Odds ‘n Ends > Ennui Edition
ODD: With what seems like surprising rapidity (given my past experience with such projects), tomorrow will see the debut of a brand-new PGPoA webcomic, The Toybox, written by yours truly and drawn by Red Kryptonite, the talented artist responsible for the graphics on this site. You can expect to see a new Toybox every other Wednesday. (more…)
Sick Day Haulage
So I ended up leaving work last Friday morning with a cold, and it’s a good thing I did, because Federal Express and the USPS chose that day to deliver not one, not two, but three action figures in separate packages. (more…)
Poe’s Point > Top Five Saturday Morning Cartoons
NOTE: This article was originally published on Biggerboat on 1/31/07.
I’ve often declared my life’s goal to make every day feel like Saturday morning. If there’s anything that makes me regret the linear direction of space-time and ache for the past as all mortals do, it’s that I can never truly recapture what it feels like to be a young kid on a Saturday morning.
Growing up in the 1980s following the FCC’s deregulation of children’s programming, Saturday morning offered a bevy of options for the child who, having woken at six a.m. to enjoy as much of his school-free day as possible, would down three bowls of sugar-loaded cereal while watching colorful talking animals and consequence-free cartoon violence. True, many of the shows were little more than half-hour advertisements for toys (or candy, or Mr. T). Others were genuinely entertaining. But what Saturday morning cartoons really offered children was a time when television catered just to them. No boring adult dramas or shows they weren’t allowed to watch. Saturday morning TV belonged to kids.
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Weekend update
I took the above photo as part of a set I’m planning to use in a post about Face-Off Hulk, but for now, just enjoy this little homage to Todd McFarlane’s cover for Incredible Hulk #340.
My webhost is still having issues, so I may be posting a bit more sporadically than usual over the next week or so.
I’ve decided to keep last week’s Caption the Pic contest going for an extra week, primarily because I’m lazy and don’t want to pick a winner right now. So feel free to keep those entries coming–and multiple entries are welcome and encouraged. Right now, there’s no clear front runner in my mind, so the field is wide open.
Server issues
As you can probably tell, my webhost is having some issues. PGPoA will be up and down until they get it resolved–you can keep an eye on this page if you want to know when we’ll be back at full capacity (until it says “Yes” next to “Resolved,” there’s going to be problems).
Solved Mysteries
A friend of mine emailed me photos of a mysterious toy, hoping I could identify it:
I couldn’t, but with a few well-placed inquiries to my usual sources, it was ID’ed by Greg the Bunny of the RTM forum as the Star Wars “Vehicle Maintenance Energizer” from the old 1980s Kenner line.
It’s a glorified gas pump. This was definitely one of those consolation toys your parents bought you when the store was sold out of speeder bikes and Jabba playsets.
5 Questions with > Geoff Beckett of Shocker Toys
Codename: Geoff Beckett
Occupation: Founder and co-owner of Shocker Toys
Base of Operations: www.shockertoys.com
Greetings all. Recently, in an attempt to make sense of the saga of Shocker Toys, I compiled a timeline from whatever news I could glean from the Web. The founder of Shocker Toys, Geoff Beckett, responded and very graciously agreed to answer a few questions. He also provided his own version of the timeline, which sheds a bit more light on the company’s trials and tribulations. (more…)
DCUC Wave 2 Sneak Peek
Captain Collector over on AFTimes has used his magical networking powers to score a full set of DCUC wave 2–and they look great.
I’m particularly pleased to see Grodd isn’t nearly as tall as I was thought he would be. That’s pretty much in line with his size in the comics (I’ve got a whole Poe’s Point planned on the topic of oversized gorillas in fiction). Check out the link and enjoy the pics.
Odds ‘n Ends > TGFO Edition
The long purgatory of February (broken up in the middle by the bright gleam of my beloved fianceé’s birthday, of course) is over at long last, and we here in New England can finally start looking forward to a dreary, wet March…and maybe the second wave of DCUC, dammit.
ODD: Again, please give a warm welcome to PGPoA’s three exceptional new correspondents: Paul, PrktTear, and Pete. In honor of the incidental alliteration, I’ve dubbed them the PGPoA Power Pals. Moving forward, I think all future correspondents are going to have to pick a handle that starts with “P.” (more…)