BLOW BATS

 

I've seen a lot of batmobiles over the years but this one is new to me.

I saw it on an old auction but forgot to save the country of manufacture. It could be Argentina.

It looks like a very simple blow-moulded design in the old style of Batmobiling.

There aren't even any wheels?

Do you like it?

Live-rpool Museum

 On a rare day to myself in Liverpool and a visit to some old friends in the World Museum.

My favourite exhibit, the giant Japanese Spider Crab is still there, over half a century later.

A giant pterosaur skeleton model hangs overhead.

The Ichtyosaur still cruises the depths next to the Silurian ocean.

The Black Knight rocket forms the main exhibit of the Space gallery along with remnants from the 1969 Moon Rock display.

A scale model of the Black Knight along with various other items.

What I mistakenly always assumed was a NERVA nuclear engine is the Astris rocket motor from the second stage of the Europa Rocket.

Skylark High Altitude Sounding Rockets

A model of Sputnik 1 in the main foyer, along with the giant Haida Totem Pole.

A small scale astronaut waits patiently in the main entrance.

DESERT PATROL JEEP VARIATION: THE TOM AND JERRY COMIC CAR

My beloved tin Desert Patrol Jeep certainly got around. 

Not just my primary school classroom on Christmas Toy Day but also the design was everywhere in the Sixties.

Here's yet another variation to add to the many we've seen on MC over the years, the splendiferous Tom and Jerry!

What do you think?

LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT

The 1927 silent horror film London After Midnight holds two accolades.

It is the most sought-after of all lost horror films and considered to be the holy grail among film fans who seek out lost horrors.

The final copy of London After Midnight went up in smoke in 1965 at MGM.

I remember seeing stills of this film in old Famous Monsters if Filmland and some of the horror movie books I had in the early Seventies like the Dennis Giffords' and Alan Franks'.

In the Noughties a renowned film restorer stitched together the existing black and white stills and the script to create a repro silent movie. You can watch it here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJTuZb_A-H8&t=11s What do you think?

The other accolade that this Lon Chaney showcase holds is the fact that the only known movie poster for it sold for the highest price ever reached for a movie poster, just shy of a half a million dollars. It was bought by Metallica's frontman.

There's not many toys associated with this old lost flick. Sideshow released this Lon Chaney doll in 2001, the famous vampire from the film, the Man in the Beaver Hat. The packaging has a sort of Madelman feel to it.

London After Midnights enters the Public Domain this year. Maybe that will somehow tease out one more copy of the film somewhere. It would be a treasure!

Anyone know of this film?

NUTTY SKIDDO

I've always liked Wierd-Ohs and Nutty Mads.

This 1964 Marx Skiddo caught my eye. On auction so I archived it.

The box art gives away its inspiration, a fabulous illustration, which the toy sadly doesn't do it justice looking at the picture here.

Did you have any Marx scooter toys like this?

POD CAST: KEV'S THUNDERBIRD 2 MODEL POD FLEET

I've now painted the annoyingly small and fiddly pod vehicles that come with the Thunderbird 2 launch bay kit. They look, hopefully a little less like Kinder egg toys now.

The ones that I think are probably the Imai ones, which aren't terribly accurate, I've made a little display area for, like the garage area we see in one episode.

The 4 that seem to be new are far more accurate. Since you get several, I'm going to put some in the pods when I've made them. The others I've put in a little box frame for display.

Podding off now,

Kevin

UK

American Football Helmet Collectables

MC recently mentioned miniature American Football helmets. Well, I just found a series of videos by Georgia HEX (he is from Georgia), some of which cover this very subject.

We start off with a look at a Bank (money box). The box says Football Helmet Bank, with a small sticker saying Atlanta Falcons. Clearly all the other NFL teams would have their own banks. Pro Sports Marketing, Concord, California.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3Y0RQYW4ds

This one is an electric alarm clock, built in to a Falcons helmet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqSaOSQl2JI

This is a table lamp version, with a replacement shade.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9tkicQvECE

There is also a radio, which is not shown.

A very interesting collection.

Paul Adams from New Zealand

Car-Veat Emptor!

Looking for the next big thing in cars? An inventive prankster listed this 'flying car' on Facebook Marketplace, after having the image created with Midjourney, the A.I image generator.

“Mohishwa 1976 flying car. One of the first consumer-level flying cars, only released in Japan. NOT OPERATIONAL! Needs work and parts, wing apparatus missing. Novelty rebuild project for the right mechanic. Being upfront, Mohishwa parts are really hard to find.”

 Apparently the ad was regarded as genuine and attracted huge interest and quite a few offer to buy it, especially from the auto community in Japan. Unfortunately, it also managed to get the chap banned from Facebook, due to infringement of the marketplace terms! So watch out next time your looking for that bargain banger!

LN LP CARTOON ANIMALS DOGGIE BOXED

 This is interesting if you like LN/LP toys from Hong Kong.

We've covered the LN plastic doggie before as seen here in its baggy.

Well I think I've spotted a boxed version in this old auction grouping.

