STUFF FROM THE STORAGE ROOM

Last week I was on an archaeological dig down in the basement of my parent’s house - the house my brother and I grew up in. In the storage room, I was looking for a lost sketchbook from my Junior High days. The plan was to share some of my kid drawings from the sketchbook, but the bad news is that it still remains hidden or lost. The good news is that I found some random childhood artifacts. Let’s take a look.

The best item is this felt flag my grandma made during the bicentennial.


I was six in ’76 and have so many red, white and blue memories from that year, so this is a special find!

I removed an old tackle box off a bookshelf and lo and behold I found these two stickers stuck on our old shelf. Back in the 70's, this shelf would have been chocked full of comics and various kid books.


The two stickers are part of the 1975 Topps Hysterical History sticker and card set. We loved collecting these stickers and it sure is neat to see 'em still in the same spot after 35+ years.

In a box of old marbles and craft supplies, I found this green rubber Chewbacca that probably came from a gumball machine. He looks like he’s hailing a cab.


I was a gumball machine junkie, but I don’t have any memories of this Chewie. I like how it was molded from the original action figure.

Next up is this wood dog plaque. There should be another one of these somewhere as my brother and I both had one.


In the photo below - I’m not sure who the armless man is nor do I know the origin of the little toy rifle. That red speaker box came from my C.B. McHaul trucker toy by Mego. 10-4 Rubber Duck! I played like I had my very own C.B. back during my truck driver phase. Back then, I either wanted to be a truck driver or an astronaut when I grew up. Neither career choice panned out and sadly, this red box is the only thing left of C.B. McHaul set.


E is for Boba! My brother was also down visiting and cleaned out his old trunk full of books in the storage room. (I’ll be presenting a few of these during the Halloween countdown in October.)


Inside the trunk he discovered this Boba Fett sticker had been guarding his books for the past 30 years. Job well done, Mr. Fett!


A book we found in the trunk was this 1964 Science Puzzlers by Scholastic. Here’s a few illustrations from inside.






Let's end this random “look what I found” post with this fun illustration. I scanned it from a package of Dennison stencils that was buried beneath a pile of books.


In the near future I plan to do some more digging in our storage room and maybe I'll have some more random things to show. Hopefully one of those things will be my sketchbook!

A SALUTE TO CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER

After this past weekend, I hope everyone has caught Cap fever!

Yes, I watched the new Cap movie, Captain America: The First Avenger over the weekend and it’s now my favorite Marvel movie! This is the movie I’ve been waiting to see ever since me and my nerdy college pals used to waste hours discussing how a Cap movie should be made. All of us agreed it should take place in World War II and Joe Johnston should direct. Yep, we predicted Johnston would direct Cap almost twenty years before he really did. All of us were razzmatazzed by his movie The Rocketeer and so he was the obvious pick. Of course we missed on the actor who would wear the red, white and blue. Hey, Chris Evans was only ten years old back then. I voted for John Wesley Shipp from the 1990 TV show The Flash. I remember one friend lobbied for football player Howie Long to play Cap.

Captain America: The First Avenger wasn’t exactly the movie I dreamed of, but it came very close. The movie does a good job capturing the schmaltzy spirit of the movie serial adventures from the 1930s and 40‘s. What it lacks in emotion, it makes up for with plenty of action and style. It’s simply a popcorn movie, with extra butter! I did wish for more character development with the secondary characters. We didn’t get to know Bucky and the Howlers as well as we should have. (Ok Marvel, you now need to make the spin-off movie The Howling Commandos!) My favorite scenes were the USO stuff and my new favorite song is Star Spangled Man.


The USO montage was brilliant and I hope and pray we see a few chapters of their version of the Captain America movie serial on the DVD. Finally, it’s good to have a super hero on the screen that’s not filled with angst and rage, but instead is filled with courage and loyalty.

I saw the movie with family and friends including one of my college buddies who was in on the Cap movie discussion twenty years ago. The big thrill of the night was that my seven year old nephew surprised me with this awesome replica of Cap’s shield using a paper plate.


He made it especially for me after we saw the movie. I own and have owned many great collectibles, but this shield is now one of my favorite possessions.

For fun, I’ve included two Cap sketches I got from two excellent artists. The first is from the great George Tuska with his unique ruffled feathers on Cap’s cowl.


