Sunday, August 30, 2009

1970's: THE SUPERHERO CATALOG OF GAMES, BOOKS, TOYS, & PUZZLES #1









I hope this post brings back a lot of fond memories for many readers. I grew-up in the 1970's & was totally into comic books at that time, a super-collector! I even liked toys & action figures too but was not really a big toy collector like I am now ( In hindsight I WISH I would have bought a bunch of stuff then, ha ha ). I remember one day, in the mid-1970's, I saw an ad in the back of one of my favorite comic books. You could get a catalog for, I think, 50 cents + postage that promised to be filled with all kinds of superhero goodies. Because I was a big fan of this kinda thing I mailed away for one. WOW! Was I ever happy I did! This is the 1st Issue of The SUPERHERO CATALOG OF GAMES, BOOKS, TOYS, & PUZZLES!! This catalog was pretty unique for 3 main reasons. One, It was published in a comic book format. Two, instead of photos for all the products they were hand-drawn like comic book art, and Three, it was jam-packed with tons of very cool superhero items that, at the time, you would NEVER SEE at all the department stores or even the best-stocked comic book shops. Now, I'm mainly sharing the pages that are "Batman-related" but this baby was filled with Comic Books, Specialty Books about Comics, Star Wars Toys, Super Hero T-Shirts, Action Figures, Micronauts, Novelty Clocks, Mego Dolls, Clothing, and many many other pieces of merchandise with all the DC & Marvel Comics Characters you could ever dream about!! And, oh man, I used to totally drool over every single issue. It was just filled with magic & I would fantasize about buying everything in it. I remember that I did buy a few pieces from it. I used to (still do ) totally love those HUGE Treasury Comics that DC made. I collected them & the ones that were harder to find I would get here. I bought a few weird Star Wars items. I fondly remember getting a Star Wars Stormtrooper Costume Helmet. I also remember buying a few Mego Dolls ( in the original boxes! ). One neat thing about the art was that the whole catalog was done by art students from the Joe Kubert School of Comic Art ( still in business today ). Kubert even drew a lot of it & the stuff he didn't was still sort of drawn in his style. I was a big fan of his artwork at the time ( really loved his Sgt. Rock books ) so this was just a bonus! So, does anybody else remember these? If so then please leave a comment & share your stories. I know there's gotta be a lot of people who loved these as much as I did. Also, I guess, if you have never seen one of these RARE catalogs before then there are some really great collectible toys to drool over, ha ha!