colouring books Archives - PS

Toy-Ventures: Epic Toy Trek Part 2

Mantooth — Mon, 24 Jul 2023 02:24:48 +0000

Toy-Ventures: Epic Toy Trek Part 2

Ayyyyyyyy, we wrap up our Toy Trek with an impossible mission, two flea markets, three antique malls, 250 miles in one day. Check out what we saw and what we got! I promise it’s neat!

Places Visited:

#toyhunter #antiquemalls #fleamarkets

Items in the video: mid-century Christmas, Frankenstein poster, Batman light fixtures, vintage GI Joe, Mattel Big Jim, Man from UNCLE, Corgi, Star Trek, Blake’s 7, Family Affair, flea market, toy hunting, Mego, Mego fonzi, Shreddies, the Black Hole, Ontario, Canada, antique malls, Mattel Big Jim, Atlas Comics, Buck Rogers, Elvis, Dracula, model kits, JC Penny Catalogs, colouring books, trading cards, movie posters, comic books,

Do you miss reading print toy collector magazines?

That’s why we created Toy-Ventures magazine, an old-school print publication dedicated to vintage toys from the 1960s to the 1990s. Each issue is packed with never before seen images and information written by some of the top collectors. We’ve got ten issues and climbing; please check our page here or visit our store.

Our long running Pod Cast, Pod Stallions is now available on Spotify.

The PlaidStallions Polyester Pals have arrived and come in green and orange. Be the first kid in the sandbox with our Podcast mascots!

Our latest book is “Knock-Offs: Totally Unauthorized Action Figures” a love letter to cheeky copyright-infringing toys. You can get this new book via the PlaidStallions Shop, On Amazon (Affiliate Link) or eBay (eBay Link)

FACEBOOK GROUPS FROM PLAID STALLIONS

Pod Stallions is based on our podcast and is one of the most fun groups on Facebook. Toys, Comics, Movies, TV, it’s all up for grabs, and remember, folks, you keep the glass! If you like our show, then you have found your tribe.

Mego Knock Off Headquarters– The leading group discussing 70s Dime store knock-offs and bootleg action figures, we talk vintage toys and not others. We know the difference between Astro Apes and Action Apeman. It’s a fun group where we talk about Lincoln Monsters, AHI, Mighty Gary, Tomland, Bogi, Demo Man, Mortoys, and other generic greats.

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70s Superhero toys in Japanese Starlog – Mego, Remco, AHI and More!

Mantooth — Tue, 21 Feb 2023 18:39:07 +0000

I recently stumbled across this fantastic issue of Japanese Starlog, which was a lot like the US version, except its graphic design was way more exciting.
This particular issue has a feature on all the imported Superhero toys from the US you can buy. So the best way to describe it is like a Heroes World catalogue but from the future.

Mego Superheroes in Japanese Starlog

This page makes me weak in the knees and it’s not just the gem-mint carded Mego Riddler on display. Those Mego Comic Action Heroes’ deluxe sets with the Batmobile and Spider-Car are big favourites of mine. I also don’t have that AHI parachuting Superman.

This lovely ad uses the dreaded “D” word; everybody run! As a kid, I did chicken out of buying a Mego Catwoman because I feared my friends seeing a girl doll. I regret that behaviour to this day. I use the term “Man-Dolls” with sarcastic pride, and so should you.

Toy-Ventures and PlaidStallions present a new line of limited-edition collector pins: Monsters, Knock-Off action figures and Brick Mantooth.

This page contains many happy memories, especially the Mego Spider-Car, Corgi Jrs and those awesome 12″ Mego Superheroes, see below for my video on the 12″ Superman range.

As a kid, I only ever saw Superhero t-shirts in ads like this. I would have loved a Captain America and never dreamed of seeing a Thor. Strange, now I can’t leave the house without seeing a Superhero t-shirt. I actually stopped wearing them.

The Superhero belt buckles were a Heroes World Staple, as are those Sunglasses by Nasta. The Superhero record case is another old friend of mine.

