NEAT FINDS FROM HOARDER'S STASH

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

"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)

STARTING OUT THE NEW YEAR 2011

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.

WHAT MR. POTTER IS READING 7-28-10

Jim Henson's "Return to the Labyrinth" by Jake T. Forbes, art by Chris Lie.

Book # 3 of 4 in the Return to the Labyrinth series. Toby the stolen infant brother of Sarah from the original story has now become heir to Jareth the goblin king's throne and he's trying to learn to control his powers to protect the kingdom from other characters who have misled and tricked him since he returned to the Labyrinth. That's the quick description.
There is quite a bit more to the story with great art in the style of the TokyoPop graphic novel. All kinds of new characters along with the classic creatures from the Labyrinth movie. It would make a great sequel as a movie in my opinion. It's a little bit darker at times and has some moments of sick humor.



"Ghost Hunter" by Hans Holzer.
Famous ghost hunter Hans Holzer begins the book with the story of how he started investigating spirits and uses a lot of tools and mediums to try and solve hauntings. I'm not really digging the whole seance/medium style investigation with the first few stories but I plan on sticking it out and finishing the book just to see if it's worth reading the other half-a-dozen Holzer books I have.

WHAT MR. POTTER IS READING

I'm always reading a paperback or magazine of some sort so I thought I'd share what I'm paging through from time to time. Here is the book I'm currently reading:



Mysterious Fires and Lights by Vincent H. Gaddis 1967

I'm on page 78 of 236. The Flying Saucer Mystery, Animated UFOs, Lightning Legerdemain, Fire Falls and Fireballs... good stuff. Chapters coming up on Spontaneous Human Combustion, Firewalkers, Poltergeist Incendiaries... can't wait.

WHERE'S WALDO?

On my previous blog I posted the ALA (American Library Association) Top 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books. My friend Leah happened to notice that #88 is "Where's Waldo".


You may wonder why it even made the list, and here is the answer.


In the beach scene on page 2 of the first book there is a little boy poking a shovel into the back of a topless tanning woman. As she lurches upward it shows one of her breasts. That's it.

The woman was covered up for the 1997 special edition release.


I've got the original copy of the book so I found it and scanned it.

SCARY STORIES TO TELL IN THE DARK

A few nights ago I was up late with insomnia and I watched three episodes of "Reading Rainbow". They have this portion of the show where children recommend books that they like and this one kid had a book called "Song and Dance Man". The illustrations for the book immediatly struck a chord in my memory and came across as being rather creepy. It took me a moment to figure it out but soon I realized it was the same illustrator who did the "Scary Stories" series of books that I read as a child in the 80's.
I looked them up online the next morning and found I was correct. The drawings in the book were done by Stephen Gammel. There were three books in the series.

* Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
* More Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
* Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones
All three are written by Alvin Schwartz and illustrated by Stephen Gammel

I knew that I at least owned one of them because I usually read a couple stories to the children at our Halloween party each year. After looking through my books downstairs I found that I own the first and third one.





A quick search on the internet popped up quite a few blogs that mentioned the effect the artwork had on children of the 80's and how certain images still stuck with them even till this day. The stories were scary on their own but the drawings definately solidify them in your mind.



I also remember that they were very popular in my elementry school library and almost always checked out. For a period of time they were removed from the library almost as if they were banned for a short time.

I checked into this and found something interesting. One of the websites I visited had a link to the A.L.A. (American Library Association) Top 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books. This is a list of books that over time have been removed from certain libraries as "questionable".

Want to know which book was #1 on the list? Here it is.

