LADY DIVERS

 Whilst browsing for divers I found this vivid poster for Jane Russell's 1955 movie Underwater, "as you've never seen her before!"

Anyone know who the artist was?

You can see Ms. Russell in 'skin diver action' on this short clip from the flick. It was filmed in a huge tank of water at RKO. The film premiered ... underwater, where the audience wore airtanks!

As soon as I saw the Underwater poster I thought of something in my comics collection: Warren's Eerie #22 from July 1966, with this very similar lady diver by Vic Prezio.

Earlier in 1961 Vic Prezio painted a pulp cover that echoed Russell's Underwater even more, for Lost Treasure of Adventure Magazine.

You can read more about the prolific pulp cover artist Vic Prezio on the fabulous American Pulp site, where a gallery of his startling illustrations is there in glorious colour, including the one above.

https://americanpulps.com/the-pulp-art-of-vic-prezio/

What do you think of these? Do you collect Eerie comics?

HOW WAS IT WHEN YOU LEFT HIGH SCHOOL?

Do you remember leaving high school for good when you were around 16 years old?I'm really struggling to recall what it was like.

I ask because I'm aware that all Year 11's in the UK secondary system will be leaving 'high' school in about 2 to 4 weeks. There are no GCSE exams this year due to Covid, just written assessments done in class, which will all be more or less finished with by now.

In my own educational setting the final year students are getting very, very excited and all the various rituals of leaving are the main topic of conversation: signing shirts, buying year books and hoodies and saying farewell to friends and staff.

Its a huge moment, which I wish I could recall much more clearly. My own Year 11 experience, age 16, known then as the 5th Year, was dominated by the death of my Mum so I'm not really representative of how you should have felt/feel anyway.

What were the farewell rituals when your high schooling ended? What were the rites of passage? Were their celebrations at home as well as school or was it a time to actually forget and move on from with little fuss or fervour readers?

TOY STALL STOCK 2007/8

 Some of my old toy stock from 2007, which I sold on Ebay and my old toy stall. I must have sold the lot as I didn't have any of this lot anymore!

Do you see anything familiar?

WOOLWORTHS RACE FOR SPACE

Check out this neat space toy chapter on the Woollies history site. In fact all the sections are interesting on the site especially the catalogues.

http://www.woolworthsmuseum.co.uk/Toys-RaceForSpace.html

WORLD'S FAIR MOON BUGGY

All this rover action on Mars has got me roving through my archive, where I chanced upon these pics. I know we've discussed it many times but the GM Moon Buggy from their Futurama expo at the 1964/65 New Yorks Worlds Fair is such a tremendously cool design. With it's balloon wheels and articulated body, it predates our friend the Project SWORD Scramble Bug by a good two years.

But there are toy stories to be told about the GM Buggy. On closer inspection of the pilots in the cockpit I realised that they are actually a couple of spacemen from the Marx Moon Base Play Set, cut off just below the knees! See what I mean below and whether you agree?

A further discovery came tonight when googling the GM Space Buggy. I came across a reference in the superb Gerry Anderson Complete Comics History site to a very similar, if not the same buggy design in a US Space 1999 Charlton Comics Strip. You can see it below. Further surfing led me to a very nifty blog called Diversions of the Groovy Kind, where it's possible to see the entire Undisturbed Strip! Swell or what! Since it's Space 1999 then I suppose it's Century 21 and that makes this a later distant cousin of the C21 Scramble Bug!

The final toy connection I can see is a Johnny Apollo one, a further Marx link. Comparing Johnny's Space Buggy with the driver's cab of the GM rover, as pictured below, the two do look similar. What do you think?

If that's not enough of the GM rover for you then why not finish off by watching it in action on You Tube here. The rover crawls into view around 1.08 minutes in.

NEW YORK'S WORLD FAIRS 1964 AND 1965: ROB'S FAMILY PHOTOS

Woodsy,

From my pile of childhood photos, here are some snaps of my (two) visits to the New York World's Fair, first in late 1964 (black and white) and again in early 1965 (color). 

I recall nothing about these trips, except that the subway ride from Manhattan to Flushing was the best part, so I hope the pix speak for themselves! There are some "spacy" elements in there, I think.

Rob C

USA

News Splash! Britains Mini Frogmen

Hi Woodsy

Following up on the comments by Lewis on the frogman dioramas he remembered. 

I never had these sets, but I do remember seeing them in a catalogue, and thinking they were very nice. The frogman sets were part of a series from Britains called Mini-Sets, that were made in the early or mid-1970s. 

They were smaller than the usual 1/32nd scale used by Britains. I do not think I ever saw these sets on sale in New Zealand.

When I tried to find some information, I found that Wotan had posted an item on these sets back in 2019 - before I discovered Moonbase. 

This has a lot more detail. There were two underwater sets, the first one with two divers and an octopus, the other with two different divers and a shark.

MOONBASE CENTRAL: Britains Mini Sets (projectswordtoys.blogspot.com)

The attached photo is from Worthpoint.

Paul Adams from New Zealand

MASKING

 

I had to smile when I saw this mask that's available online by Timothy Smith. Its our old friend the SpaceX Nova rocket on the front!

Is this something you would wear?

What would you like on your mask?

PS.

Just had a go at placing a design on a Vistaprint mask online, the Tri-ang SpaceX Moon Base HQ box art!

Far too dear but fun to mess around with!

Have a go yourself on Vistaprint.

https://www.vistaprint.co.uk/masks/all/custom/