The other half of the Sci-Fi stuff I scanned a while back for elsewhere, and it's less about toys and more about research/information and some kit bits, I'll start with!
Mentioned when I showed the recent purchase of a late edit of his general list, this is Burn's Sci-Fi and Figures list, which as well as covering figures, also includes the odd dinosaur, monster, insect and bird kits etc . . . you see, off the back of little pamphlets like the original M.A.P./Military Modelling guide, Burn's and his co-respondents, did ALL the work, which sites like Scalemates took to the next level with their interactive member-pages and issue/brand timelines.
So when people bang on about a few dinosaurs and pretentiously add "Researched by . . . ", while adding a bunch of feeBay/Worthpoint images, understand it's just plagiarism! Pretending to do the work, actually done by other people thirty or forty years ago, while failing to credit them, is about as low as you can go . . . for a few clicks?
This is a
Fine Scale Modeller 'special publication', which is really just a feast of exhibition-quality models, posed against realistic backgrounds or dioramas, and as such, is really another coffee-table book, but a rather nice one!
While this is a more general look at the smaller of the two 'big' enduring franchises, I've not got much invested in
Star Trek, as there haven't been that many smaller-scale or solid figures in the pile of memorabilia issued over the years, but
Playmates gave us small '
Action Fleet' types, there was that set I bought from Colin Penn at a
Plastic Warrior show a few years ago, and the current (not in this book)
EMCE sets are still out there, so some stuff can be found in 'our' area of interest!
Then there's the other franchise . . .
This, minimally illustrated, is an encyclopaedic listing of everything known to hardcore-fans, from the release of the original movie, until the release of the final film in the second trilogy back in the 2005. After which, I think, due to first, the tsunami of new stuff and second, the coming of the Internet, updates became superfluous.
But Rebel Scum, the Internet fan-base, helped compile it, and it's THE list of pillow-cases, soaps, wallpapers, novelty lamps, and yes, toys and kits, from the early years of the Star Wars phenomena, though to, say, 2005 - nearly 30-years-worth of marketable tat, alphabetically listed, by manufacturer!
This only gets as far as the 1st/forth movie, and may be by the same Beckett? It's a tie-in with a then major
Star Wars retailer,
Beckett Hot Toys, and is arguably better illustrated than the previous, but more dated now by having the 1999 cut-off, in listed data.
These are really 'bestiaries' of one type or another, similar to the much more expensive, glossy, hard-backed, coffee-table 'technical manuals' which ran around the same time, but relying on mostly black-and-white line drawings. I use them to just find-out the names of things. Mostly from the first three 'classic' movies
While this is not one of the just-mentioned vintage technical manuals, but rather a more modern publication, best described as one section of the various Rebel Scum wiki's, in book form, and while it may be of use to you, I only bought it as a shelf-filler, because it was cheap, and can't remember it giving me anything useful, but that's in the context of me being the 'general reader' here, not a full
Star Wars nerd!
While among the minor franchises, this is a useful tome, but then for collectors,
Schiffier have never (? I stand to be corrected) produced a duff one, and I have maybe a dozen of their titles now? Like the
Star Wars' ones above, this has non-toy stuff, and you find yourself remembering all sorts, as you flick through it!
While this pair are both bestiaries; the former using TV- and publicity-stills, the latter, more line-drawings, but helping to quickly identify two other franchise 'universes' I don't follow closely. There are several similar titles in the Tolkien 'zone', but that's never been with the toy books and wasn't shot with the rest, leave alone scanned with these! Add the
Dungeons & Dragons guides, we saw while looking at the 'Gygax' stuff a while ago, and you've most of the monsters you could ever need!
While these two, are such useful research-tools I keep them with the collectables library, rather than the Sci-Fi/Fantasy library (where the Tolkien stuff is!), and do dip in them from time to time, especially when I can't remember the name of a movie or character which is on the tip of my tongue/in my peripheral thoughts!
There are lots of books like these, and I have more general ones, another on Westerns, and a very useful old film-library catalogue, from when clubs and societies could order films, in their 'cans', so show at schools, village halls or such-like.
We had a film-club at school, which anyone could attend, and I remember specifically seeing what were considered 'X' films, at the time, like Straw Dogs, the seminal Eastward movie The Beguiled, as well as fun stuff like Bugsy Malone and I think we had Once Upon a Time In the West? I think we had some Bond films too, I can't remember all of them, but we had two or three films per term, in the main hall, on a full-screen, this would have been 1977 - '80.
