The Salvaged She-Newt

 If you enjoy super fun comics, you need to check out The Salvaged She-Newt, a self published comic book by Ken Albery.

Here is an awesome sketch cover Ken did for me with she-Newt battling (or more correctly, running from) a large kaiju.

Heckle and Jeckle Merchandise

I'm not sure why, but I have always loved Heckle and Heckle. They have started showing their cartoons on Toon in with ME on MeTV, which is great, but I'm reminded that the cartoons are not that memorable. I think most of my love for Heckle and Heckle comes from that fact that they were so hard to see back in the 80's and 90's when I was really getting into animation (after reading Of Mice and Magic by Leonard Maltin). Back in the late 80's I was able to see a few of the Heckle and Jeckle cartoons at the Kiddierama in my local mall. (Check out my post about that Kiddierama.) I still hope that at some point we will get a complete set of cartoons on BuRay, but until then, I will have to settle for the odd item I find in an antique shop or thrift store. Here are a few of my most recent finds. I love the art on the Golden Record and the magnet, but the artwork on the two films is pretty awful!

Family Circle Magazine December 1956

 Here is the Family Circle magazine from December 1956. It has a very nice Christmas story by Pearl S. Buck and visualized by Walt Disney and staff.

King Kong (19330 on the Big Screen

Well, This looks like fun!

Check it out https://www.facebook.com/Hollywood3Horrorshow

 

The Human Fly, the wildest costumed hero of all (because he's real!), is coming back!

Back in the 70's when I first started reading comic books, I had a few early favourites. One was our own Canadian costumed hero Captain Canuck. Another was Marvel Comic's The Human Fly. As soon as I saw the cover of issue #1, I was hooked. I don't think I ever realized he was also a Canadian super hero, that part was completely lost on me, but the "wildest costumed hero of all (because he's real!)" part always seemed really cool!

The original series ran for 19 issues before being cancelled and disappearing into the comic back bins forever... or so it seemed! 

The Human Fly, the real-life Canadian stunt-man phenomenon from the late 1970's – and start of a 19-issue run at Marvel Comics – will be returning to color comic-books for the direct market, and collections for the book trade! Canadian company Human Fly International (HFI) has entered into an agreement with IPI Comics (IPI), that will allow the Human Fly to return to exciting new stories in color comics.

The Human Fly is a truly dynamic unique property that will come to stand with our first comics releases as something fresh and unusual. We know such a powerful concept, anchored with fascinating real-life history and a captivating design, will get readers and superhero fans' attention ion a big way. So, we are going to work very closely with HFI to produce something memorable, that will make both new fans and those who have any of the old Marvel Human Fly comics in their collections very pleased indeed to see the concepts re-examined and revamped for comics and graphic novels today. So, if you liked aspects off the Marel material we'll make sure you won't be disappointed, but I must emphasize this WON'T be a retro-book; this will be an adrenalin-charging comic-book for readers of today, that envelops the amazing truths and remorse of this scenario, but is also a perfect new book for readers who have never heard of this character before.

Check out the press release from IPI Comics here.

Scooby Doo on Gilligan's Island

I saw this image of Scooby Doo and Shaggy with Gilligan and the Skipper. It got me thinking how much fun it would be if they appeared together in something, and then I remembered that the current Scooby Doo series is called Scooby Doo and Guess Who, with each episode featuring some famous guest. Why not an episode where the Scooby gang ends up on a deserted island where they meet the cast of Gilligan's Island! I threw on a Scooby Doo and Guess Who logo onto the image, and now I'm super excited to see this happen!

Walt Disney's The Adventures of Mr. Toad

I picked up this book recently at a thrift shop. I love the artwork inside and decided to scan a few of my favourites including the inside front cover (also inside back cover) two page spread of a map of Toads adventures, and also the title page with a great image of Toad Hall. Enjoy!

Cap'N Crunch's Captain Canuck Cereal

Back in 2021 I saw a limited edition Canadian version of Cap'N Crunch cereal called Cap'N Crunch's Canuck Crunch. But to me, something was wrong, it's called Canuck Crunch, but there on the front of the box was the old Cap'n Crunch. Shouldn't this box have Captain Canuck on the front!? So, I took it upon myself to correct this mistake. And here you have the real 'faux' Cap'N Crunch's Canuck Crunch. And of course on the back of the box you can cut out your Captain Canuck membership card, and somewhere deep down inside  the cereal box you can find one of four Captain Canuck mini figures... Or at least you could if this really existed!

