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.

TOM BUNK SIGNED CARDS

Today in the mail I received autographed cards from my favorite artist Tom Bunk. Oh happy day!!
I sent him an assortment of cards to sign but made a mistake and accidentally sent him a Bathroom Buddies card that he didn't illustrate. Mr. Bunk sent me an extra GPK instead. Thanks Tom.





One of my favorite classic Garbage Pail Kids.



Tom Bunk always likes to put his name on the wanted posters.




Two of the ANS cards, one of the Scratch and Stink.



A Wacky Packages card, Slacker Jack.



A Trash Can Trolls card.
I have to say these are the Holy Grail of my autographed card collection.

TRASH CAN TROLLS

I was very happy today to find that a set of TRASH CAN TROLLS trading cards I ordered arrived in the mail. These cards came out in 1992 and I used to have a bunch of them but I gave them away, so it is nice to have the whole set again. Similar to Garbage Pail Kids these cards spoof the the Norfin Troll doll fad of the early 90's. There are 44 cards in the set, and like the GPK's each card has an a/b card with a separate name.

A lot of the same artists illustrated the cards including two of my favorites Tom Bunk and John Pound. Here are the card images.







The backs of the cards had puzzles like the Garbage Pail Kids and coupons for troll related products.



TROLL FACTS
* The first Troll dolls were originally called "Dam Dolls" or "Dammit Dolls" and were created in Denmark in the 40's by a man called Thomas Dam.
* The first doll was carved from wood and had yak hair and glass eyes. Dam carved it for his daughter.
* The dolls were supposed to bring luck to their owners and became popular and mass produced mostly for little girls in Denmark.
* Introduced in the U.S. in the 60's they quickly became a popular fad toy.
* The Norfin troll which is one of the names they are now called made a comeback in the early 90's spawning the Trash Can Trolls.

I have two trolls that I know of in my pad. One is just a little magnet on the lockers in my studio. The other is my lucky two headed troll I found at a garage sale. I have no idea why it has two heads and to be honest that is the only reason I bought it because I think the trolls are revolting and ugly but I guess it will give me twice the luck. I'm going to have to take it out to BINGO sometime. I'll let you know how that goes.