The second one is a fantastic Cap sketch from John Beatty!


Let’s finish this post with a fake photobooth photo of Cap.


I made this a few months ago in anticipation of the new film using the flag background from a photobooth photo that can be seen here. After seeing the film I would like to redo it using the more appropriate USO costume instead. Maybe when I find a better scan I’ll take a stab at it.

Now go see Cap and have fun rooting for the good guys! Be sure to watch all the credits for the swell propaganda poster art and something special at the end.

KICKIN' AROUND ON KICKSTARTER

For the first time I finally snooped around on Kickstarter. Wow, this site is truly a machine that turns dreams into reality. I know I’ve only scratched the surface, but here’s a few projects that caught my eye. Most of them have already met their pledge goal, but a few still need pledges. Click on the links to view some neato cool projects.

The White Elephant Card Game - A clever card game that looks like a lot of fun!

Muffler Men: One Hand Up, One Hand Down Documentary - Someday Muffler Men will rule the world, but before they do, this doc looks to teach you all about the roadside giants.

OMFG! - Outlandish Mini Figure Guys! - I was a fan of M.U.S.C.L.E. back in the 80's. OMFG! looks to bring back the spirit of that classic line with five outlandish mini figures.

Growing Up On Skywalker Ranch by Eric Walker - Go behind the scenes of the Ewok Adventure and Battle for Endor as told by the star of these Lucasfilm TV films.

Steampunk: History Beyond Imagination Museum Exhibit - A steampunk museum is a brilliant idea. I say, a brilliant idea! BRILLIANT!!

Adventures of the League of S.T.E.A.M. Season Two - Yes, the world needs a season two of the League of S.T.E.A.M.!

The Cicada Princess - As a fan of stop-motion films like Nightmare Before Christmas and James and the Giant Peach, I can't wait to see the finished film.

Viva Amiga - The Documentary - I love this title and I loved the Amiga.

There you have it, my short list of awesomeness that I found on Kickstarter.

A FILM SMORGASBORD AT INDIEPIX UNLIMITED

Indiepix Unlimited, the video-on-demand subscription service for independent film is only a few months old and already it has become a favorite stop for independent film fans! Check out this snazzy promo video for the service.

Indiepix Unlimited is HERE! from Nicolas Doldinger on Vimeo.

Now click on the banner above and take advantage of the free one month trial. You’ll find a wide range of films that cover many different and unique subjects.

Right now you have a ticket to view Oliver Maitland Hudson’s new short film, Canary on a free stream from Indiepix. Click here to watch a man train and eventually go for the world breath-holding record. It’s quirky cool!

HAPPY 20TH TO THE ROCKETEER MOVIE

The Rocketeer opened twenty years ago today. To celebrate one of my favorite films, I created this photo to look like a late 1930’s slide. I envision a photographer looking outside a passenger plane window taking photos of the clouds. Suddenly, a mysterious figure jet packs into view and click-snap, this photo is created.

Long live the Rocketeer and big thanks to the late great Dave Stevens for creating one of the best comic book adventure heroes!

FIVE FOUND SNAPSHOTS

It seems I’ve become lax with my found snapshot postings. Hopefully I can get back on track and start posting more. Old snaps are just not as fun stuffed in shoeboxes and plastic tubs. For your viewing enjoyment, here’s five random shots.

C64 YOURSELF: COMMODORE 64 STYLE

Check out the new c64 Yourself site! This fun and easy to use site (in beta form) will transform your photos into an old school screenshot from a Commodore 64. I heard about this over at The Retroist today and just had to play around with it. I grabbed a few movie pics online and used c64 Yourself on 'em. It brings back fun memories of trading pirated games on floppy disc in high school.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, INDIANA JONES!

Today marks the 30th anniversary of Raiders of the Lost Ark, one of the best movies ever made. To celebrate, I made this fake photobooth image.

Back in 2008 I celebrated Indy with Indy Week. Dave Lowe of Dave Lowe Design the blog is going one step further with his Raiders of the Lost Blog-A-Thon all this month. Be sure to check it out for all things Indy!

My pal Mike just posted two Raiders newspaper ads at his blog Aparofan's Kansas City Movie Ads.