What Else Do You Collect?

[AndyFish]

That's a geat Doc figure, Andy, even if I am more of a Baumhofer guy when it comes to Doc.

I'll need to take that figure out of storage, that's my favorite version too, but I rotate the display with the James Bama one.

Here's a pic of the two of them together, not my pic but these are the figures I have.


Andy

[rsaffle]

Google search for "Sanctum Books Shadow" or "Sanctum Books Doc Savage," you should turn up plenty of options. They also have reprints of The Avenger and my personal favorite, The Spider.
My favorite Doc story is probably "The Thousand-Headed Man,"

I appreciate the info. Somehow both the Spider and The Avenger have flown under my radar until now. I'm off the explore!

Thanks, SprangFan and Andy!

[AndyFish]

IMO The Spider is the greatest of all the pulp characters because the stories are SO over the top. Entire cities are wiped out, The Spider makes The Shadow look weak by comparison. There was one story where he mailed an underworld boss the head of one his underlings with a note saying he was coming for him. Just crazy pulp stuff. WAAAAY over the top. The two Columbia Serials did a pretty decent job with him-- the first one I think the body count is at 31 in the first episode while the second one was done for laughs-- it's still very entertaining.

[maniac cop 5]

While we're on the topic of the big 3 of the pulps..

[maniac cop 5]

Some of my Doc Savage and related pulp books.

And my Shadow books. Many of the hardcovers come from the personal library of Walter Gibson, the creator of the Shadow.

[SprangFan]

The Spider is insanely fun, and pretty much just insane, period. If you add up all the people who die in his stories thanks to plagues, death rays, poison gases, firebombs, vampire swarms, contaminated water supplies, hordes of rabid rats, you name it, and factor in the simultaneous work of the Axis forces abroad, the entire world population should have been down to about 16 people by 1945.

You can really see where Stan Lee was a big fan of the pulps, what with a certain super-genius inventor with an HQ atop a Manhattan skyscraper (fronting a team of helpers referred to as the "Fabulous Five") and the spider-themed hero who routinely saves the world despite hand-writing angst and the fact that the police are as eager to capture or kill him as the bad guys.

There's lots of other fun characters, too, like G-8, the World War 1 ace who battles vampires, werewolves, zombies and assorted other menaces that somehow manage to fly bi-planes (!). Then there's Operator 5, the superspy who staves off multiple threats from foreign invaders until the Purple Empire actually succeeds in conquering America from the East Coast to the Rocky Mountains, kicking off a 13-novel-long campaign by the American underground resistance to reclaim the country, in the course of which the Panama Canal is destroyed and the President of the United States commits suicide!

Maybe more in line with this board's interests, there's the Black Bat, who fought crime in a costume similar to Batman's. He was a former DA who had a crook throw acid in his face (like a certain bat-villain we know) but then gained the power to see in the dark (like comics' Dr Midnight). And there was The Phantom Detective, who was summoned to action by a beacon flashed by the police from the top of a skyscraper (ahem) and, believe it or not, a whole series devoted to a crime-fighting police commissioner named James Gordon!

Thanks for the photo of the Baumhofer figure, Andy. I had expected it to be a "spare head" and not a whole different figure, so that's doubly awesome. And maniac cop 5, those are some sweet figures. I hadn't seen the serial Spider one before; it's very nice. If anyone's interested, the first and best Spider serial, The Spider's Web, has been edited into a movie and posted to Youtube. It's a hoot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkMUEfkTgcc&t=113s

Since this is a "collecting" thread, here's a fun DIY collectible from the early days of the internet and a site run by Spider super-fan Chris Kalb. It's a PDF you can print, cut and fold to make your own Spider ring in the style of the metal ones once offered in the pages of the Spider's magazine. Anyone with this ring on is recognizable as a friend of the spider, which might help keep your head on your shoulders some day. Just for fun, an Operator 5 ring is included in the same pattern:
http://spiderreturns.com/multimedia/media/spdrring.pdf

[Larry A.]

Andy Fish was spot on about me: I have SO many things going on and another fandom that I enjoy is the original Buck Rogers. I collect the newspaper episodes. Before anyone mentions the TV show, the only thing I liked about it was the dress uniform. While I can't afford the toys or pistols, I DO have a cardstock kit of the Atomic Blaster Pistol.

[AndyFish]

I had the pleasure of hanging with Gil Gerard (Buck Rogers) over a weekend at a show in Tacoma. We talked about what it was like for him to work with the original Buck (and Flash Gordon) Buster Crabbe. He said I was the first guy he’d met who wanted to talk about Buster rather than the actress who played Wilma. He was great, and it’s made me appreciate the show more.

[maniac cop 5]

I had the pleasure of hanging with Gil Gerard (Buck Rogers) over a weekend at a show in Tacoma. We talked about what it was like for him to work with the original Buck (and Flash Gordon) Buster Crabbe. He said I was the first guy he’d met who wanted to talk about Buster rather than the actress who played Wilma. He was great, and it’s made me appreciate the show more.

I saw that episode a few months back and the banter between Buster's character and Buck is wonderful. When Buster told Buck he'd been flying those ships since before he was born i got chill bumps! Lol!

[Therin of Andor]

Loved this cartoon in the 60s.


"Frankenstein Jr and The Impossibles" by Ian McLean, on Flickr


"The Impossibles" figurines by Ian McLean, on Flickr


"The Impossibles" annual by Ian McLean, on Flickr


"The Impossibles" jigsaw puzzle by Ian McLean, on Flickr


"The Impossibles" keyrings by Ian McLean, on Flickr


"The Impossibles" animation cels by Ian McLean, on Flickr

And artist Patrick Owsley did these amazing sketches, which I once bought from him on eBay! The small image is a Spanish gum card of the trio in performing mode.


