Little Golden Book Monday #99

Today's Little Golden Book is The Very Best Home For Me! from 1982. The book was originally published in 1953 with the title Animal Friends.
The writer is Jane Werner Watson, who has written many Golden Books. Among them are Whales, Dinosaurs, and a series of read-together books for parents and children that includes My Friend the Babysitter, My Friend the Doctor, and Sometimes I'm Afraid.
The artist is Garth Williams, who's endearing art work has enhanced many popular Golden Books, including such favorites as the The Friendly Book, Home for a Bunny, The Sailor Dog, and Three Bedtime Stories.

Apple & Saturn both like to Rethink

I became a Saturn owner today! We purchased the 2009 Saturn Vue Hybrid and I absolutely love the car and the experience of buying it. I remember all those ads on TV years ago telling us that each Saturn owner was a part of the family, and showed them all attending the big Saturn Family Picnic.
There were some that questioned our judgement of buying a Saturn now, with all the stuff going on with Saturn and parent company General Motors. But after test driving well over a half dozen SUV crossovers, the Saturn Vue Hybrid was by far our favorite, and with all kinds of incentives and loyalty discounts, the price could not be beat.
The other day while out driving with my wife, she mentioned that while driving around she had been looking at all the other cars on the road and had not seen very many Saturns. I told her that I really didn't care if there were not that many, and then went on to tell her how I thought that the Saturn brand was much like the Apple brand. I have always been a huge Apple fan and although I have been using them for over 20 years, its only recently that they have started to become mainstream. So Saturn being the small company making great cars was fine with me.
The next day I was at the library checking out the magazines, and I noticed a two page Ad for the Saturn Vue on the inside front two pages of a recent issue of Entertainment Weekly magazine. I found that interesting, as I collect Apple ads, and they love to put their ads on the inside front two pages of magazines such as Entertainment Weekly.
I decided to scan in the ad for my collection of ads on my computer. While scanning it, I noticed the Rethink logo in the ad and remembered an Apple poster I have up on my wall at work that I received from Apple about 3 or 4 years ago. The poster is a simple black poster with the word Rethink spelled out upside down in the center and the slogan "Rethink the Possibilities" at the bottom. I quickly opened up iPhoto and looked for a photo of the poster on my wall at work, and I managed to find a photo that showed the poster.
Above you can see the recent two page Saturn ad along with the older Apple poster which I have added to the top left of the Saturn ad. It would seem the two companies have more in common than I would have ever guessed. Those Rethink logos are extremely similar. Just click on the above ad to make it larger and see for yourself.
I can't wait to head out to the garage tomorrow to slap an Apple sicker on the back window of my new Saturn!

Little Golden Book Monday #98

I picked up today's Little Golden Book while I was out shopping earlier today at my local Wal-Mart. I knew that this book (Sponge Bob Squarepants - Mr. Fancypants!) was supposed to have been released a few months ago, but I had not seen it anywhere until today. I actually really like Sponge Bob Squarepants, so this is a great addition to the collection, and I look forward to reading it to my son who also likes Sponge Bob and his pal Patrick. Sponge Bob is one of those cartoons that is enjoyable for kids, but is also a lot of fun for adults as well. Thankfully Kaden prefers the same high brow entertainment that I do, such as Sponge Bob, Batman, Scooby Doo, The Secret Saturdays and Bugs Bunny.
I am still looking for the Veggie Tales Little Joe book that was released back in June, and I am looking forward to Disney's Princess and the Frog that is slated to be released in October of 2009.

Caroline's Party & at the Seaside

A few weeks ago I found two more of these wonderful Caroline books (by Pierre Probst) at a used book shop. Each book was $4, which is slightly more than I like to pay for used books, but I liked the artwork so much that I was willing to pay the $8 to add these two new books to my collection. First off if Caroline's Party originally from 1953, this printing is from 1972. The second book is Caroline At the Seaside, originally from 1965, this printing is also from 1972. The illustrations are absulutly whimsical. I decided to take a few photos (the pages were much too big for my scanner) to share here on my blog. Hope you enjoy!

Little Golden Book Monday #97

Today's Little Golden Book is Disney's Pocahontas the Voice of the Wind from 1995. Not much to say about his one - I was never much of a fan of this Disney movie. I believe that this is one of only a handful of Disney animated films I don't have in my collection in any format (VHS, or DVD). I picked up the book because it was only 25 cents and I didn't have it already. It was also in really good condition except that it had been written on inside the front cover. Apparently this book used to belong to Mila and Vuk. It must have sucked having to share books etc with a sibling. Luckily for me, my name was the only one written in my books!

