DELUGE II

I think of all the Saturn V'esque pulp covers this has to be my favourite: Alex Schomburg's beautiful cover for FANTASTIC and the story DELUGE II. There are many Arks in Sci Fi but this straightforwardly huge rocket is the best. Dated October 1961. Mr. Schomburg also illustrated the July 1953 ROCKET STORIES with a fabulous MOLAB, which later surfaced in the Spacex II line of toys [would have made a great toy at the SWORD scale too!].

Small World

These modern miniature vehicles are so cool. I've no chance of getting any - minimum order 100,000 on China's Alibaba site!

What other miniatures are out there?

Processed P's

I love these simple plastic planes by Processed Plastics I've found online. Very SpaceXy and SWORDish. Anyone collect toys like this?

Picture credits: MAC Forum

Sunday Morning: Sofa So Good

What a week! Phew! Sorry I've not been blogging much. My new employ is taking it out of me [I was a man of leisure for 4 months before Christmas after all] and nights have been spent writing Part 2 of the SWORD article for the next issue of FAB, the club magazine of FANDERSON. It's all done now, well at least the text and most of the pictures [thank you Swordies for helping with this!]. Just my own stuff to shoot now, which the FAB Co-editir is doing this afternoon, which I'm looking forward to as I hardly ever get my toys out en masse. Just need to heat up the Moonbase Loft, it's freezing here today!

Lying on the sofa slurping coffee I've been searching for vintage tinplate space boats. There's quite a few from China and they sort of remind me of Scout 1. They pop up on fleabay and Vectis from time to time. Here's it's box art compared to the Universe Reconnaissance Boat:

There's something very attractive about the Universe Rec. Boat box art and toy. Some thought and car have gone into them. I even like the illustration on the boat itself. Anybody got one of these?

 The Milky Way Boat has less confident box art but the toy makes up for it in pure space swagger. It's a pimped-up Scout!

Probably the rarest of the tin space boats is this one [?], going on the scarcity of pictures on the net, the Zeus Forces Super Man Space Ship. Is it based on a comic character? The toy is clearly the same as the Universe Rec. Boat [top picture].

An interesting side-channel for Scout 1 fans maybe, does anyone else like these tin boats? Anyone know any more about them?

Right, best rise from the settee [sounds like Dracula!] and take the Mutt out for his winter walkies. Brrrrrr!

Thunderbolt and the Rebel Planet

Dear Woodsy,

This is the frontispiece of "Thunderbolt and the Rebel Planet" by Hereward Ohlson, published 1954 - could it have been the inspiration for Re-Entry Task Force 2?

Grif

Happy Birthday Wotan!

Here's to an extraterrestrial Birthday Bash Wote,

Many Happy Returns to Mars,

Woodstock

The Takeuchi King

Just noticed this little fella on the Takeuchi pencil erasers label. Could he be Wotan's Critter King?

Atomic Wallpaper

The King and I

Le Roi et Moi!

Just recently I received a surprise package from fellow blogger Andy B. Inside were a load of Kelloggs Crater Critters from Sugar Smacks cereal in 1970. These were among my special favourite giveaways in cornflakes, but also the source of some serious frustration. Back in the day, I got a box of cereal and in the very first (and only) box I opened, I received two mispacked figures of Glubber and Gloob. Because I wouldn't eat the cereal, my mum wouldnt get any more, so my chances of finding more critters became very remote. However, all my school friends got them and I managed to swap all kinds of other junk including bubblegum cards and rubber monsters and ended up with an orange Miss Venus and a King Crater, albeit missing the crown. When I got home after school, I lined them all up proudly on the mantlepiece above the fire to admire them. In my haste, I tipped Miss Venus off the edge and she disappeared into the hot embers of the open fire. I was gutted.

