THE FORCE IS WITH GUS & DUNCAN'S STAR WARS BOOKS

The title for today’s post is an obvious one, but it truly takes a lot of force just to pick up the heavy 984 page Gus & Duncan’s Comprehensive Guide To Star Wars Collectibles!


This book is the ultimate collectors guide to all things Star Wars from the past 30+ years. From C-3PO knee high socks to Jabba the Hut Dog Chow. (Dog Chow? Yep. Look closely on the cover and once you own the book turn to page 444!) You’ll find all the stuff you grew up with and tons of items that you never knew existed. It covers all six movies and features items from all around the world. Authors Gus Lopez and Duncan Jenkins, two of the main Star Wars collectors in the galaxy, have produced one of the most comprehensive Star Wars collectibles books I’ve ever seen.

Click here to sample a few pages from the book.

These two Star Wars kids who took the phrase “Collect ‘em all” a bit too literally also created Gus and Duncan’s Guide To Star Wars Prototypes.


Everything about this book is super duper and it’s now one of my favorite books on my shelf. It’s a look behind the scenes of all the Star Wars toys I played with back when I was a kid. The design of the book is top notch by Mattias Rendahl. Page after page is filled with original artwork, photos, proof cards, unproduced toys and...well, just see for yourself with this video.

You can also click here to view some of the pages. This is a must buy for all Star Wars fans or for anyone wanting to see how some of their childhood toys were made.

Actually both books are a must buy! For ordering info visit Completist Publications.

NOW FOR AN AFTERNOON SNACK ROLD GOLD PRETZEL RODS & PEANUT BUTTER

JASON LIEBIG'S AMAZING ARCHIVE

My pal Jason has one of the best archives on the internet! Just visiting his flickr photostream is like a trip back to my childhood. With over 6000 items presented in various sets. Jason works hard rescuing, scanning and photographing his collection to share with all of us. Here's a very small sampling of some of the items you'll find in Jason's archive. New images are uploaded all the time, so keep checking back. You might find something you completely forgot about!

WELCOME TO RECOMMENDATION WEEK!

Each day this week you'll find stuff that I find neato cool! There's three ways to keep up. Visit the blog or follow along on facebook and twitter.

Hmm... what should be the first recommendation? Ooh, I got it! How 'bout some dinosaurs? Ok, check out stop-motion wizard Phil Tippett's Prehistoric Beast from 1984. He just released this on his YouTube page. Embedding has been disabled, so travel back to the land before people by CLICKING HERE. It's a fantastic short, before the age of digital dinosaurs.

RECOMMENDATION WEEK STARTS MONDAY!

SPACE SHUTTLE 30TH ANNIVERSARY

Today is filled with historical anniversaries with the 150th Anniversary of the Civil War and the 50th Anniversary of the first man into Space.  Besides those two important anniversaries there’s another. It’s the 30th Anniversary of the Space Shuttle Columbia's first launch.

This is the anniversary that really touches me in a nostalgic way. The Space Shuttle really fueled my imagination and made myself and every other kid back in ’81 want to become astronauts. In honor of this anniversary, here’s the cover and article from the March 20, 1981 issue of Weekly Reader Eye.

CIVIL WAR 150TH ANNIVERSARY

People fought and died 150 years ago in the American Civil War. Here’s two young faces from opposing sides.



When I look at these photos, they kind of haunt me. I wonder what happened to these boys? Did they survive? If they did, what kind of life did they live after the war? I’ll never know as there wasn’t any identification with the photographs.

History’s blueprint is there for us to learn from, but it seems in modern times we still have trouble reading the blueprint. Even if they’ve been written in blood, all the dos and don’ts are there from the past waiting to teach us.

(I’ve owned a handful of Civil War photographs that I’ve bought and sold through the years. The flag bearer is the only one I’ve kept. I sold the Confederate photo a few years ago. The first photograph is one that I snapped of a miniature Civil War diorama that’s located in the Missouri State Capital.)

For more info on the Civil War visit civilwar.com.

BACK ONLINE & READY TO GET NEATO

Hi ya kids! Wow, this year is zooming by and I just realized that there’s only 18 posts on the blog to show for it. Yipes! I better get busy or this mayor just might get voted out of office. Sure, my little imaginary town has had some budget issues and computer shutdowns (computer died) this year, but I’m hoping to get things back on track.

Besides the blog, you might want to follow Neato Coolville on flickr, twitter and facebook if you don’t already. Most content will be linked back to the blog or flickr via twitter and facebook but some content will only be found on facebook and twitter. If you haven’t checked out the Neato Coolville twitter page for a while, it has changed.

Originally I started the twitter page to flesh out the “real” imaginary town of Neato Coolville with daily town reports about the people and places of the town. I wanted to put a more creative spin to NC. (Hopefully I’ll get a chance to do that in a different way in the future.) This experiment just didn’t click and now the tweets are regular ol’ tweets from yours truly. I’m now finding out that twitter is like digital dope. Kind of addictive for an info junkie like me. I really like the format and it’s a great way to keep up on things.

If everything works out, next Monday I’ll be starting Recommendation Week.


It’s been forever since the last one. So if I can get my act together you will have a helping heap of neato cool recommendations starting on April 18.

Thanks for your patience and all the support. Now I better come up with something for tomorrow's post.