Recent Toy Show Score

Last Sunday was the annual toy show in Albany.  I went last year, and found some pretty good stuff(you can read about it here, here and here).

It’s a small affair, but there are plenty of deals to be had.  There were a few more vendors then there were last year, and about twice as many people in attendance.

Below are my action figure scores.  I also purchased a handful of packs of older trading cards, but that’s for another time, and another blog.

Everything you see above, cost me a total of $16!  Not a bad deal at all!

Lion-O was originally priced at $8, but I was able to get the seller down to $6.  He came with his claw shield, but it looks like one of his eyes could be burnt out.  The seller and I were unable to confirm this, which is why we agreed $6 would be fair.

Snout Spout, Sgt. Bananas and Robocop were purchased in a lot deal for a total of $5.

Snout Spout’s head is incredibly loose, and his legs are very loose at the hips, but I’ve wanted to add him to the collection for a while, so this one will be fine as a placeholder.

Robocop is from the Robocop and The Ultra Police line.  He is missing his gun, but he does have his helmet, which is missing almost all of the time.  If I can find strip caps(is that the right phrasing?), I’m sure the cap-firing action will still work.

Sgt. Bananas is in almost pristine condition, and he’s not a figure I have come across in the wild.  He’s one of the more wild looking figures, and fits my collecting focus for old-school TMNT(which is secondary characters).  The only variant Turtles I’d like at this point, are the cartoon Turtles and the Movie Star Turtles.

And lastly, we have the Cobra Viper from the 1990 G.I. Joe Sonic Fighters line.  This was a steal at $5(there was no need to haggle here), since he is complete.  Not only is he complete, but the batteries were still in the backpack, and the sounds still work!  The sounds are pretty generic, but it’s still a pretty awesome feature.  Had I known that the backpacks still worked, I would have bought the other Sonic Fighters he had(all were only $5, and they were all complete).  This came from the same seller I got Shockwave from, and this guy has great prices, and all of his figures are complete.

Everybody’s Working For the Weekend(even this guy[me])

That means that I had a nice weekend.

On Friday night I went with my wife and a bunch of friends(8, to be exact[10 people total]), to see these guys.

If you have never heard of these guys, I recommend that you give them a listen.  They are unique, but they’re not for everyone(I for one, have been listening to them since 1999).  Morningwood and Lunic were the 2 bands that opened for them.  They were decent sounding, but I can’t tell you too much about their performances, as I was at the bar(that was located within the venue), having a few beers before MSI came on.  They put on another great performance, and it was an overall great night…except for one thing.  While on our way through the parking lot, one of the bouncer’s(he was a douchebag), had some choice words to some people in my group(my wife included).  I had some words exchaged with him, and he ended up sucker-punching me.  His hit did nothing to me, and he picked up a piece of wood(?), and threatened to kill me.  Other bouncers came over to resolve the situation and told me to leave or they would call the police(nothing would have happened to the guy, and it would’ve been a big waste of my time).  We kind of made fun of it since then, and it didn’t tarnish the weekend’s appealability(that’s a real word!).

What you see above is what I acquired this weekend!

I plan on doing a review tomorrow.  So…if there is something specific in the in the above photo(even if it’s the NES game, the Adventure Island manual or the hockey cards), that you would like to see reviewed(soon…like, tomorrow..that’s when I plan on posting again), just leave your suggestion in the comments.  I might just write about it!

But before we go, I thought that this was pretty cool.

The index card says…

“Jump into the first pit of quicksand in world 8-2 and sink into a shortcut”

I found this tucked into the Adventure Island instruction manual after I bought it, while we were in the car leaving the store.

I could just imagine that some kid got this hot tip and wrote it down(I’m hoping back when it was released), and put it in the game’s manual, so he never forgot it.

I don’t even know if this hot tip even pertains to this particular game(I’ve only made it world 6, and I even had this one back in the day[it’s in my current collection, and it’s one of my favorites]), but I’m going to make it a point to find out soon.

My Favorite Comic Book Covers #1

As I was thinking of new things to write about, I thought about what I hadn’t yet spoke about.  And immediately, I thought about the close to 1,000 comic books I had stored in long boxes in “The Vault”(aka my closet).

For many years I purchased comic books on a regular basis.  Whether I was 12 years old spending my allowance, or a twenty-something spending a nice chunk of change every week, I was a frequent customer in more than a few comic book shops for more than a decade.  As such, I have an ass-load of comics.

This will mark the first of a series of posts, that will showcase my favorite comic book covers.  The only stipulation is, that I must own the comics I feature.  So you’re not going to see any super-expensive vintage comics here.  So…let’s go!!