I still had the King and his consorts, but as the offer moved on, the opportunities for finding the rest of the band disappeared. It was only after I discovered the net and quite recently got in touch with cereal maestro Mike Speth, that I discovered that the original molds for the premiums had been bought by another company and repro critters were being produced in Mexico. Mike also enlightened me to the existence of two further critters available only in Japan and a special King variant which had the legs in a different configuration. King Crater was specially interesting to me because of his resemblance to the Martian Tripod that had appeared in the Tell Me Why serialisation of War of the Worlds about the same time.


Until recently, id been unable to find any of the original critters, although I did manage to buy some of the lesser repros on ebay. These are not as good quality and were produced in garish flourescent colours.

BUGSY BACKBONE

GLOOB

GLUBBER

LUNARTIC

UPSY DOWNSY

MISS VENUS

JODRELL JIM

KING CRATER

When Andy sent me the collection of Critters, I was utterly amazed to find that his orange King still had his crown and Upsy Downsy even had his hat! With a little coercion, I managed to get the orange pretender to the throne to give up his crown and finally after so many years of ignomany, gave my purple King Crater a coronation he deserved. No wonder he's smiling now!

Dan Dare 1955 and the Origin of Scout 1 by Toad

Toadster has sent in these cool comic strip illustrations that look darn similar to our friend the SWORD Scout 1 [pictured beneath]:

"Woodsy,

Attached are the pics mentioned. They are from the Dan Dare story "The Man from Nowhere" (May - November 1955). It looks less like the Scout than does Mike Noble's [via Andy B - below. Ed] : the "sponsons" are further forward; the stern isn't blunt; upper deck is all different. But it is those sponsons/ engines/whatever ... Wonder if this had an influence on the Scout directly, or on the artwork which led to the Scout (if any)? (is there anything in the real world like this?) Another interesting point is that this is a submarine ... ie, it can be sealed off from the atmosphere, just as can the Scout.I wonder if Frank Hampson used any reference? Cos, didn't he tend to draw from models? The story "Man From Nowhere" was illustrated by Frank Hampson and Don Harley, but I don't know who did what.

Toad"

Thanks to Toad for sending the above Dan Dare pics and info and Shaqui pointing it out to you! Woodsy

Century 21 Dump Truck: Driven Up The Wall

Back in October 2009 readers Jon and Amy sent me the above cool Regent Toys toy ad. I blogged it at the time. Seeing the ad back then I sort of had the theory that the three hill climbing vehicles on the right hand side were, like the Moonship on the left, Century 21. The only proof to back this up was that Regent Toys, besides selling off Century 21 SWORD stock like Zero-X and Cape Kennedy Set, were selling a Century 21 Jeep called the Hurdler seen at the base of the incline pictured on the right and seen close up below. You can see that the Ad uses a similar lined slope to the illustration on the box side.

A little while later in 2009 I had a crack at finding colour pictures of the other toys in a similar Regent Toys ad. But I didn't find any other Century 21 toys on the ads besides the Hurdler ...until now! Last week the awesome Century 21 Dump Truck appeared on Fleabay. I had a pop at it but as usual was pipped to the post. Anyway I saved the picture for the blog [below]. I now feel confident that a Wrecking Truck in the top ad will be Century 21 as well. Anyone agree? PS. Could C21 have made the Gemini Capsule as well?

Pic: Ebay

The Noble Art

Andy B pointed out this cool You Tube documentary about artist Mike Noble. This is Part 1 of 4. Were any readers involved in making this?

SWORD ROAD TRUCKER

Messing with Paint again. Here's the SWORD annual cover re-imagined. Paint's not that flexible but it's turned out interesting.

 Lots of stuff from fellow bloggers to come as well so thanks everyone.

New Thunderbirds

So what's the score with the new Thunderbirds series? Brilliant news though! Anyone in the know? Will it be CGI? I'm kinda hoping it'll be supermarionation!

Quizzoid

OK Swordies, first SWORD quizzoid of 2011. What's this?

Just Don't Point that Thing at Me!

