Archive Page 16
Dungeons & Dragons Paint-A-Figurine (Hasbro, 1984): Strongheart and Warduke
Published November 23, 2015 Arts and Crafts , D&D , D&D Non-Gaming Merchandise 4 Comments
Galacticon II Program Cover, 1979
Published November 20, 2015 Battlestar Galactica , Conventions (Cons)/Trade Shows 3 Comments
Cover artist is unknown. The program is 16 pages. How cool would that have been if Cylons came out of the mother ship at the end of Close Encounters?
You can see a few photos of the event here. Guests included Linda Blair (Huh? To promote Roller Boogie?), Michael York, and the cast of the 1950 TV series Space Patrol.
Kenner’s Star Wars Toys: Patrol Dewback (1979)
Published November 20, 2015 Kenner Toys , Star Wars (Original Trilogy) 5 Comments
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mg3U3rjoGW4
The dewback was in one shot of the original movie? Kenner missed nothing. That’s Ricky Schroder in the commercial, right after he starred in The Champ (1979), his film debut, and right before he starred with William Holden in The Earthling (July, 1980).
Close Encounters of the Third Kind Pinball Machine (Gottlieb, 1978)
Published November 19, 2015 Close Encounters of the Third Kind , Pinball 1 Comment
Designed by Ed Krynski with art by Gordon Morison, both of whom worked on the psychedelic 2001 and Dimension machines, as well as Astro and Orbit, all of them released by Gottlieb in 1971.
All images are via the Internet Pinball Database.
Close Encounters of the Third Kind Ringer T-Shirt, 1977
Published November 19, 2015 '70s Decor/Design/Fashion , Close Encounters of the Third Kind 4 Comments
Middle Earth Clothing Ad, Circa 1967
Published November 18, 2015 '60s Decor/Design/Fashion , Ads , Counterculture (1960s) , Lord of the Rings, The 3 Comments
The artist is Terre, who is closely associated with Haight Ashbury’s Straight Theater, which is identified on the middle left of the map. The exotic fruit hanging from the various branches, as well as the mountains at the bottom of the ad, are direct allusions to Barbara Remington’s cover art for the first authorized paperback edition of The Lord of the Rings.
According to SFist, in 2013 the awning of a beauty salon was removed in North Beach, San Francisco, revealing a beautiful, hand-painted sign (below) of what was once a second Middle Earth Clothing location.
See also A Change of Hobbit Bookstore.
The Lord of the Rings T-Shirt (Tolkien Enterprises, 1978)
Published November 18, 2015 '70s Decor/Design/Fashion , Counterculture (1960s) , Lord of the Rings, The Leave a Comment
You’ll see a “Hip-O-Potamus S.F.” on the bottom left of the shirt. That refers to an influential San Francisco company founded in 1970 by Jeffrey Axelrod and Barry Anderson. Their first job, after they had no luck selling their own designs, came when a store owner asked them to print out 200 t-shirts of an original design over the weekend. Says Jeff, who still sells some of the original Hippo Tees designs:
It just so happened that the owner of that very store was the wife of the drummer for the iconic band, the Grateful Dead. It was 1971 and she had the vision to sell t-shirts at rock concerts, and so our t-shirt venture exploded! Our first rock’n t-shirts [the company was originally called Rock-n-Roll t-shirts] went on tour with the Grateful Dead.
The company would later collaborate with promoter Bill Graham’s Winterland Productions, selling shirts at Bay Area rock shows, a practice that shortly became standard. Jeff (mushroom shirt) and Barry (far right) can be seen below, circa 1970.
You can see more of the Tolkien Enterprises Lord of the Rings t-shirt designs here and here, and a much stranger design here.
Mitsubishi Colt Lancer Promotional Coloring Book, Circa 1976
Published November 17, 2015 '70s Decor/Design/Fashion , Coloring/Activity Books 1 Comment
Groovy item meant to keep the kids busy at the dealership while dad and mom kicked the tires. Joginder Singh won the Safari Rally in 1973 and 1976 driving a Colt Lancer.
Cars didn’t transform in the ’70s. They just went really fast to evade the cops or catch the bad guys.
Gobots on Earth and War of the Gobots Super Adventure Books (Golden, 1984)
Published November 17, 2015 Books , Comic Books , GoBots , Spider-Man , Steve Ditko Leave a Comment
What’s interesting about these books is that they were illustrated by comics legend Steve Ditko, co-creator of Spider-Man and creator of Doctor Strange. It’s hard to believe now that someone like him would do art for a kid’s book about a second-rate transforming robot franchise, but comics artists and writers at the time held no rights to their work, and worship at the altar of pop culture was not a mainstream pursuit. Illustrators had to knock out an endless amount of pages to make a living. From a New York Post article from 2012:
To this day, Ditko has probably made very little off his billion-dollar co-creation [Spider-Man]. He has no ownership of the character and was paid a modest per-page rate at the time. He does collect royalties each time the comics are reprinted, but he says he has not earned anything off the films, despite his name appearing in the credits.
The covers of both books are illustrated by Jeffrey Oh and written by longtime Ditko collaborator and champion Robin Snyder.
(Images via eBay, Beer and Robots, and Life with Fandom)
Dragon’s Lair Coloring Book: ‘Dirk the Daring Battles the Giddy Goons’ (Marvel Books, 1984)
Published November 16, 2015 Coloring/Activity Books , Dragon's Lair , Marvel Books (Imprint) , Video Games Leave a Comment
There were two coloring books and two coloring/activity books based on Dragon’s Lair, all of them published in 1984 by Marvel Books. The second coloring book is The Magic Sword, and the coloring/activity books are Dirk the Daring Battles the Black Knight and Dirk the Daring Battles the Crypt Creeps.
More on Dragon’s Lair here, and I talk about the Marvel Books imprint here.
(Images via Dragon’s Lair Fans)
2 Warps to Neptune 