I loved those Treasury Edition-sized colouring books of the Superheroes by Whitman and have featured them here before. Those Hasbro art sets are another item I was unaware of as a child.

The glorious Rack Toys by AHI are only eclipsed for me by the Chemtoy Spider-Man web maker, a very happy afternoon of play.

I had those Superhero sheets at the bottom, and I still use them. Amazing how far the Janex Batman alarm clock got, it seemed to be everywhere.

Issue 9 of Toy-Ventures magazine is about the Mego Comic Action Heroes; get yours today!

Lots of Star Trek in here as well, this is Starlog magazine after all. I always welcome Power Records.

What I wouldn’t give for that Spider-Man Pendent.

Those Ourways Studios jointed Giants are so wonderful; I covet the Planet of the Apes Galen.

If you want more Starlog, check out this episode we did about the US 1980 Starlog Merchandise guide.

Hey,we’re making collectible pins now! They’re super niche!

Do you miss toy collector magazines?

That’s why we created Toy-Ventures magazine, an old-school print publication dedicated to vintage toys from the 1960s to the 1990s. Each issue is packed with never before seen images and information written by some of the top collectors. We’ve got 8 issues and climbing; please check our page here or visit our store.

The Mego Museum News has rebranded into the Super Collector Newsletter! Encompassing more from sites like PlaidStallions and more. Check it out even if you don’t collect Mego figures.

Our long running Pod Cast, Pod Stallions is now available on Spotify.

The PlaidStallions Polyester Pals have arrived and come in green and orange. Be the first kid in the sandbox with our Podcast mascots!

FACEBOOK GROUPS FROM PLAID STALLIONS

Mego Knock Off Headquarters– The leading group discussing 70s Dime store knock-offs and bootleg action figures, we talk vintage toys and not others. We know the difference between Astro Apes and Action Apeman. It’s a fun group where we talk about Lincoln International, AHI, Mighty Gary, Tomland, Bogi, Demo Man, Mortoys, and other generic greats.

Toy-Ventures: Awesome Vintage Toy Hunt

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Toy-Ventures: Filmation Space Sentinels

Mantooth — Sat, 03 Apr 2021 22:39:11 +0000

Toy-Ventures returns with a look at the merchandise around Filmation’s 1977 series “The Space Sentinels” an overlooked gem of a Saturday morning superhero series. While the show didn’t get much, it got a few cool toys and I collect them!

Get Toy-Ventures Magazine Issue 3 here: https://ebay.us/lUGYDp

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Colouring Book Theatre: The Sword and the Sorcerer

Mantooth — Sun, 15 Nov 2020 15:48:54 +0000

The Sword and the Sorcerer Coloring and activity book (1982) by Modern Promotions is one of the more curious colouring books I’ve reviewed on here mainly because I think it’s the first one I’ve encountered based on an R rated movie.

This movie got a series of Rack Toys as well, Albert Pyun movies usually don’t get a lot of merchandise especially ones with gore and nudity in them.

The cover is by an artist named James Sherman and it’s quite nice, the pages are credited to four different people and let me tell you one of those people really had no future in illustration.

The book skips the movie’s intro of resurrecting a demon, so there is no horrific wall of faces to colour in. It starts with Talon’s family being murdered by Cromwell, his father is the only victim shown, the rest are just mentioned in passing.

See?

Stuff like this amuses the living heck out of me.

This may be your one chance in life to colour character actor Richard Lynch, SEIZE THE DAY PEOPLE!

Even though I’ve seen this movie a half dozen times I can barely remember the plot, I get the plots of this, “Hawk the Slayer” and “Beastmaster” all mixed up. This is not a problem i plan to resolve.

I barely passed.

That is not how the movie ends, all in all, this was a pretty fun one and I’m glad I picked it up although I was hoping for some complete lack of good judgment like the series of “Dune” colouring books this team wisely shied away from controversy other than making something for kids based on a movie they couldn’t see (until it came on cable).

