Colouring Book Theater: Wonder Woman Faces the Menace of the Mole Men!

Time to crack open another vintage colouring book and see the madness inside!

Wonder Woman faces the Menace of the Mole Men!

This book is from 1975 and is available in two sizes, in previous CBT segments I've reviewed the Batman and Shazam books in this series.

The first thing I want to point out is how much I love how angry Wonder Woman is on the cover, the male heroes are all smiling but not Diana!




So grab your crayons and check out this adventure after the jump! 

Colouring Book Theater: The Fantastic Four meet the Witch

Time to crack open another vintage colouring book and see the madness inside!

Fantastic Four Meet "The Witch"-1977 Whitman Publishing

Fantastic Four was one of my favourite comic books as a kid, the treasury editions quickly imprinted on my young brain and I was a fan for life.

My last take on a Fantastic Four colouring book was well, disenfranchising, so hopefully, this one is a little better. At least this one has Johnny and not Herbie the %$#^ing robot.

I already love the cover artwork with the three male heroes battling the titular Witch while Sue makes jazz hands.

 Check it out after the jump and when you're done, check out this other book from the series.

Colouring Book Theatre: Shogun Warriors starring Great Mazinga

It's been a long time since I did a CBT here at PlaidStallions but yesterday I found a treasure trove of books at a local shop including this gem.

I love the Shogun Warriors colouring books because they're kind of nuts but in a real good way. 

They were the creation of Canadian cartoonist Owen McCarron (who also created the Marvel "Fun and Games" comic) and it's painfully obvious that he was probably given no back story to the characters and free reign to do whatever he wanted.

So he just had fun with it, it's so super absurd with no thought to scale or science that just kind of has a wonderful childlike charm to it. I imagine very few kids would complain.

 Check it out after the jump and when you're done, check out this other book from the series.

Pod Stallions 53: The Black Hole

For our 53rd show, we are joined once again by former Famous Monsters editor and current host of "It Came From Blog" Mr David Weiner (@TikiAmbassador) for a rousing two hour discussion on Walt Disney's 1979 Science Fiction opus "The Black Hole".

The conversation talks about the film itself, the it's origins and somewhat discordant tone, the interesting cast, what the ending might mean, the multitude of  merchandise, it's trailer,  the comic book sequels and of course, the attempted remake.

We also touch on subjects like Star Wars, Shreddies cereal (blech), Salvage One, Starlog magazine and Buck Rogers. It's jam packed with late seventies science fiction goodness.

  Download the Show Here

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Marvel Comics Multi Mags 2 for 99 cents!

As readers of this blog know, I have a fondness for comic multi packs especially the Whitman ones for things like Micronauts or the Shogun Warriors.

That's why this 1981 ad from coluring book publisher Parkes Run (more on them later this week) intrigues me. 



It seems that 1981, Marvel dumped Whitman in favour of Parkes Run and the format changed from 3 comics to 2, thanks inflation!



As a side note, my dad knew a distributor of these back in the early 1980s. I remember seeing a whole skid of these two packs in his warehouse. The man said to me "take as many comics as you want!" but my dad's face suggested that I should probably be happy with one.....

Colouring Book Theatre: The Black Hole Sticker Activity Book

The Black Hole: Sticker Activity Book (1979), Whitman.

        This book is very dear to me, as a kid I got sick, "Miss a whole month of school" sick and my parents bought me a pack containing every Whitman Black Hole tie in to help pass the time.

          
Even though I'd never seen the movie, I became an uber fan that year as a result of the many comics and coloring books in that pack. 

This fun item was one of them and it's better than I remember.

Grab your crayons  and join me after the jump

Colouring Book Theatre: Lord of the Rings

The Lord of the Rings (1979), Whitman (Editor's note Today's submission provided and authored by Kurt, who has graciously us provided a glimpse into this neat book- Take it away Kurt!)

            I have very nostalgic feelings for Ralph Bakshi’s The Lord of the Rings.  It reminds me of the Age of the Video Store – that popcorn-scented archive of categorized racks of colorful, terrifying, sometimes lurid shelves of potential thrills and wonder.  In the Kid’s Corner, amongst the predominantly white clamshell cases featuring Mickey Mouse as the Sorcerer’s Apprentice and compilations of mainstream cartoons, were what I considered the “more mature” animated movies: titles like Rankin-Bass’ The Hobbit and The Last Unicorn or Don Bluth’s The Secret of N.I.M.H. These were cartoons that were thematically darker and stylistically unique, and to my young mind, Ralph Bakshi’s The Lord of the Rings was serious stuff.  Despite its shortcomings, I still consider it an ambitious and inspiring piece of art that honestly attempted to adapt a fantasy masterpiece that had previously been abandoned as unfilmable. 

