never been another challenge heard from any of the three artists since, but in June 2009 Jim Hutchings did mail one final envelope to Mad celebrating their 500th issue.

I haven't rekindled my friendship with Jim since abandoning Myspace and have yet to reacquaint on Facebook. We will see if my latest Envelope will make it into the pages of Mad, and if you get an opportunity to check the newsstands you may find out before I do.

TOPPS STUPID SMILES STICKERS 1989

2011-01-17T23:04:00.000-08:00

In 1989 Topps released the Stupid Smiles sticker cards. Tom Bunk illustrated all of the 44 cards along with the package art.
Each card contains multiple stickers with different humorous variations of the smiley face with 241 gags in all which comes out to an average of 5 stickers per card.

Here is a scan of the box:

Here is a scan of the wax pack:

I bought a set of these last year and in hindsight wished I had bought two just so I had one set to save and the other to stick. There are so many great ideas in these that they are hilarious to look through.
The stickers are crammed onto the cards at different angles which makes these scans a neck breaker, but have fun looking through the collection! There are a bunch I should comment on but I may have to come back to that later.

The backs of the cards contain pieces that form 4 puzzles of fine art masked by smiley faces. The Mona Lisa, Birth of Venus, Whistler's Mother, and The Persistence of Memory.

These would have made some great buttons or T-shirts. I might just select certain ones to send to people through Facebook just for fun?

STARTING OUT THE NEW YEAR 2011

2011-01-16T23:32:00.000-08:00

It has been a while since my last post when I got addicted to my Donkey Kong game and got distracted from my blog.
This time my absence was based on a few reasons.
1.) I got a new computer and had to transfer all of my files to the new one (this took a lot more time than I'd expected).
2.) I got a case of the winter "blahs" which took away a lot of my motivation.
3.) I got addicted to yet another damn video game.

I bought a Playstation at a garage sale last summer for a dollar and had it sitting around until early December I decided to order one of my favorite old games Spyro the Dragon. I had a lot of fun replaying it again.

I had a really great holiday season and not only bought my family some great stuff, but got a few neat things for myself.

My dad gave me a $25 gift certificate to Barnes & Noble which was nice because I can always find so many cool books there that I wish I had.

I was scouring the discount and sale books when I came across "The Completely Mad Don Martin" which is Mad artist Don Martin's complete work in two large hardbound books. I saw this years ago for $150 but of course could not afford it at the time. It was marked 50% the discounted price of $25 which came out to $13. I couldn't believe I got such an excellent deal ($13 for a $150 book set). It's a large and entertaining read, I'm only 1/4 of the way through it.

I was lucky during the holidays to win a Ebay auction for a full box of Gross Bears pins which were illustrated by my favorite artist Tom Bunk in 1985. They are tough to find in general but even harder to find an original box full.

I stuck the box up on a shelf in my studio along with a new Donkey Kong figure to remind me how much enjoyment I got playing that damn game.

As far as the pins themselves, I mounted them on a board for display by my computer.

I also got myself a few Garbage Pail Kids items from my favorite card dealer Marchant Cards. They are the company I buy most of my old trading cards from. They had some excellent holiday sales and I got 3 GPK 3-d wall plaks for $4 a piece (cheap). They are 3-dimensional and have fake wooden frames.

I also ordered some other trading card crap from Marchant Cards including a full box of Trash Can Trolls from 1992. I actually remember buying these from the store when they first came out and how much they reminded me of the old GPKs. I had a full set but it was real nice to finally get a hold of the box which has fluffy troll hair on it and came in four colors.

I put it up on a shelf with my two-headed Norfin troll.

I also lucked out recently when I came across a nice bookshelf that someone had chucked to the curb. I needed one real bad for my Mad collection which had grown and threatened to collapse my old bookshelf which had began to buckle under the weight. I drug it home and it is just the size I needed.

