ARCTIC WINDS BLAST MY MEGA RIG

Back from a lacklustre and totally arctic Car Boot Sale, I'm relaxing watching the news with a large mug of hot coffee.Typical mixed April weather, warm one day and absolutely freezing like today. However, summer is on the way. Yesterday I heard my first Cuckoo of the year and saw my first Swallow, but as my Lady Wife says, one Swallow doesn't make a summer! Just browsing through Ebay, other than the always-interesting SWORD/SPACEX offerings, a few leftfield odds 'n' sods have caught my eye this week like this amazing multi-wheeled FIRECAT. It reminds me a lot of the articulated SWORD Snow Train, which features prominently in the 1969 SWORD Annual.

Similarly this white VW Bus resembles the more obscure SWORD ANT, which also appears in the SWORD Annual. And every space base needs personnel and there have been some interesting toy astronauts for sale including these bagged SPACEX-like LUNAR SPACEMEN with a nice header cards.

 

And finally, googling for LP there appear to be a few blue and white LP spacemen for sale at Plastic Toy Soldiers, an online store.

Keep on Swordin'.

2112

I've been listing LP's on Amazon this evening, whilst listening to one of my all-time favourite albums, 2112 by RUSH. I first heard this epic slice of rock back in '75 with a couple of hairy 14 year old mates in the sound booth in Brady's record shop in Preston (remember them?). Having already heard RUSH's earlier 'Bastille Day' from their LP 'Caress of Steel', 2112 was simply in another league and catapulted the band to the top of our rocker charts. The album's seminal first side is basically the story of a young person who discovers a guitar in the wastes of a dystopian world. Alas, the powers at be, the Priests of the Temple of Syrinx, have banned music and force the young axeman into exile. Tragically he ends his life just as a solar battle erupts and the ending, although seemingly totalitarian, can mean different things. A work of utter beauty and one of the best 'heavy' rock albums ever. Only equalled by their opus 'By Tor and the Snow Dog' on the Fly By Night LP in terms of fantastic vision fused with riffs to die for, side 1 of RUSH's 2112 is quite simply rock and sci-fi heaven. As we would have said in 1975, 'Mighty'! If you've never heard 2112 you are in for a treat as it's all on You Tube. Part 1 below for openers! Enjoy!

T CABIN CRUISER: COME ON BOARD AND PARDY

My love affair with T in a Circle shows no sign of fading! My latest addittion to the T fleet is a corker and in super condition , the beautiful CABIN CRUISER. The box art is typically T-remendous especially the side panel depicting the boat moored up for a party! Very St. tropez! The model number on the box is 371A, a tantalising nod towards a 371 or 371B, which would be similar to the simple variation found in the twin 'Luxury Yachts'. The model number or maker's mark do not appear on the toy itself. Now, to find 371B!

MOONBASE LIBRARY ADDITIONS: FINNLAND AND GERMANY

The Moonbase library has gone international! Blog friend and collector Arto has so kindly sent me this fabulous Finnish copy of the one and only MAN and Space 'LIFE' book: ULOS AVARUUTEEN. That's English, French and Finnish now in the bag! This is a 1972 reprint showing Valigursky's NOVA and BOOSTER ROCKET. The MEV and MOONBASE are missing from this later edition. I'll have to check my later UK edition to see if it follows suit. Can we get MAN AND SPACE in any more languages whilst we're about it?

Over Easter I was also lucky enough to recieve signed copies of two of iconic German space artist KLAUS BUERGLE's books. I wrote to the artist and he kindly signed my copy of DIE BEWOHNER DES GRUENEN PLANETEN with it's wonderful Scramble Bug cover. Herr Buergle also sent me a signed copy of his hardback monograph of paintings, which accompanies his exhibition currently running in Germany. I was thrilled to see that my favourite NUCLEAR FERRY-esque painting is the cover, together with a neat postcard too. I was very very chuffed. Very much a contemporary of Valigursky and McCall, you can see much more of his visionary work at RETRO FUTURISMUS. If I were producing SWORD toys nowadays I would ask Herr Buergle to do the boxart!

 

 

SPEED & POWER - EX LIBRIS WOTANICUS

I was a huge fan of the Speed and Power comic as a kid and had every issue until Look and Learn swallowed it up in a merger. A combination of Top Gear, SFX and Popular Mechanics, it delivered all manner of ships, boats, planes and spacecraft every week. Ive still got the original Aircraft of the World poster that came with one of the first issues too.

Easily the single most remarkable thing about the mag was the inclusion of the regular Arthur C Clarke story in the back, a cut down version of one of his classics with a large, full page illustration and supporting art in the issue. There were several contributing artists, including Oliver Frey towards the end of the run, but one special place remains with me for the artist who painted the awesome artwork for the bulk of Clarkes stories. Until about three months ago I had no idea who the mystery artist was, until I dug out the pages id saved with the pics on and sent them to the Philosophic Toad. Toads encyclopaedic knowledge quickly came up with the answer - Michael Whittlesea. A quick google reveals that he was a painter and illustrator of childrens books, but the only sci-fi painting I could see was the orange and black alien cruiser seen here on the story 'Secret of the Sphere'. The actual painting waas rather enigmatically titled "Rust Buckle" - whether this is a typo and it should read rust bucket, i dont know!

Whittlesea illustrated about 95% of the S&P stories with a wonderfully colourful array of chunky, toylike spaceships and aliens. Heres just a few. Ill be posting a few of my other favourite space artists work on a regular basis. Incidentally, apologies for the crude scans, pages are a touch larger than the bed of the scanner!

IMAI ZERO-X TV ADVERT 1960's

Here's a second helping of Imai eye candy, the ZERO-X model kit from the 1960's. Supplied with kind permission by the ever-helpful Micky Bister of THUNDERBIRDS AND FRIENDS, where there are many more clips and posted with technical assistance from the ever-Philosophic Toad. Enjoy.

VINTAGE TOYS MOON RANGER

Now that the sun is shining on us once again here in the UK I have begun to re-discover my space toy books, which I started with Kitahara's 'Yesterday's Toys' in 1989. Ten years later in 1999 I purchased 'Vintage Toys' by Bunte, Hallam and Mueller and published by Krause. Included in the 1960's section is the above entry for the SWORD Moon Ranger. It's a very interesting read! See what you think.

NEW APOLLO MOON PROSPECTOR CUT-OUT TEMPLATE FOR YOU TO KEEP!

Hey, it's not often that a new SWORD vehicle comes along that everyone can own, but with permission from John Sisson's wonderful Dreams of Space blog, here's one such vehicle, the APOLLO MOONBASE Punch-out MOON AUTOMATIC PROSPECTOR! Cool or what! "Published by Australian Universities Press Pty. Ltd., Copyrighted: abEricF.Olsson&co 1969 Sundbyberg Sweden", the bottom two pages are for you to print-out on card, cut-out and keep (Prospector is on the first cut-out page)! Eh voila! The first reader to send in a pic of their newly made-up cool card Prospector will receive a blog freebie!

 

With kind permission from reader John Sisson

Dreams of Space

More fabulous SWORD cut-outs to come!