Thrift Store Baragon!! (and How To Do It)

This was a project of mine, during the last week...the hard part is finding a suitable painting: 

 

Then, another hard part is drawing what you want to scale! (Note: there are a couple of different ways to do this...by hand, or complete a drawing you really like, then re-size it on a photocopier or computer.)

Then, another hard part is scanning it and putting it into Photoshop, so you can have a rough draft, and decide exactly on your placement...(and erase what you don't need):

Finally, the hardest hard part of all...I recommend buying some carbon paper to help you (carefully) transfer your drawing to the painting.
From there on in, the rest is simple....not really, this was another hard part.

But at last, you have a finished work, suitable for a gilded frame...oh wait, it came with one! Even better!

I think this one turned out much better than my first attempt, Thrift-Store Gamera.

THE SUPER DICTIONARY (Part.....Thirteen)

Ok, we can do this! Steady on, stiff upper lip, and all that.  Brace yourselves: the fruits of your labors from going through an arduous work week are, in fact, Part Thirteen of our journey through THE SUPER DICTIONARY.  Sorry.

....but at least we are starting with a winner.  Just read that again, and then read it a few times more.  If there is anyone who can not laugh at this, then you aren't allowed here.  Also, if you know that the popular usage of the word in the late 1970's often referred to cocaine, then this becomes nothing short of a laugh riot.  Explains a lot about this book, but that's been my contention from the letter A.

Welcome to the top; from here on, it's straight down.

What's interesting to me here, is that Superman is pulling.  He is doing the exact opposite of stopping this supposed runaway locomotive.  You merely have to read our previous twelve installments to understand why, but if you don't have the time, it's because Superman is a world-class, grade-A, humongous, car-stacking jerk.

We have seen a handful of archaic entries thus far, but as this is the 1970's, and not the 1870's, this shouldn't even be here.  They are too lazy to illustrate it anyway, and their definition is absurd...what's next, an entry for pantaloons?  Bustles? Un-corseted Tea Gowns?

Why are green trucks, plural, flying through the air?  Even DC's chimpanzee detective would be suspicious of a "postal" Green Lantern, here.  The bad news is, they sent Supergirl to deal with it.

Twins will be quick to tell you that this definition is offensive.  In the case of identical twins, they may look alike, but are never "a person just like" the other.  That is precisely the two-dimensional, inexperienced prattle that we have come to expect from this book.  On the other hand, if you dress exactly alike, you get what you deserve.  

What was the beginning of this conversation like? 

BLONDE:  "Oh, hello, Lois. Say, is that Clark Kent's twin brother you've got there??"

LOIS:   "..........no."

BLONDE: "Oh, I thought...."

Congratulations! We are now at the point where I forget exactly why I included some of these...Laughing Fish, much?

But hey, we are in the letter U, so things must be looking up.  Unless you are the "person" who drew, excuse me, pasted, this little tableau together.  This is a mess of perspective that M.C. Escher (world-famous rapper) couldn't figure out.  Is Hawkgirl behind, or in front of, Wonder Woman?  It doesn't matter, because the Atom is apparently bigger than her, meaning he is adult-sized, meaning...Aquaman is gigantic.  And, standing on a slope.  Or possibly Flash's feet.  I didn't even yet mention Supergiant.  This picture makes my head hurt.  Don't do this, kids.  Don't ever do this.

Um.  But is it unusual for him to wear Wonder Woman's? Tell us more!

No, Batgirl, I think if you keep standing there and screaming, we will be just fine. And why are they magnetized to the side of a brick wall???

Ladies and Gentlemen, we are in Wackyland.

Yes, yes we do.  We expect him to clean the restrooms at the Hall of Justice, and pick up Batman's cleaning, too.  

My, they were amazingly kind to Aquaman there, weren't they?  I would not have been able to resist changing the word here to useless.  

Really, this picture makes no sense, because he would probably have to be quite flat...but the only thing that would make it funnier is if he was strapped to the arm of a giant Mickey Mouse.  "Little clock that is worn on an arm"...I never.  You insult our intelligence, SUPER DICTIONARY.

If W comes, can Z be far behind? Find out next time.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Ultraman Leo Presents: Everyday Life in Japan

Courtesy of Ultraman Leo, here is "Everyday Life in Japan":

King Kong Trading Cards (Donruss, 1965)

The least silly card!

We have talked about vintage jokey monster trading cards before (here and here are two examples), and I have said before that they were often dumb, but innocent.  In 1965, Donruss published a KING KONG series, which is now quite rare, and there were eleven cards from KING KONG vs GODZILLA, which was a cool move by Donruss.  However, they marred these with obtuse, immature "jokes" about deodorant and mouthwash...which, I would imagine, were lame by 1965.  

Here are scans of all eleven, including a rare wrapper from this series.  The backs of the cards were puzzle pieces, which in this case don't amount to anything, so I didn't scan it.

"...because I am head-butting you."  That makes perfect sense...?

This is a well-used image in the monster trading-card world.

Congratulations! This makes no sense at all.

Note that this image is a paste-up, and includes the original, 1933 Kong with Godzilla, who is suddenly shrimpy.  It probably came straight from Toho like this, because there is another official still that is made like this (see below).

Godzilla Fail of the Day

I saw this auction posted on E-bay some time last week.....and I said, "Do what now?"

THE SUPER DICTIONARY (Part Twelve)

"Ok, come on, we can do this..." I told myself as I went back to my slowly-shrinking folder of photos from this book of Insane Craptasticality.  Then I realized I was not only talking to myself, but using the word "we," which was more than a little troubling, I have to say.