Batman Circulation Numbers

I picked up some old Batman and Detective Comics recently. One issue in particular was issue #360 from February 1967. I love the cover on this issue, and the old stories are always lots of fun, but what really interested me was on page 8. It was the Statement of ownership, management and circulation, and in this document are the circulation numbers of Detective Comics along with all kinds of other interesting info.
I have always been a bit of a numbers junkie when it comes to minor league hockey attendance, magazine & comic book print numbers, etc. With this 1967 issue, the paid subscribers for Batman's Detective Comics was 2,339. Back in 1999, the paid subscribers for my KISS fanzine, Firehouse Magazine was just over 3,000 paid subscribers. Pretty amazing to think the little magazine I was producing out of my livingroom had more subscribers than Batman - at least compared to the 1967 numbers!*As always, click to enlarge*

My First Two Comic Books

I recently read on another blog that the the writer of the blog was trying to acquire all of the comic books that they had as a young kid. That got me to thinking about how and when I got started collecting comic books. I could remember exactly what two comics were the first comics I bought, they were issue #2 of Rom Spaceknight and issue #2 of Fantasy Masterpieces staring The Silver Surfer, both from January 1980.
There used to be a drug store across the street from where I lived, and I mostly remember heading to the back of the store where they had the toys. I can remember spending a lot of time standing back their staring at all the toys hung on the pegs on the wall - I'm sure there was not that much there, but to a twelve year old in 1979 it seemed like Toys R Us to me! Then one day, for some reason I noticed some comic books on a bottom shelf near the front of the store. They were all packaged two to a bag for one price. I remember sifting though all the packages looking at the amazing covers. I settled on the one with the space robot comic and the space man comic.
Its pretty amazing to see that these two comics are still in amazing shape. I didn't start bagging my comics for about 10 years, so for the first 10 years, these two comics sat along with the rest of my comics in the top drawer of my desk. My favorites being kept in paper bags that I would receive when purchasing comics or magazines at the local drug store.
Shortly after I picked up these two comics, I began to swap comics with the kids in my neighborhood, and I ended up trading for a copy of Captain Canuck issue #6. I liked it so much that I subscribed to Captain Canuck and would run to the mailbox every day hoping for a new issue to arrive!
I also started spending a lot of time at a local book store called the Bookaneer that as well as selling used books, they sold all the new comic book titles. I can remember spending a lot of my free time hanging around that store talking about comics with the shop owner and other kids who would come in.
It was in 1988 that I visited my first real comic book shop. I was a big fan of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and when I found out they had action figures based on the TMNT, I had to have them. There were not many toy stores in my area, so I didn't have much luck finding them. Someone at one of the small toy shops I visited, told me that I should check out a comic book shop to get these figures. After checking out my phone book, I found a comic book shop in New Westminster called Talking Illustrations, and when I called them, they told me that they did in fact have them in stock, but that they were selling very fast. I jumped into the car and drove the 30 minutes to the store to get my turtle figures. My eyes must have doubled in size as I stared at racks and racks of comic books and all things comic related! I have been making the 30 minute drive on a regular basis to that same shop for the past 20 years!

I Panned for Gold with the Metal Queen

I went with the family to Fort Langley to visit the Fort Langley Historical Site. Fort Langley is the exact location where, a century and a half ago, a huge fur trade organization called the Hudson's Bay Company established a small post to trade with the First Nations of the West Coast. The enterprise grew, evolved, and influenced history, leading to the creation of the colony of British Columbia. Fearing annexation by the United States, British Columbia was proclaimed a Crown Colony on this site by James Douglas on November 19, 1858.
And on Monday while there, my son got the chance to pan for gold at their gold panning exhibit. While there another family stepped up to try their luck and do some gold panning. Turns out songstress Lee Aaron (aka the Metal Queen) was standing next to me! I didn't have the heart to let on that I knew who she was, as I always feel like such a nutz talking to celebrities I don't know. I was just happy in the knowledge that the singer of some of my favorite songs (some of which just happened to be on the iPod in my pocket at the time) was standing next to me in the muck pretending to pan for gold!

Little Golden Book Monday #96

In keeping with yesterdays CARS theme, I have a brand new Little Golden Book that I just picked up a few days ago. I love how they have Mater and Lightning McQueen on roller coaster tracks on the front cover. It's also interesting to see that Mater has now had two Little Golden Books to Lightning's one.
It's also amazing to see how the Cars movie is still producing new merchandise 3 years after its release, pretty good considering that many were calling the film a flop when it didn't initially preform as well as the previous Pixar films. And for those keeping up on their Disneyland news, as well as of the new merchandise, there is a whole new land being built at Disney's DCA called Cars Land set to debut in 2012.

Jonny's CARS Wash

I recently drove by a local car wash that has been in the same location for about 30+ years. I'm not sure what they used to be called, but their brand new signs say "Jonny's Car Wash", and the images and fonts used looked extremely familiar! I had been meaning to stop by and get some pictures for a few weeks but never seemed to remember, until one day a week or so ago I was out driving around town with my wife and son and I happened to mention the car wash. My wife asked if I wanted to stop by to get some photos and I quickly said "Yes!" She parked in the empty parking lot of the next door business and I hopped out of the car with the camera to take some photos. While I was trying to get a good shot of the main sign, I walked over to their drive way and stepped though the open fence to take a photo. I was quickly greeted by a woman working there who told me that I could not take photos. I stepped back onto the sidewalk and continued to take photos. She then came out to where I was now standing and informed me that if I didn't stop taking photos she was going to call the police. Wow, I didn't realize it was illegal to take photos of a business that could be plainly seen from the sidewalk! I made my way back to the car, all the while taking more photos, and all the while listening to her threaten to call the police on me for illegally taking photos. When I finally got into the car, she held up a piece of paper and let me know that she had my licence plate number and was calling the police.
I hadn't thought much about it, but after all of her fuss over me taking photos, I have to wonder... did they get permission to use the Disney/Pixar logos and images on their signs... I think not!