Its the second row left with the brown dog lead on top of its open box.

This poor close-up doesn't help with the text. I wonder if it says Cartoon Animals like the bag header card?

Anyone got one?

Why All the Foss?

You will all have seen the work of Chris Foss, his amazing paintings have decorated science fiction books since the late sixties. Asimov, Doc Smith, Vogt, Harryhausen have all had Foss paintings screaming out from the bookshelves and for many years, dictated which books I bought. Often, I would by a novel purely for the cover, often finding the story either dull or  utterly different to what I anticipated. Foss's paintings sold me a real space opera, the likes of which would not appear till after the advent of Star Wars. 

In 1978, Paper Tiger brought out a slim volume collecting Chris Foss work and I bought a copy with my college grant - £4.75! I adored the work and desperately wanted to paint like this, even investing in an airbrush. But to no avail, I could not begin to approach the imagination of technique of the master.

This xmas I got a new definitive collection of his work, a much bigger, heavier volume collecting all his published work and some sketchbook material. I think he has passed his peak today, as the later paintings are not nearly as dramatic and unusual as his seventies work, but he has influenced many generations and been imitated many times.

Woodsys Tootsie Rocket post has header cards showing art which is clearly derived from Foss, namely a sketch of the Leviathan from an early Alien script and part of a triptych of James Blush covers, called Torrent of Faces.

The colouring owes something to the Ian Gillan Band cover - Clean Air Turbulence.

What I always adored about Foss were his vehicles, which echoed my fascination for balloon tyres or delta wings. You can clearly see how his 1974/76 covers influenced Star Wars a few years later, with the gun turret appearing in the Jawa yard sale scene as an old droid and the massive triangular ships foreshadowing Star Destroyers.

Asimov - Foundation Trilogy

A.E Van Vogt - Voyage of the Space Beagle

Asimov - The Gods Themselves

Upper Left - gun was featured as a droid in Star Wars

E.E Doc Smith - Gray Lensman

Foss work on Jodorowski's abortive 'Dune' film

Clear influence on Star Destroyers

Almost Spacex !

 

GUERREROS DEL UNIVERSO: A TIM MEE TOY?

 This auctioning baggy of space toys caught my eye, Guerreros Del Universo.

I like that big silver spaceplane in front!

Anyone recognise it?

The figures look like Tim Mee's Galaxy Lasers

Is this a set you have?

A YORKSHIRE MIXTURE: MINIX, LP AND A PANTOGRAPH

I picked these bits n bobs up at a local Yorkshire boot sale recently. Nothing too exciting, just flotsam on the beaches of time that I like to comb! Poetic that eh!

We have a Pantograph, a Gladiator, a VR Trooper, some small plastic figures including LP astronauts. a Triang rail wagon, a chassis, Kobots targets, a battered 007 silver car unknown to me and a group of miniature cars by PlayArt, Herpa and Triang Minix.

Very enjoyable finding them it was too. Do you like anything here readers?

Gagarin For It

 The Aifix issue of the Vostok Rocket was one of the best space kits I ever had. Back in the early seventies, I bought it on release, with the gorgeous Roy Cross box art. As it was quite a complex model, I got my dad to build it and he did a straightforward job, with no painting or decals. Nevertheless, I was happy, as it came with a tiny, removeable Vostok capsule and a Soyuz. The first version states that it comes with Vostok, Soyuz and Sputnik build options, but the later release a few years ago addresses the issue and correctly identified the smaller capsule as the Luna vehicle housing. Colour was also an issue, as Cross illustrates it as all white with its name on the hull, but the latest release shows it as a battleship grey with white accents.

However Kenneth Gatlands book Missiles and Rockets shows the full stack Soyuz launcher on the cover as a dark green, as befits the original R7 ICBM and soviet military style.

My original kit is long gone, so I decided to get the re-release. For various reasons, I missed the retail version and had to buy one from ebay some time later. It was worth the wait, as the kit is unchanged and the packaging and decals reflect the Luna configuration. The painting guide suggested a grey for the body with orange accents, like Gatlands book, as information on the rocket is much more readily available from post Glasnost Russia. However Matt Irvine on Scale Modellers forum suggests the white colouring is due to icing on the fuselage  due to the extremely low temperature fuel. However, as I had become enamoured with Gatlands version over the years in between releases, I decided a military finish would look better.

I have never been a good modeller, lacking patience and skill and the Vostok requires a bit of both, as some of the parts are tiny and delicate. It also begs a bit of customisation, as to make the Soyuz version it requires the capsule to be covered by the launch shroud, hiding a perfectly good model capsule. So I added some solar panels to the simple Soyuz capsule and left it as the Vostok launcher.

The tiny Vostok capsule is the most detailed, but again needs a little modification. The engine section has a rounded back to clip on the the fuselage part, so I trimmed that off and added a small cone to give the right shape. the whole capsule is just under 2" and a nightmare to paint!

The model also comes with a tiny 7mm Yuri Gagarin for scale too!