Last of all, I finally completed my Diener space aliens/monster eraser collection. I've been trying to find them all for a while and acquired a whole bunch of other Diener erasers in the process. I've done a couple previous posts on these before but the monsters/aliens were always the ones I hoped to find the most. I filled my whole display.

One of my New Years resolutions is to blog frequently and now my only problem is what to post first. I've got a whole bunch of stuff to share, it's just a matter of where to start first.

IDLE HANDS...

2010-11-24T17:12:00.000-08:00

It's been almost a full month since my last blog post. I get caught up in little projects and fixated sometimes and stay offline at times. I thought I'd share a few little things.

I dug out the Nintendo 64 and thought I'd take another crack at Donkey Kong. I played a few minutes of it years ago and couldn't really figure out the game and gave up but this time I got addicted pretty quick.

I spent over 60 hrs not only beating the game, but getting every single coin, golden banana, including all the secret ones. My problem with video games is I'm never satisfied with just beating them I have to get all the top scores and secret stuff. I haven't gotten hooked on a game for about five years for that reason. It's kind of like a good book you can't put down (more like a drug). It's better not to touch them as far as I'm concerned.

There was a guy who posted walkthroughs of the entire game on Youtube with commentary which I watched along with my play. By the time the game/videos were done I felt like I lost a nerdy friend which is pretty pathetic but totally me. I got used to his dorky humor and catch phrases. His Youtube name is GNRfan (Gun's and Roses fan?) he's done a lot of videos for different games and probably has about as many friends as I do.

Anyway, game has been beaten and done with. I drew a picture of Donkey Kong in my sketch book to seal the deal and remind me of those hours.

I'm too sentimental sometimes. Speaking of that, I was proud of myself for letting go of sentimentality the other day.
A lady I work with was collecting pop tabs for a donation to the Ronald McDonald House which I'm pretty familiar with as a cancer survivor. She had asked me if I had any cans I could pull the tabs off and immediately remembered the year 1997 when I decided just for fun to save the pop tabs off every can of pop I drank for an entire year. I was curious, and I know I drink a lot so on January 1st of 1997 I began pulling the tabs off every can I drank and sticking them in my back pocket. Before I went to bed every night I would stick them in a jug on my dresser. A year later on December 31 I dumped them on the carpet and counted them. There were 763. I strung them on a string and made a necklace which I've saved ever since.

So after a couple days I decided to donate my necklace to sick kids. I wanted to wear it for the last time and had my daughter Sam take a photo of me hopping around like an ape (too much Donkey Kong).

Not only did I neglect my blog/Facebook but I also try to do at least one drawing a day in my sketchbook to prevent "artist's block" and I was losing motivation. Usually when this happens I just dig around my studio for inspiration. One morning I heard a squeek and turned around to see my stuffed Gizmo doll from Gremlins fell off the shelf. He is from a mail-away from Gremlins cereal from 1984.

I decided to build some paper mogwais for a project and worked up some designs in my sketch book.

I wanted to make two brown/white furred mogwais and a black/white furred one based on an evil one from Gremlins 2.

It took about 6 hours to make the heads and another 6 to roll paper for the arms and make the bodies. The smaller they are the harder they are to cut, fold, and glue. They turned out just how I imagined they would.

I've got a couple projects on the shelf and with winter coming up I'm sure to be spending a lot more time in my studio.

A GIFT FROM JAY LYNCH

2010-10-31T21:06:00.000-07:00

In a previous post I mentioned that I had sent a letter to artist Jay Lynch.
Jay is one of my favorite artists and has had his hand in everything I love (Mad Magazine, Garbage Pail Kids, Wacky Packages...) so of course I love him. He's extremely well-known for his work in underground comics.

He had mentioned on Facebook that he had a bunch of old personalized pens he came across in his home and would give one to anyone willing to mail a self-adressed stamped envelope. So of course as one of my heroes I had to do it. I had sent along a blank square of cardboard and asked if he had time to do a small sketch with the pen on it also. I figured the pen would mean a lot more to me if he had actually used it.