Yep, that's a powerful ring...and uh-huh, that's as many as three tens, but why did he stop 30 random people? What were they doing, marching for Marvel? They don't look too happy about this demonstration of Green Lantern's power...who is apparently sitting on a flagpole or something?

Oh, Supergirl, don't mock us...we all know you can't read.  Also, it looks like one of the alien animals has escaped from Superman's Fortress of Solitude zoo.

 Knowing Superman, no doubt this will end up killing an entire civilization, light years away.

Quick, which one is my thumb, again? Oh, yes, the short, thick one.  Rather than debate whether the thumb is a finger (or just a thumb), I will point out that this giant is apparently an excellent gardener!

Hmm, I was going to Photoshop something for that last sentence, but I feel that I am depriving you of what your own imaginations could come up with, and that's just not fair to you.  After all, if they were too lazy to illustrate it, then I won't either.

Comics are known for using too many exclamatory phrases, but if there ever was a time for one, it's here:  "Robin, wake up." A better question is, why has he picked this unfortunate time to sleep? Super-Narcolepsy?  Also note that, even though Robin is out of it, Batman still helps him to know that the tiger is "the large orange and black cat," because of course if it's pink, it's Snagglepuss.  

Is this really a time for specifics?

It's hard to know where to begin, here.  All I can come up with is that El Dragon is climbing a mountain, and apparently wrapping himself with rope on the way up.  It's just the sort of nonsensical thing that I would expect a hero as pointless as El Dragon to do, but here, all he can think about is eating.  Maybe there is an abandoned Quiznos at the top? I have no idea.  

Once again, the stupidity of THE SUPER DICTIONARY baffles me...I mean, we couldn't have a Rocket-Firing Boba Fett action figure because some kid in the late 70's fired a spring-loaded missile into his own throat, but El Dragon could pull inane crap like this, and nobody copies it? 

And then there's this:

"A Novel-Length Adventure:  Green Lantern in, THE TERROR OF THE TERRIBLE TOAD TOUPEE!!"  

I have so many questions here, but I can't see anything except GL's giant head, so I have to assume he is up to his shoulders in quicksand, somewhere in a swamp.  But I did learn that he has the little-known Dr. Doolittle power of commanding toads (maybe because they are green?), so that was useful knowledge.

You probably know this, but Superheroes don't do anything without gusto.  They can't merely open the mail, or rewind a VHS tape (they still have VCR's, which is puzzling, because most of them are completely surrounded by futuristic technology)...instead they punch straight through the mail, or decimate the video cassette with an energy beam.  Therefore, we shouldn't be surprised to see that when Batman wants to hurt you, he makes it count, even when he is just walking around in an empty green room.  Don't look at this panel as merely random DC clip-art pasted together!  Instead, see it as the display of prowess that it is meant to be!

Also, for those of you out there who still question the purity of Robin's breeding, they throw in the almost parenthetical reminder that "Robin has five toes on each foot."  Well done, SUPER DICTIONARY.

Unfortunately, El Dragon couldn't even hang himself properly, so here he is, given the less-than-glorifying task of maintenance work at the Hall of Justice.  (Superman let him continue to wear his costume though; he just couldn't do that to the little guy.)  I want to direct your attention to the fact that he is holding up a pair of pliers in front of the doorknob, and wondering why it's not fixed yet.

Or, I'm not giving him enough credit, and that's the keyhole to Wonder Woman's room.

Either way, no matter what I do, I can only read the word and definition like this:

 ...TO BE CONTINUED...

1954 Godzilla ("Gojira/Godzilla, King of the Monsters") NECA, 2015

Here we have the sixth figure in the NECA line, and quite simply, they have outdone themselves.  Rather than prattle on, let's get right to it!

Okay, NOW it's time for prattling.  Ladies and gentlemen, the 1954 Godzilla.  This figure is beautiful.  They NAILED the face, and they NAILED the stance.  Nothing was phoned in.

Articulation is similar to the five figures that preceded it, with some new touches.  (Oh, and the paint details that lend an air of black-and-white, even!)

Chunky newly-sculpted legs, and big swiveling feet, complete with gray toes!

Articulated fingers (together as a set) for grasping!  

The body, arms, and neck have similar articulation to its earlier cousins, and the tail has the usual built-in wire.  Here's a comparison to what has been (until now) my go-to 1954 Godzilla:

On the left, the Bandai Japanese vinyl from 1999.  There is an improved version of this in their American line (Bandai Creation), and you can probably still find it in stores.  It's a fine figure, with the Bandai Creation one being even better, but it has now been surpassed.

Since I need to say something critical to make this a review, rather than a paean of praise to NECA...which this pretty much is...I will say that NECA's tails always end in a point.  They never seem to capture any bluntness.  I believe this tail end is a new piece; it's much shorter than the usual ones (that you have to attach to a ball joint, out of the package), which allows for a shorter portion of wire-tail, and a longer portion of the jointed part (if that makes sense).  I would just like to see a rounded end, if I had to be picky!

Back of Package

Okay, so now, we are up to six figures (sounds like a good salary)...so what's next?  To my knowledge, nothing has even been announced!  Okay, NECA, it's time to make vintage suits, going forward from the 1954! And then we can start mixing in--dare I say it--friends and enemies??!?!

I certainly hope this line is planned to continue.  I know I have enjoyed it even more than I suspected I would, and NECA keeps raising the bar. Here are the package inserts:

Can a 1962 be far behind? Or even a 1968 (squeal)?

If you can't tell, this is a figure to order!

In fact, he is now ready for his scene as a guest star!