"The Impossibles" get framed by Ian McLean, on Flickr

[AndyFish]

Amazing how many interests we all share-- love the Hanna Barbera cartoons, especially the "hero" cartoons they did in the 1966-1967 season.

Back to Serials, anyone interested in reading reviews, Jerry Blake is IMO the best reviewer out there for them. Many well known "fans" are tied to closely to only certain studio offerings and anything else is junk-- I agree with all of the reviews he's written.

FILES OF JERRY BLAKE

[Therin of Andor]

Amazing how many interests we all share-- love the Hanna Barbera cartoons, especially the "hero" cartoons they did in the 1966-1967 season.

I lucked out on Set 1 of Toynami's "The Herculoids" at a very good price in a nearby collectibles store when it first came out but, when I heard that the other figures had come out, I went looking for Sets 2 and 3 on eBay - and the asking prices were horrendous! Still are!

A few years later, while on vacation interstate, I found the full set loose, which gave me a spare Zok and Zandor, but an easy way to have them all, plus the cave background from Set 1.


"The Herculoids" by Ian McLean, on Flickr


Zok, the laser ray dragon from "The Herculoids" by Ian McLean, on Flickr

[Keith Mayo]

F.E. Olds trombones from the LA factory (pre 1955).

[Lou Szabo]

Well it’s good to see we have similar likes, like reminiscing with old childhood friends.
Each item or category has a story, many are full circle sort of Stories.
Batman Superman are my two DC favorites, but stem from the Superman TV series (Zorro too), then barbershop comic books, then the 66 TV show, which lead to the Spidey67 Series, then to the comics. A paper route allowed me to collect Spider-Man from issue 94 onward and eventually got the entire run. My grand mother used to send me Batman/Superman comics in German, and I had many of them in English.

In 68 we both got GIJoes in a giant boxed set for Christmas. I got a Green Beret talker with a Foreign head. My favorites that I built up over the years were the Deep Sea Diver, Navy Frogman and a few others. I ate about 100 boxes of Honeycomb serial to get a Dress Marine. I later went over the top and got all the foreign SOTW, plus a bunch of prototypes and convention exclusives. We could not afford Captain Action, and I only ever saw them in a store once in 1969. We got the Kresge Mego figures in the early 70s.


I love the Universal monsters, and my favorite is the Wolfman. I always wanted the Aurora models, and bought all of the reissues in the early 70’s, including the Superhero models.

That lead to Famous Monsters of Filmland, Dark Shadows, Night Stalker....

I picked up Marvel’s Doc Savage with Brand of the Werewolf. That lead to the paperbacks and a few pulps, posters, and statues. I remember talking to the owner of Graffiti Designs about a bronze bust, and we got the 60th Anniversary.
Here’s a full circle story, a buddy lost one of my paperbacks, so I was on. Mission to find another copy. At the time I ran into Tony Isabella, a local comic book authors and comic shop owner and we started taking Doc Savage. I said I was missing one book, and so was he. I told him how the Brand of the Werewolf comic got me into collecting Doc. He opened up a copy of Doc Savage Brand of the Werewolf and posted to the splash page credits. Yup, you guessed it, Tony was the writer. Anyway, on my next business trip, I found both my missing book and his missing book. At the next comic book show, I told him he started me on a quest in the early 70’s and 20 years later, I completed the journey, and presented him with his missing book. He’s was touched to say the least.

I really enjoy when the creators of these characters are fans, like the rest of us.

I also enjoy sports cars, and my friends and I all had British roadsters in our early 20’s. I eventually moved to a Porsche, then back to a Miata when they were introduced. In Nov 1988, Autoweek had an article on an upcoming roadster. I called the dealer for to ask how much I needed to put down $50 held it, and in early June 1989 I got a Miata built in the second week of production. I had it for 31 Years. I collected everything Miata, including 2 pedal cars. Most have been sold. I looked at Corvettes for years, but always passed until the C7. Almost ordered a C8, but no manual shot that down.

Hot Wheels, we had a ton of them, and track too. I still pick them up, and many are given out at Halloween

I did have a few of the Masks including both Wolfman variants, Frankenstein’s Monter and Dracula. I had about every Wolfman or Werewolf Toys, and both Dark Shadows models.

I eventually stumbled on this website back in 2006, just after I bought the Wally cowl on eBay, and while I’ve not met you in person, I feel like I know many of you through here. Through you I eventually assembled an entire costume with the best components at the time. Even had the pleasure of being in LA and because a customer cancelled their meeting, I was able to be fitted by Duran Shoes fo a great part of Batman boots.

Much of my collection has turned over in 2008 as my daughter’s college expenses loomed, but they were fun, reliving my childhood, but Batman still looms bright. classic Batman. I dumped Spidey in 2008 when Civil War caused the big reset. It wasn’t my Spidey anymore, if that makes sense. I enjoy the Marvel movies, but DC just gets darker. Smallville was fun to experience through the eyes of my daughter. Plus I could answer any questions she raised about Smallville or the Marvel Universe. In 2002, with that first Spidey movie, I could tell you which issue and panel was used for the entire movie. End Game was the culmination of my comic book youth. There I said it. My name is Lou, and I don’t have a problem!

[Larry A.]

My sister just came across something that Mom had kept and locked away in the family's desk. It was a Marx "Warriors of the World" which were 2-2.5" figures, very well painted that came in small, long boxes. It was a WW1 "Doughboy". My Mom had left a note in the box with the figure stating that while I had had all of the "WotWs", This was my favorite because my Grandpa Mager had been a WW1 Veteran. Ironically, one of the 2 remaining 12" G.I.Joes happens to be a WW1 Doughboy, Sgt. Alvin York" who was my favorite soldier from that war, just shy of my Grandpa.