J is for Jährliche Osterhasenparade

Did you anticipate this post? I'd totally forgotten . . . again! But Brian Berke has done one of his regular photo-essays for us, by heading down to Scully & Scully, at 54 Park Avenue, an address, to Americophiles, as prestigious or exciting, as something on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées would be to a Francophile, or Park Lane to an Anglophile! And why has it taken me nearly a decade to look that up?

 

Brian had real problems with reflection this time, hence two visits were called for, and he even tried different cameras, and while I've done what I can with cropping and contrast, you can see a camera in three or four of them, and I cropped the mice out of a larger image, so that one is a bit fuzzy, because they were background!

 

As always, the sculpts, and their painting are exquisite, and while we've seen some of them before, it's all new painting, and/or some new vignettes, along with new trees, I think. I didn't reject any of the images, so there's a bit of duplication.

 

Nothing else to add, as they are a perennial here, now, so please enjoy a bit of Easter magic from the Big Apple.

 

Many thanks to Brian for these, they are a real treat!

I is for I read Comics!

I know, but we're all allowed a guilty pleasure! I mentioned the other day, I visited Forbidden Planet on my last visit to London, and while it always depresses me (I remember when it was 90% second-hand comics out of corrugated-card cartons, off bare floorboards round the corner, now, it's all shiny Kidult crap! But I managed to find three tomes this time - the last few visits I've left empty-handed!

 

I love these, I got the first volume of Legends of the Guard, as a Library sell-off a few years ago, so I was very pleased to find the second, on a yellow ticket (all three of these were in the 'bargain bin' shelves). To describe this is not easy, but if you imagine an illustrated Silmarillion, but written by mice, about an ancient mouse civilisation, you'd get the picture . . . s!

 

The original/core series (set as if in the present day of the mice) are written by David Petersen, but the various stories in Legends, are from the past of the mouse lands, and are told as tall-tales 'down the pub', with different artists invited to draw, 'ink' and/or letter the stories, which are just absolutely charming, and unlike a lot of my graphic-novel library, are as suitable for kid's as they are appealing to adult readers. If you haven't discovered the Mouse Guard yet, I recommend you do so!

 

This was a bit of fun, as it's a modern 'treatment' of the old movie, using all-new artwork based on the film, rather than the original cells or screen-shots, it was dirt cheap and took about 20 minutes to read from end to end, but the whole point of this kind of thing is the visuals, and they are sumptuous in this, capturing the original, perfectly. "Blue Meanies, Blue Meanies!"

 

I don't know if you are familiar with the concept of Six Degrees of Separation, but this has a close connection to the previous, in that the Den segment of the 1981 Canadian animated movie Heavy Metal, was directed by a Yellow Submarine veteran, Jack Stokes!

 

I first encountered Den in Heavy Metal, the magazine, not the movie, and it's best to say the visuals beat a very confusing series of story arcs, and it helps if you read each story as a stand alone with some similarities to that which has come before, Den being the late Corben's 'Star Wars', going back to his early years, but with less control on timelines or character development!

 

This is the third in a series of [relatively] new collections of all the Den'i'verse, and I'm now looking for the others!

N is for November's Sandown Park - Erasers

And not just any old erasers, but that the bulk of them are probably Diener Industries, one way or another, the other factor being that they are also French premiums, but may, due to petroleum, also be British! I picked these up a few at a time, every time I passed the chap's stall, and wish now I'd hoovered up the last few, but they were mostly duplicates, I think!

 

These are probably not Diener, as they are proper eraser-rubber, but I thought they'd go very well with the Lik Be (that's LB of course!) and Holly anthropomorphic musicians, in a future comparison post / battle of the animal bands! They are also pencil-tops.

 

These are all clearly marked Diener Ind., with a '(C)' mark, and are a mix of generics, Disney, cute and a Fontanini clown-sculpt knock-off, along with an Easter basket of bunnies! And they may well belong to several sets, or even some of the sets below, as explained as we go.

 

These are unmarked, but are manufactured in the same smudgy silicon-rubber of all Diener's 'erasers', which were always shit erasers, as they just smudged pencil around the page, leaving everything looking awful! Again, they could be from more than one set, but the paint ties them into the premiums below. The red kitten is a slightly different sculpt to the yellow one in the previous shots - head moved to ease undercuts?

I can't work out if this is supposed to be some kind of anthropomorphic Viking, or a French TV character? Nor is it clear if it's damaged, poorly fettled or had a charm/key-ring loop removed?