I don't know if the pen worked well or not but Jay was nice enough to mail back a fantastic self portrait on the card and gave me not only one, but two pens. What an awesome guy.

I told him I had a neat shadowbox I planned to display them in so when I got the letter back from him I went to work. I included an autographed card I got in one of the Wacky Packages series 7 packs also. Turned out fantastic in my opinion.

Thanks a lot Jay!

Here's the pics:

If you were wondering what "Um Tut Sut" means, Google it. It's a fun search.

Jay does these awesome commission pieces for fans based on characters from the Wacky Packages he's designed. I love his quick wit and sense of humor. Jay never seems to run short on ideas for new jokes and puns. Below are a few of my faves. I also included the original cards they were based on.

This next one included three different characters from spoofs on three 80's toy lines.

Thanks again Jay, maybe someday someone will be wise enough to do an independent film based on your life and experiences in the world of underground comics and art and you can become a millionaire. It happens.

HALLOWEEN 2010

2010-10-31T20:42:00.000-07:00

I try to draw a Halloween themed picture at this time every year and I have done quite a few but I wanted to post my favorite. This is "Internal Morgan" redrawn from a Garbage Pail Kid from ANS series 3. The original painting was done by John Pound. I did this in ballpoint pen and considered coloring two versions one on the computer and the other in colored pencil. Once I got it done in colored pencil I figured that was good enough.

Here's the original Pound card:

Here's my ballpoint drawing:

And the final colored version:

Happy Halloween!!!

Here's another recent GPK drawing I did of one of my favorite cards. "Leggy Lauren" from unpublished OS series 16 (saw the light of day in 2003 ANS 1) originally done by Tom Bunk.

Here's the original Bunk card:

Here's my ballpoint drawing:

And the final colored pencil version:

MR. POTTER'S "WE DIDN'T START THE FIRE" KARAOKE REMAKE

2010-10-18T17:24:00.000-07:00

A few years ago I decided to update the lyrics for Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire" and perform it for karaoke. It got a great response from the crowd and ever since it's always requested when I go out to sing. Recently I found a recording of my first nights performance. I decided to make it into a YouTube video and share.

RECENT ARTWORK 10-10

2010-10-12T22:11:00.000-07:00

I finished up a large matchbook collage with a bunch of little objects and items mixed in. The photos don't do it justice. It's mounted on a large piece of wood with brackets for hanging and is very sturdy. All of the pieces have been firmly secured so it's able to be touched. It's important to me especially for children that it can be felt. It is for sale for $250.00 if anyone is interested let me know.

I thought I'd share a few other drawings I've done within the last month or so.

E.T. picking his booger and watching it glow on his finger.

Sketch of Garbage Pail Kid "Cute Tippi"

Drawing of GPK "Fairy Mary"

Sketches based on Weird Wheels/ Gruesome Greetings cards.

Hansel and Gretel

GPK "Roy Bot" everyone said it looked like transformer Thomas the train.

Trix, a drawing of a Wacky Packages card.

Big Boy and his food friends

"Outerspace Chase" zapping a dog.

Drawing based on GPK reverse card art by Jay Lynch.

See everything I draw isn't gross... just 99.9% of it.

A FEW GARAGE SALE FINDS

2010-10-12T22:01:00.000-07:00

A few garage sale finds I forgot to post.

This is a Fisher Price movie viewer from 1985. You put these long yellow cartridges into it and crank the lever to watch a short cartoon. It's kind of fun because the speed of the animation frames is determined by how fast you turn the lever. Also if you turn it backwards you can watch it in reverse. I had one of these a few years ago with a bunch of cartridges but I gave it to my little brother as a gift so it was nice to run across another one. (The cartridge in it is Gummi Bears).

A bunch of Diener erasers. Grapes, strawberry, blue heart, apple, fireman, rat, and three yellow milk bottles.

A Frosted Flakes Tony the Tiger bank. No date on it, might be worth a little bit?

COOL BEANS 10-10

2010-10-12T02:33:00.000-07:00

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.