STAR FORCE ANYONE?

 

I saw this old Vectis lot and thought, Hmm. what is Star Force?

Anyone know?

KILLER GORILLAS

Hi all, What has happened to all those killer gorilla on the rampage movies ? 

In the 1930s and 1940s there were scores of them.

A man in a gorilla suit was always killing someone, or kidnapping a pretty girl (boy gorillas never seemed to be interested in girl gorillas). 

Some were brain transplant movies - more mayhem. These were normal sized apes, not giants such as King Kong. 

They had largely disappeared by the 1950s. Planet of the Apes set a much higher standard for ape costumes. 

There was even a killer gorilla movie on the British Video Nasties list - Night of the Bloody Apes (why the plural ? There is only one ape on the rampage).

Not a lot in the way of toys or models either, except for King Kong; the Planet of the Apes Scene in a Bottle kits by Addar in the 1970s, and the gorillas in various zoo ranges.

Paul Adams from New Zealand

Which killer gorilla films do you like?

MOONBOOTS!

 Remember the days when buying sensible shoes for school was fun?

I had a pair of these Moonshot shoes as a youngster and can still remember how cool the moon surface sole looked, but what a  total lack of grip they had! 

I much preferred my Clarks Commandos, which even had it's own dedicated  comic strip, drawn by  Tom Kerr.

Self-Adhesive Star Fields

Hi Woodsy 

Lat Christmas you ran a piece that mentioned covering school books in paper or self-adhesive vinyl.

Well I picked up a couple of rolls of such self-adhesive book covering. One of the rolls was of a swirling star field, which I rather liked the look of.

I applied some to a sheet of foamboard (also called foam-core) which is a sheet of thin - usually 5 mm - foam covered on both sides with paper. 

This gave me a nice, rigid sheet, ideal for use in photography. 

I did have a little trouble applying this, due to its size, but I got there in the end. 

Took a few test shots, and I was very pleased with the results. 

These photos show the Matchbox X-33, a Lockheed-Martin design for an unmanned spacecraft. The model dates from 2000, but did not stay in the range for long. 

The backgrounds consist of either one or two pieces of foamboard covered in self-adhesive book covering - nothing else.

Yours Sincerely,

Paul Adams from New Zealand

A GLIMPSE AT RON TURNER'S 'JOURNEY TO THE STARS'

Here's a page of Ron Turner artwork from the 1980 comic strip, Journey to the Stars that appeared in the short lived IPC comic, Speed. 

Journey to the Stars was a lightweight Sci-Fi strip about a family stranded in space, lifted by Ron's colourful artwork.

I've still got moreorless the full run of the published  31 issues of Speed, which did feature quite a few other examples of Ron's artwork, including a non sci fi strip called Winner about a racing car driver.

MY FIRST COLLECTABLES

 

Circa 1990, my own very early collection of space and Batman collectables just when I got the old toy bug.

Like Scoop I had a copy of the lovely Into Space with Ace Brave pop-up book, sadly long gone now.

IMAI CRASH TENDER

 Based on Frank Bellamy's fab Thunderbirds F1 and F2 tenders the fabled and as yet unseen Spacex II Crash Tender, bottom left, is justifiably a blog legend.

All we have is this illustration of the toy.

So when I saw this little Aoshima/ Imai Thunderbirds 2 Container 4 fire tender on Britmodeller I thought, Wow! That's about as close as we're going to get to the Crash Tender until the real toy turns up.

What do you think? Similar? Not?

Do you own this little tender?

Here it is with its wheels next to some other pod pals.

DAN DARE POP-UP BOOK

 To compliment my earlier Ace Brave pop-up book post, here's a few photos of my Dan Dare pop-up book which came out around 1953, and was illustrated by Eagle artist, Desmond Walduck.