Hitchhiking Ghosts in 3D... Kinda

I have been playing with the DittoPro 3D printer we have at work. When I noticed one of the colours of filament we had was a semi transparent aqua, it immediately made me think of a ghost, and of course that lead me to looking for a Haunted Mansion ghost that I could print. I found was this Hitchhiking Ghosts silhouette file which I printed out and it now lives in my collection along with my faux Sleeping Beauty animation cell and Tinkerbell in a lantern.

Big Bang Babies Official Merchandise T-Shirt

In the early 90's Big Bang Babies was one of my favourite bands! They were very similar in style to Poison and Warrant, but sadly they never broke out like those bands did. Along with a long list of demos, they released two albums, a 6 song self titled EP and a 10 song album titled Black Market. With songs such as Everybody Needs a Hero, Saturday Night, 8 Arms, and Stop the Clock, these guys should have made it big.

After Big Bang Babies, lead guitarist Kerry Kelli went on to play with other bands including Slash's Snakepit, Skid Row, Vince Neil Band, Ratt, Warrant, L.A. Guns, Pretty Boy Floyd, Tuff and Alice Cooper.

Pictured here is the front and back of a very cool concert shirt I ordered from the band back in the days of mail lists and order forms through the mail pre internet sales! Such a great logo that most never got to see!

That's a Lot of Missing Cartoon

I was watching an old VHS tape full of Tom and Jerry cartoons I taped off of TV in the 90's and something stuck out to me. During the 1951 cartoon, His Mouse Friday, Tom encounters some stereotypical island cannibals, and in one scene they have a close of  the cannibals face and you can hear muted music but when his mouth opens, there is no sound. I have recently purchased the Tom and Jerry Spotlight Collection DVD set which has all of the original theatrical cartoons (minus two; Mouse Cleaning and Casanova Cat), so I grabbed my DVD and popped in disc 3 which has the His Mouse Friday cartoon on it. When I watched the same scene, I could hear the original voice that came out of the cannibals mouth. He says "Mmmmm... [licks his lips] barbecued cat" in a voice that sounds like a million other cartoon voices of the time. The same thing happens just a few seconds later then a tiny cannibal does this same thing to Jerry. On the cartoon taped off of TV, there is no sound when he talks, but on the DVD you hear him say "Mmmm [licks lips] barbecue mouse". I found it kinda odd that they removed the voice which I guess was considered stereotypical 'black' voice, and yet left in Jerry smudging soot onto his face to create 'black face'.

I was happy that on my DVDs, they had the original sound. But then I noticed that the DVD seems to be a pan and scan of the cartoon, where they cut the ends of the picture off to make it square like an old TV screen and sometimes they just cut the two ends off, or sometimes they pan and scan which means they move to where the action is and cut out the rest - sometimes (such as in this case) losing crucial animation. Shown here you can see the original wide screen version I taped off of TV back in the 90's and then the letterboxed version from the DVD. Odd that the one shown on my old TV is the wide version and the one on DVD is the reduced version.

The quality of this one is not great as I took a photo of the VHS image off of the TV using my phone.

This is a screen grab of the DVD

I had been excited that I could finally throw away all of my old VHS copies of Tom & Jerry that I can collected over the years now that I had this complete collection on DVD, but now that I see there is actually cartoon missing from the DVDs, now I think I will keep my tapes along with the DVD collection. 

Little Golden Book Monday #184

 Mickey's Walt Disney World Adventure has been repurposed 25 years later as Walt Disney World celebrates its 50th anniversary. 25 years ago in 1997, Little Golden Books released Mickey's Walt Disney World Adventure in conjunction with WDW's 25th Anniversary.  Although most of the book has remained the same, some things in the park have changed in the past 25 years, and those changes are reflected in updated artwork as you will see below.

Cover to the 1997 Little Golden Book release

Cover to the 2022 Little Golden Book release

Inside cover of the 1997 release

Inside cover of the 2022 release

1997 artwork showing the new entrance to Tomorrowland

2022 showing the Tomorrowland Transit Authority

1997 artwork showing an arial view of Fantasyland from the defunct Skyway

2022 artwork highlighting the new Seven Dwarfs Mine Train

Original 1997 artwork 

2022 slightly altered artwork altering the Main Street Cinema marquee

Little Golden Book Monday #183

Here is the most recent Disney related Little Golden Book. It is It's a Small World! adapted by Lauren Clauss, illustrated by Steph Lew and designed by Winnie Ho, with a publication date of 2021. I love seeing Disneyland attractions being adapted into Little Golden Books, and am excited about the upcoming Jungle Cruise and Haunted Mansion books coming out later in the year. Shown here are the front and back covers, along with a few of the wonderful interior illustrations.

Mickey Through the Years

 I saw this poster of Mickey Mouse through the years, and thought it needed just a little tweak.