Limited Edition Gift Sets Available Now!
Rather than crowdfund the next issue of the magazine, I thought I’d whip up these gift sets full of merch we’ve created in the past. Just that thing for the retro fan in your life. Thanks for indulging me, more content soon!
OUR STORE: http://www.megomuseum.com/odeon/store/products/

PlaidStallions Toy-Ventures Magazine #1 is now available and it’s been called “not only an entertaining read, but it’s also an impeccable work of reference” by PopCult.

BETTIE PAGE RETRO FIGURE KICK STARTER IS LIVE

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Colouring Book Theater: The Fantastic Four meet the Witch

Mantooth — Sun, 03 Feb 2019 14:21:00 +0000

Time to crack open another vintage colouring book and see the madness inside!

Fantastic Four Meet “The Witch”-1977 Whitman Publishing

Fantastic Four was one of my favourite comic books as a kid, the treasury editions quickly imprinted on my young brain and I was a fan for life.

My last take on a Fantastic Four colouring book was well, disenfranchising, so hopefully, this one is a little better. At least this one has Johnny and not Herbie the %$#^ing robot.

I already love the cover artwork with the three male heroes battling the titular Witch while Sue makes jazz hands.

Check it out after the jump and when you’re done, check out this other book from the series.

So the story begins with a UFO and the US military launching a missile at it. Turns out it’s a witch, I love how this kid coloured her green.

The Fantastic Four comes to the rescue and even the Thing questions the story by breaking the fourth wall.

I just want to point out that the art is kind of nice. This is a swipe from Kirby but it’s well done.

The Witch turns Reed, Johnny and Ben into various animals and sends them off into space because…Witch!

Seriously there is a page with a toad, a turtle and a firefly floating in the vacuum of space. I guess they’re dead?

Only Sue survives by using her powers, I don’t know if you should loudly announce turning invisible.

Sue removes the Witch’s Power Jewell and she shrinks down. I hesitated to post this photo because I just know it’s someone’s fetish.

The Witch returns the lads from outer space and they utter the kind of dialogue you expect from the World’s greatest comic magazine.

The story takes an even weirder turn when the Witch apologizes and explains her origin, she mentions that she was once beautiful and well, this happens. I don’t want any more looks into Ben Grimm’s brain thank you.

The Witch explains that some sort of alien evolved her into a Witch, which I’m pretty sure was an issue of “The Eternals”.

A piece of paper falls from the Witch and Sue discovers that the only way to break the “Space Creature’s Curse” is a kiss from The Thing. So is this some sort of space gypsy?

For some weird reason, the page with Ben kissing the Witch is an insert in the final page, did they have too many pages? Were they timid about showing a kiss? THIS IS GOING TO BUG ME!

Anyway, now the Witch is a buzzard and reunited with her and the Fantastic Four waves goodbye like idiots. Why did an alien curse a bird? We’ll never know and I don’t care, that’s a lie, this is going to haunt me.

Previous Colouring Book Theatre Entries

Check out our Youtube Channel videos like this!

New Six Million Dollar Man Shirt in our Redbubble store!

Don’t forget to join our new facebook group.

Get the expanded digital edition of Rack Toys here.

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Colouring Book Theatre: Shogun Warriors starring Great Mazinga

Mantooth — Sun, 20 Jan 2019 15:37:00 +0000

It’s been a long time since I did a CBT here at PlaidStallions but yesterday I found a treasure trove of books at a local shop including this gem.

I love the Shogun Warriors colouring books because they’re kind of nuts but in a real good way.

They were the creation of Canadian cartoonist Owen McCarron (who also created the Marvel “Fun and Games” comic) and it’s painfully obvious that he was probably given no back story to the characters and free reign to do whatever he wanted.

So he just had fun with it, it’s so super absurd with no thought to scale or science that just kind of has a wonderful childlike charm to it. I imagine very few kids would complain.

Check it out after the jump and when you’re done, check out this other book from the series.

The book opens on the planet Ultima and the emperor wishing to help a neighbouring planet which is suffering from famine.

He wants to send treasure and we get several pages of the treasure, this is standard colouring book filler. T

hings go awry while transporting the treasure and the ship is attacked by the aforementioned Space Pirates.

