THRIFT STORE FINDS 2-8-2011

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.

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.

RECENT DOODLES AND SKETCHES 7-10

I haven't been working on any big art projects lately but I'm usually doodling one thing or another so I thought I'd share some of the little stuff.

I was messing around with a lot of 80s characters and drawing up these little sketches to put in an 80sville type of small town that I had drawn up. I figured I'd just draw the town first and just plant them in later with photoshop but I ended up finding out a little too late that I added too much detail and the characters didn't look good shrunk-down and squeezed into the streets and windows.

The drawings are still pretty fun though by themselves.



Starting from top left and working our way down we have Monchichi the thumb/banana sucking fuzzy monkey. I was thinking it might be funny to have him sticking his thumb in another monchichi's butt. (childish but funny).
There is vomiting Odie or "Grodie". The gag is supposed to be a long gush of puke instead of the tongue.
A "Poochie" dog ripping apart a Cabbage Patch Kid.
Q-Bert and PacMan, a couple Smurfs and Strawberry Deathcake? A goth version that smells like clove cigarettes?





Care Bears bearing 80s logos I planned on scattering around town (too small to see the logos on their bellies).



Alphie II the reading robot helping kids learn to spell "FART" and other various 4-letter words.
More Strawberry Deathcake ideas with little pets and names like "Moonberry Gloom" smelling like formaldehyde.
Charlie Brown who was supposed to be exiting a building shaped like the Snoopy Sno-cone maker from the early 80s.
Garfield, Gloworms, Q-Bert, and Fisher Price Little People (rabid dog that bit little boy).



HeMan VS the Shirttales



A few Tomy robot sketches



Snoopy sitting on his shithouse



Cabbage Patch Kids "Koosas" the animal versions that were supposed to be pets.



Rainbow Not-So Brite picking on star sprites.

Here's another random drawing I did on the back of an old book.



And a couple of recent Garbage Pail Kids drawings (Shown with the original cards).













That's all for now.