 

These two, both Disney, are marked Esso and Disney Prod., and were a set of premiums, given away with Esso fuels, defiantly issued in France, the complete sets are to be found in the pages of Jean Piffret's book Figurines Publicities, but, as I think I've mentioned before, we had some when we were kids, not from this set, but from the set of woodland (or other) animals, some of which are in the upper shots.

 

Indeed, the slightly Beatrix Potter'esque pricklepin in the same flesh pink as the odd figure above, is one of the items on my nostalgia wants list, as it was in my pencil case until I was far too old to have affection for such things! And the three little pigs would also go with the other musical mammals!

 

While these are just marked (C) Walt Disney Prod., but you can see where the Esso has been obliterated on the tool, so there was probably a commercial issue too, at some point.

 

Therefore, I think a couple of the sets annotated by Piffret, as French, were issued here, also with Esso, at some point around the late 1960's or early 1970's, possibly without the paint highlights of the French and more commercial Diener issues. There were more sets issued as premiums in France, though?

 

Four other, non-Diener, non-Esso types, with, from the left a grotesque facemask pencil top, this was probably from the era of cereal-premium totem-pole funny-faces and the semi-flat African mask charm type premiums. Next is a vampire, or Dracula type, in his casket, and just waking-up, by the look of it!

The footballer is bigger that the Hong Kong painted ones, issued as either key-rings or pencil-tops, but may have been the inspiration for them, and he is a pencil top too! While the 'finger fright' rubber-jiggler just came with them to make a round-number! The first three being, again, 'proper' eraser-rubber.

M is for May Visit - TV, Fantasy and Sci-Fi

So, to the last of the plunder I picked-up in May, and it's all the less than realistic or historical stuff, with a little bit of everything!

 

Another Weetos cereal premium, I seem - over the last few years - to have gone from waiting for the full set in any colour to how many do I have in all colours?! A knock-off MPC and a rocket which might be a missile from a big-box set?

 

Four Phidal 'Busy Book' superheroes, or villains, I already have the second from the left, but without the freezy-fronds, and it was the Archer which kicked that particular odyssey off, back in 2017!

 

Christmas cracker angel, I have quite the orchestra now! Unicorn's were Unique or The Works I think? A Battle Beast sans weapons, often the way, but I do have spares bags of odd action-figure sized accessories, so there will be a mating-up session one day. And a Gem putti/Eros/Cupid cake decoration.

 

Those generic superheroes again, I did find their post the other day, with help from Brian we'd ID'd them one side of The Pond at least as both 'Aircraft Warrior' (JPW I think), or Warrior Super Fighters (as a generic), but - in both cases - sans these little companion figures (here missing the blue one),

 

A vinyl-rubber modern Santa, and an older styrene one, the latter sold as a cake decoration, the newer, probably as part of an eraser set? Soon be Christmas . . . again!

 

Elves or children? Obviously from a board game, and they seem to be moving on tippy-toe, and shushing, with their finger, so maybe they are night-caps, and it's a bedtime game?

 

I thought this was one of the Gormity figures from Ideal we saw, in some shelfies a year or two ago, but they were gunmetal and different poses, so he's still a mystery, and a chunky one!

 

Ben 10 on the left, prbably the green one too, and maybe the chap with a red shirt, I think the last one is Star Wars? While the gezzer in the middle looks like a Disney Princess type knock-off, some kind of price or suitor?

 

Two Mighty Morphin's, Micro Machine on the left, unknown mini on the right.

 

Two of the Hing Fat 'Galaxy Cowboys'. 

 

A mixed lot, with a rack-toy Ninja, Iwako eraser bear, Toy Story's 'Combat Carl' from Phidal, slightly damaged, poured-resin ceremonial bear (needs it's pole-crown replaced), a Munch Bunch banana, and what is, I think, Jess the cat from Postman Pat?

 

UFO with little Aliens, I actually saw these in the store on a more recent visit to Peter, and I can't, for the life of me, recall if they were drowning in slime, or surrounded with candies, but it was one or 'tother? Green or purple, and they are in that stiff but softish synthetic rubber/PVC replacement elastomer, while the saucer is a bog-standard 'styrene. Note they have charm-loops but no chains.

 

Many thanks as always to Peter for most of these, I got the Phidal's and the game pieces from the Toy project I think, he found everything else.