I know I’m a grown man but this is how I still picture space pirates to this day, hat, eye patch, and swords. This book loses points for the lack of a robot parrot.

Great MAzinga has been watching this on his “Space screen” and comes to the rescue, note that he is the same size as the ship.

A great battle ensues, resulting the pirate ship being blown up but special attention is given to note that the pirates weren’t harmed. They float around in space shooting at Mazinga with a laser blunderbuss (Yes!) and a cannon.

Losing the battle, the pirates visit a giant spider, who makes a web between planets, note that he is as big as a planet here or don’t because it doesn’t seem to matter.

Mazinger becomes trapped and the pirates steal his brain, which renders him helpless. I don’t know much about Mazinger so i don’t know if that’s correct or not. Pretty sure the Shogun Warriors had pilots but in these books, they’re sentient robot characters.

Now Great Mazinger is about to get eaten by the Giant Spider.

Shameless plug: I also produced some action figures, they are available on Ebay thank you.

Meanwhile, the brain is not co-operating with the pirates and makes several escape attempts, I’m not sure where these guys are, didn’t their ship explode? Anyhoo, it manages to escape their safe and reunite with it’s body.

Mazinga threatens the Spider to make another web to trap the space pirates and the book reaches a wonderful non-violent conclusion. Mazinger is far more gentle than Dragun who commits genocide in his book.

The pirates are jailed and Mazinger is now 5′ 10″, as fun as this is, 8 year old me would have been perturbed this wasn’t like the Marvel comic, i was kind of an uptight kid. Now, I just find it brilliantly childlike and charming.

Next Week: Fantastic Four Vs the Witch!

Previously reviewed Colouring Books

New Six Million Dollar Man Shirt in our Redbubble store!

Don’t forget to join our new facebook group.

Get the expanded digital edition of Rack Toys here.

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Colouring Book Theatre: Gerrry Anderson UFO

Mantooth — Sun, 02 Jul 2017 14:23:00 +0000

UFO by Purnell (1971)
One of the nicest things I received at Mego Meet was this colouring book, which frankly, I didn’t know existed until it was placed in my hands.

The one caveat my pal Corey had was that he hoped it would be featured on CBT. Wish granted! (One little bit of trivia, the striking woman on the cover is Dr. Strange’s real life mother)

While filled with colourful costumes, purple wigs and cool tech, Gerry Anderson’s UFO is also a show that featured dark story lines and adult themes. It doesn’t exactly scream “Children’s colouring book” which of course, makes it all the more delicious to me. (See Dune)

Grab your crayons and join me after the jump.

Not surprisingly the book is done by a mix of artists, mostly working from stills. Artistically it goes from attractive to kind of phoned in. The hilarity stemming from the editors complete lack of knowledge/caring about UFO.

The picture of “Gay Ellis” above is actually Joan Harrington. This is the kind of detail kids probably ignored and only upsets middle aged dorks like me.

Commander Straker and a robot, I think it’s funny that although the show has moon bases, space ships and other bric-a-brac that they needed to add a 1950s robot to spice it up.

Straker was a lonely, lonely guy.

Nope that’s Gay Ellis, which the book gets right half the time. There is also three versions of this portrait in the book.

And thank goodness, wouldn’t want to colour something interesting.

They look more like me getting off the couch than running.

Ok Colouring book, this is lazy, even for you. Not everyone on the moonbase is named Joan, that’s Nina. (trust me, I know my purple haired moongirls!)

Nope, certainly no flesh hunting aliens looking to harvest your organs. Move on….

This book seems to not realize who the bad guys are, the aliens are called “Astronauts” and so are the actual astronauts.

The book features a lot of drawings of the lunar module in space, they always call it a submarine. Submarines are spaceships now. The book never shows the real submarine.

I don’t know if it shows but I seriously adore this book, it’s awesome.