Whilst googling Marx I stumbled upon this clip of a HUGE Marx tinplate Canon truck. Amazing! I could have felled my big brothers easy with one of those! It would have looked great in Thunderbirds too! Maybe Gerry could use one in the new series he's planning! What else should he use? Can't wait to see it - there maybe new toys too!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

On Your Marx

I've been browsing a few of my favourite space toy sites and came across the pink Marx Lunar Scout pictured above right over at Main Street Toys. Looking at it's pincer arms, treaded wheels, large front windscreen and general brick-like shape, I can't help thinking it comes from the same design family as the SWORD Moon Crawler. Shigeru Komatsuzaki's rendition of the Moon Crawler for the Imai Space Attack Unit kit [right] illustrates this even better I think. The intriguing thing is that Century 21 re-issued some Marx toys in their 'Hill Climbing' vehicle series like the Jeep and Dump Truck. Both of these had the same box design, wheels and scale as the Marx Lunar Scout. Could Century 21 have re-issued the Lunar Scout as well? Wow, now that would be Swordtastic!

Pauline Baynes: Artist in Residence, Rivendell

I'm pretty sure I have this map of Middle Earth somewhere rolled up in a tube in the loft. Finding it is another matter but along with my other favourite posters: Undine by Arthur Rackham, Jesus is Coming, Gandalf and Troll by Brian Froud, it took pride of place in my bedroom circa 1979 shortly before I blew the crazy scene back then and went to live on a bird reserve in the Fens. In Middle Earth the Fens would probably have been the flat plains of Rohan home of the proud Rohirim. 

Personally I've often fancied myself as Strider, waiting in the shadows for a triumphant return, smiting the Dark Lord and the heinous Nazgul with his mighty SWORD and fulfilling his destiny as heir to Isuldur's throne by restoring the Shards of Narsil to their rightful place in Gondor and becoming the King of Men. Alas, it is not to be but I sure did love Pauline Bayne's map and all her wonderfully optimistic motifs in both Tolkein's and CS. Lewis's Narnia paperbacks of the 1970's. She was an inspired illustrator whose work I adored.

There's much more about Pauline Baynes on one Brian Sibley's blog including links to her orbituaries in the broadsheets.

The King of Elfland's Daughter

God, remembering my old Gandalf poster, pictured below, opened a floodgate of memories of my "All Things Lord of The Rings/ Fairies/Goblins/Silbury Hill/Glastonbury Tor/Avalon and Avebury Rings" phase in my late teens, which lasted, well, thinking of all the wierd naff poems, drawings and songs I've toiled over, till now really!

Even now those early years of discovery burn brightly in my mind as I first came across the worlds of that other significant JR, one JRR.Tolkein and other similar works like the fantastically-covered paperback The Worm Ouroboros [below], Ghormenghast, The Little Grey Men, Bored of the Rings, The King of Elfland's Daughter, Lord Foul's Bane, The Many Coloured Land and Dragonsong to name but a few.

Equally impressive were the artists who attempted to capture the twilight world of magic on canvas like the brilliant Patrick Woodroffe, Frank Frazzetta, the Brothers Hildebrandt, Roger Dean and Rodney Matthews. But probably more than any other work it was an art book by one Brian Froud,called Faeries, in the mid-to-late 1970's that captivated me the most. Froud's sensitive drawings and water-colours of pixies, goblins, kelpies and phookas [see below] brought the elven world completely to life and gave substance to my emerging hippy vision of a magical landscape like no other single book, probably only equalled by Lord of the Rings itself.

In many ways the words and pictures of all these authors and artists, together with the music of Progressive Rock and Folk, coalesced to form a world-view and sensibility that never left me, that Mother Earth is but a breath away, we are all Star-born and simply part of something much bigger. Probably like other readers, I'm totally of my time and feel somewhat out of synch with the current Zeitgeist I suppose. Once a hippy always a hippy and maybe our time will come again!

Wings of Desire

I do like this old book cover art of a Lifting Body. Reminds me a bit of Wote's Spacex R6 Revell hybrid earlier today. The whole cover can be seen below. By one Major Sparks [great name!] and not in the Moonbase bookshelf but currently on fleabay for 45 minutes if your'e interested!