ALA TOP 100 MOST FREQUENTLY CHALLENGED BOOKS

1. Scary Stories (Series) by Alvin Schwartz
2. Daddy's Roommate by Michael Willhoite
3. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
4. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
6. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
7. Harry Potter (Series) by J.K. Rowling
8. Forever by Judy Blume
9. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
10. Alice (Series) by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
11. Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
12. My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
13. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
14. The Giver by Lois Lowry
15. It's Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris
16. Goosebumps (Series) by R.L. Stine
17. A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck
18. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
19. Sex by Madonna
20. Earth's Children (Series) by Jean M. Auel
21. The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
22. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
23. Go Ask Alice by Anonymous
24. Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers
25. In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
26. The Stupids (Series) by Harry Allard
27. The Witches by Roald Dahl
28. The New Joy of Gay Sex by Charles Silverstein
29. Anastasia Krupnik (Series) by Lois Lowry
30. The Goats by Brock Cole
31. Kaffir Boy by Mark Mathabane
32. Blubber by Judy Blume
33. Killing Mr. Griffin by Lois Duncan
34. Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam
35. We All Fall Down by Robert Cormier
36. Final Exit by Derek Humphry
37. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
38. Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
39. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
40. What's Happening to my Body? Book for Girls: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Daughters by Lynda Madaras
41. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
42. Beloved by Toni Morrison
43. The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
44. The Pigman by Paul Zindel
45. Bumps in the Night by Harry Allard
46. Deenie by Judy Blume
47. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
48. Annie on my Mind by Nancy Garden
49. The Boy Who Lost His Face by Louis Sachar
50. Cross Your Fingers, Spit in Your Hat by Alvin Schwartz
51. A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein
52. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
53. Sleeping Beauty Trilogy by A.N. Roquelaure (Anne Rice)
54. Asking About Sex and Growing Up by Joanna Cole
55. Cujo by Stephen King
56. James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
57. The Anarchist Cookbook by William Powell
58. Boys and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
59. Ordinary People by Judith Guest
60. American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
61. What's Happening to my Body? Book for Boys: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Sons by Lynda Madaras
62. Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
63. Crazy Lady by Jane Conly
64. Athletic Shorts by Chris Crutcher
65. Fade by Robert Cormier
66. Guess What? by Mem Fox
67. The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende
68. The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline Cooney
69. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
70. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
71. Native Son by Richard Wright
72. Women on Top: How Real Life Has Changed Women's Fantasies by Nancy Friday
73. Curses, Hexes and Spells by Daniel Cohen
74. Jack by A.M. Homes
75. Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo A. Anaya
76. Where Did I Come From? by Peter Mayle
77. Carrie by Stephen King
78. Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume
79. On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer
80. Arizona Kid by Ron Koertge
81. Family Secrets by Norma Klein
82. Mommy Laid An Egg by Babette Cole
83. The Dead Zone by Stephen King
84. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
85. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
86. Always Running by Luis Rodriguez
87. Private Parts by Howard Stern
88. Where's Waldo? by Martin Hanford
89. Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene
90. Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman
91. Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
92. Running Loose by Chris Crutcher
93. Sex Education by Jenny Davis
94. The Drowning of Stephen Jones by Bette Greene
95. Girls and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
96. How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
97. View from the Cherry Tree by Willo Davis Roberts
98. The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
99. The Terrorist by Caroline Cooney
100. Jump Ship to Freedom by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier

There are 19 books on the list that I've read and what's really kind of funny is that 13 of them were required reading in school (none of them in college). What really amazes me is that the Scary Stories series is top of the list and has gotten more complaints than the others.

I'm going down to the thrift store tomorrow to buy the second Scary Stories book so I can complete my collection.
I'm interested in seeing if any of you have any comments/ memories of these books or if you have a story or image that you remember. Or let me know how many books you've read from the list.

RETURN TO THE LABYRINTH

I got this new book because I'm a big fan of the movie Labyrinth and I wanted to see what happens after the movie. There's a part 1 and 2 out right now and part three is supposed to come out in November. I heard that they are actually going to have to extend it to four parts eventually.

This comic starts out giving a brief rundown of what happened in the movie.
Sarah a spoiled teenage girl who lives in her own princess and fairies fantasy world has to babysit her baby brother Toby while her father and stepmother go out for the evening. She becomes frustrated with the crying baby and wishes the goblin king Jareth would send his goblins to take Toby away and keep him in a castle at the center of a labyrinth where he will stay and eventually be turned into a goblin.
When the wish comes true Sara begs Jareth to give Toby back and Jareth (who has fallen in love with her) gives her a chance to save him by solving the labyrinth in 13 hours.
While in the confusing and nonsensical labyrinth Sara along with friends she meets along the way solves riddles and clues and eventually saves Toby.

So the book starts out 15 years later when Toby is a teenager and has been being watched secretly over the years by Jareth. Jareth intends to hand his kingdom over to Toby and retire or whatever.
I read the book and it was nice to see some of the old characters like Hoggle and Luto again and I'll probably buy the other books even though the artwork is kind of shitty. One of the nice things about the story though is that it has a lot of opportunities for spin off stories with the characters. It kind of makes me want to write one myself.