            Another passion of mine was collecting coloring books, often buying a particular book for a single image.  I had a huge collection that, sadly, was destroyed by renters.  Over the years, I have gradually replaced some of my favorites and found new books that I never knew existed.  I recently ran across this Lord of the Rings coloring book by Whitman and was excited to see Bakshi’s vision in bold black and white line drawings.

            Unfortunately, what I ended up with was a lot of boring scenes and compositions with poorly drawn, often off-model pictures of the Fellowship walking. 

Let’s start with the cover (LOTR Cover): Frodo “has the Power!” while Gandalf photobombs.

Grab your crayons and still suit and join me after the jump

Krofft Week Wrap up

I got a lot of nice mail over Krofft week and many folks wanted to join in! Seeing as most of you have better collections than me, it made sense to showcase them here today.

Manuel has a great selection of Krofft borad games, I've never seen the Bugaloo's one above.



A lot of folks noticed my lack of Pufnstuf merch this week, mea culpa?


I am going to assume this is all the same game with different shows plastered on them.



Sharry sent in this awesome Bigfoot and Wildboy puzzle I want to own.



Speaking of Sharry, she's also got some cool encounters with former Krofft celebrities, here she is with Sigmund's Johnny Whitaker.



And here she is with Far Out Space Nut's Chuck McCann!

Thanks everybody for digging Krofft week, it shall return.

Pod Stallions is now available on YouTube! We're slowly downloading the whole catalog to this playlist, check it out here.

Colouring Book Theatre: UFO Seeing is Believing

UFO: Seeing is Believing Coloring Book
By Whitman 1978

Another colouring book I found rummaging through  Planet of the Stuff a couple of weeks ago. Not to be confused with the Gerry Anderson UFO coloring book we covered a few months back.

Whitman had quite the little cottage industry capitalizing on the UFO craze in the late 60s/early 70s. A quick scan of Ebay reveals comics and puzzles bearing that beautiful art like this cover.

I'm assuming this book is made up of abridged comic stories, the majority of them don't make a lot of sense, due to the format.

Let's take a look at this after the jump...

More Comic 3 Packs

I can't believe it's been over a year since I last raved about my mild obsession with Whitman comic poly bagged 3 packs of my youth. I guess that's because I haven't across many deals and actually let some awesome ones slip through my fingers.

Above is Shogun Warriors, while I never had any of the toys, I was really into this comic as a kid. Between this book,  Star Wars, Godzilla or Micronauts usually got my pocket money. 

That is, unless Hellcat or Batgirl was on the cover of something, then I felt oddly compelled to buy that book. 

This three pack of Gold Key Star Trek reprints is another personal best for me, while it has been opened, that just means I can enjoy the off model adventures of the Enterprise crew.

Star Wars 3 pack

Another addition to my ever growing obsession of Whitman poly bagged three pack comics, this pack from Star Wars is something I definitely had. I remember being supremely confused by these ancillary characters specifically the big green rabbit. 

In hindsight, Jax is probably less ridiculous than most prequel characters and I certainly can appreciate these comics as an adult. I hadn't seen Star Wars when I bought these originally, so my confusion was slightly earned, although I must have missed that "All new stories, not seen in the movie" disclaimer in 1978.....

Comic 3 pack love

Back when I collected comics "seriously" (AKA when I was 11) the most dreaded thing to own was a "reprint". That Whitman symbol or a diamond price tag meant the comic was worthless and Willy, the local expert (and the only kid with an Overstreet Guide) was quick to point that out and shame you.

It's ironic now, some 30 years later that pretty much the only comics I collect are beat to crap Gold Key Star Treks and any Whitman 3 pack I can find. These 3 packs especially dominated every toy store and gift shop I visited as a kid and I bought a great deal of them.

Above is my latest score, the Black Hole three pack which includes the spell binding first chapter of "Beyond the Black Hold" Gold Key's attempt to keep the story line going.

Back in the day, my dad was actually friends with the guy who distributed these 3 packs in my area. One Saturday he went to visit him and I tagged along. In the giant warehouse full of these comics, I heard the man say "Take as many as you want" to me and he strolled back into his office. Just before my dad followed him, he turned to me and held up two fingers.

I spent the entire time trying to find two sets that had nothing but cool comics I didn't already own, it was heaven.