The Punisher Vol.2  #47

This is my favorite all-time comic book cover…with good reason.  This was the one that started it all.  I remember walking with my younger brother Jeff and my nephew Victor.  It was a warm Saturday, and my brother and I knew of a comic book store in nearby Pleasantville.  The name of the shop was Adventure Ink and it was a good three mile walk from our house.  We had just gotten our allowance and we decided to check out this comic shop.  You see, this was the first comic book I purchased that started my collection(this is not the original copy I purchased).  I’m pretty sure this cover was echoing Desert Storm.  On this day I discovered my love for comic books and also found out my favorite Marvel Super Hero was the Punisher.  My brother found out that he was a Daredevil fan.  And I found it totally awesome that The Punisher and Daredevil had a little rivalry.

Teenage Nutant Ninja Turtles Vol.1, Book 22

Shortly after I had started collecting comics, I stumbled across some of the old school TMNT books in a back issue box.  I decided to check them out, and I was totally floored!  I loved the stories, the art work, everything.  The original first volume, has amazing cover art.  Being young, I judged my first choices on their cover.  Donatello is my favorite, and yes, while this is an old school comic, and they should all be wearing red, that is clearly Donatello.  I would be hard pressed to tell you anything that happens in any of these comics because I haven’t read any of them in more than 8 years.  I got this one signed by Kevin Eastman at a comic convention at The Theater at Madison Square Garden in 2001 or 2002.  The same show I got this at.

Ghost Rider Vol.3  #15

Now in the early to mid nineties, comic book companies started rolling out all sorts of gimmick covers, to increase sales.  There were holographic covers, prismatic covers, gold embossed covers and this.  A glow-in-the-dark cover.  When your twelve years old…what could be cooler?!  Out of all the gimmick covers released to date, this is my absolute favorite!  The art work is great, and the glow-in-the-dark flames totally fit the subject matter.  This is one of two Ghost Rider comics that I own.

So, that’s the end of the first of, hopefully, a series of posts about my favorite comic book covers.  The comics that appear are in no particular order, except for The Punisher Vol.2 #47, because as stated earlier, it will always be my all-time favorite.

This was actually pretty fun, and I might be able to do posts like this on a regular basis.  What did you think?

Friday

This past Friday, my wife and I ventured out to Albany to do our Christmas shopping.  We went to the mall and to Wal-Mart, which is where we’ll start the acquistions.

Last Friday, we had our annual Christmas lunch at work.  We have a sort of Secret Santa exchange of gifts(more like a Chinese auction), and I wound up receiving a $5 Wal-Mart gift card.  The first thing I thought about were the Legends Class Transformers that Wal-Mart routinely has for right around five bucks.  I had a choice of three, total.  Granted, they we’re all different, but I kinda felt let down.  But out of the three available, one sounded familiar.

Not only did his name sound familiar.  But, a green dump truck, meant this guy was a Constructicon!  He’s not very detailed and doesn’t have a great range of motion, but for five bucks, he’s a decent pocket sized toy.

While in the mall, I stopped in Hot Topic to see if they had any toys on clearance.  No luck.  But they did have a pretty good selection of candies.  I picked up 3 different ones, but only left with 1(I don’t think $4.99 is a fair price for candy in a collectible container).

So I paid $2.99 for Bob-omb here.  He has a Fun-Dip like, cola flavored candy dust, with a cherry flavored candy stick.  Sounds like a winner to me.

And next up is the great deal that I hyped in the previous post.

First off, I want to show you the receipt for the item purchased.

I had to show you the receipt, because there is an interesting story that goes with this.

I went to the Toys R Us Express in the mall, to check out their selection of Transformers.  And to my surprise, there was a decent selection to choose from.  I had to pass on a few figures that I would have purchased, if we we’re not in the midst of the holiday season.  But, there was a sign on the Transformers rack that more or less said, “Friday and Saturday only: Transformers Animated Deluxe Class figures $6.49.”.  Holy shit!!  The original price they had on these guys was 12 bucks.  The had Oil Slick, Cybertonian Mode Ratchet and 1 or 2 others, including this guy.

I brought him up to the register and he rung up at $18.49.  I explained the sign and showed that this indeed was a Voyager Class Transformers Animated figure.  They looked at the sign and brought over an Oil Slick figure to scan for comparison.  Oil Slick rang up at $6.49.  Oil Slick was also originally priced at $12.00, while Rodimus Minor was priced at $14.99.  And I wasn’t going to buy that figure at any price other than the advertised $6.49.  And that’s exactly what I paid for him.  My guess is that being that Rodimus and Cybertronian Mode Ratchet are Toys R Us exclusives and are priced higher.  I don’t know why they didn’t state an exclusion, but it worked out in my favor and I got this great figure for a penny more than seven dollars!

I love how the sculptors paid tribute to G1 Hot Rod.  It’s the styling of this car that drew me to the figure in the first place.  And in Robot mode, he looks great as well.

I don’t have a full blown review, but if you guys want one I can try.  I was just really happy with such a great Friday that I felt like sharing.

Here are the new guys.  The Batman in the picture was given to me on Saturday from my buddy Clark.  He found him on a beach when he was in Florida and gave him to me.  Now I have to figure out where I’m going to display my new additions.