Japanese UFO Colouring Book Theatre

Previously reviewed Colouring Books

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Colouring Book Theatre: Planet of the Apes Activity Book

Mantooth — Sun, 02 Oct 2016 16:36:00 +0000

It’s been a while since I cracked the spine of a colouring book so what better a subject than Planet of the Apes?

I was drawn to this art craft activity book because of this nicely drawn but kind of dark cover from “Conquest of the Planet of the Apes“.

Sheese, even Power Records chose to sidestep Conquest due to it’s violent themes. Grab your crayons and join me after the jump!

I was mildy disappointed (but not surprised) to find the guts of this book are only relevant to the original film. Generic George Taylor is on every other page of this thing!

I think it’s more of a challenge cutting this out than it would be to put this thing together.

OK, I’m a life long Apes fan and know well more than I should but who the %*^$ is Honorious?

Well, I know how I’m spending my afternoon……

Previously reviewed Colouring Books

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1981 Parkes Run Colouring Book Catalog

Mantooth — Fri, 13 Nov 2015 05:00:00 +0000

Hey remember those big colouring books you got on birthdays and Christmas? They were done by a company called Parkes Run and they made a lot of cool licensed stuff using licenses like Superman the movie, Popeye, Peanuts and the Marvel comics characters!

Adult Colouring books are the all rage right now but I’d settle for this one, which was given to me by my aunt Cathy in 1978!

Oh Man Wolf, where’s your movie?

Anyway, check out the 1981 Parkes Run Catalog here!

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Colouring Book Theatre: Horror

Mantooth — Fri, 09 Oct 2015 04:00:00 +0000

Horror (1982), World Publishers

It’s weird to be doing a Colouring Book Theatre on a Friday but this October and this is one of the coolest colouring books I’ve ever found.

I discovered this in a shop called Planet of Stuff and bought it unopened mainly because it had Peter Cushing as Arthur Grimsdyke on the cover!

The content is just as grisly and gory.

Grab your (red) crayons and join me after the jump

Just another shot at that cover and it’s mish mosh of horror images from Hammer, Universal and Amicus.

The guts of the book are mainly reworked images from stills, some are recognizable, others have been reworked a little but you know the vibe. This one is pretty easy.

A Vincent Price Vampire!

Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr Lon Chaney Jr.

Getting an Igrid Pitt vibe here, I could be wrong.

Im-Ho-Tepp!

This one’s pretty easy.

Doctor Phibes!

Basil Rathbone?

Even Henry Hull, I cannot love this book more. Wish I knew who the artist was.

Another Monster Colouring book:

If you have a submission for colouring book theatre drop me a line at brick *at* plaidstallions.com!

Previously reviewed Colouring Books

Rack Toys is available right now!

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colouring books Archives - PS

Toy-Ventures: Epic Toy Trek Part 2

Toy-Ventures: Epic Toy Trek Part 2

Joi De Vintage

Pinery Market

Aberfoyle Antique Market

Market Road Antiques

Freelton Antique Market

St. Jacobs Antique Market

Do you miss reading print toy collector magazines?

The PlaidStallions Polyester Pals have arrived and come in green and orange. Be the first kid in the sandbox with our Podcast mascots!

FACEBOOK GROUPS FROM PLAID STALLIONS

70s Superhero toys in Japanese Starlog – Mego, Remco, AHI and More!

The Mego Museum News has rebranded into the Super Collector Newsletter! Encompassing more from sites like PlaidStallions and more. Check it out even if you don’t collect Mego figures.

The PlaidStallions Polyester Pals have arrived and come in green and orange. Be the first kid in the sandbox with our Podcast mascots!

FACEBOOK GROUPS FROM PLAID STALLIONS

Toy-Ventures: Filmation Space Sentinels

Colouring Book Theatre: The Sword and the Sorcerer

Colouring Book Theater: The Fantastic Four meet the Witch

Colouring Book Theatre: Shogun Warriors starring Great Mazinga

Colouring Book Theatre: Gerrry Anderson UFO

Colouring Book Theatre: Planet of the Apes Activity Book

1981 Parkes Run Colouring Book Catalog

Colouring Book Theatre: Horror