The Daisy Mae Dogpatch USA Figurine '68

Added another Dogpatch USA gem to my collection this week, the Daisy Mae 9" chalkware figurine direct from the 1968 hillbilly hills of America's favorite long lost Al Capp theme park. There were 4 of these in all, a Mammy, Pappy, and of course an Abner, and with her lack of ankles and beefy Jack Black in drag facial structure, she's definitely a far cry from the sexy syndicated strip and comic book babe versions of herself so expertly illustrated by 'ol Al. There were cuter variations of her also made as a 7" plastic bank --which I'm still looking for (affordably!), but until then this one will just hafta dew! And at least she's painted nicely and on-model, a few I've seen on google painted her iconic blonde hair as a brunette instead!

A Coin for the Hippy Chick's Hair Slot

I picked up this cute lil meditating mod 60's hippy chick bank yesterday. She's a neat mix of paper mâché / compost, hand painted from her head to her tiny toots, and with a little red gem on her necklace. Not a whole lot of info about these banks online (unless someone knows otherwise, please comment), but as the sticker next to the rubber stopper notes, she is indeed Made in Japan. The few other examples I spotted online show that she came in a variety of groovy, psychedelic color schemes and pose styles. The coin slot is neatly camouflaged in her long dark hair on the back of her head, --and good lord, if my cat would only stop bothering her, I bet she could like totally get some dang meditating done already this morning and finally float away to some spiritual land where coins are still used!

A Mink Toothbrush

 If you already have one of these I will stop blogging, baby...

The Girl and the Gold

If you're enjoying the recent golden age Kirk of Scotland Yard series stories I've been posting over at THOIA, you may also dig another heroic entry from a different back-up character featured in many issues of Manhunt as well. This time it's a Royal Canadian mountie known as "The Red Fox" (no relation to Fred Sanford) and we find him in the wickedly cold wilds of the Great White North taking on a ruthless, and very violent gold thief who just as easily splits a head with an axe as he does feeding an innocent young lady to a pack of ravenous wolves! Hold onto to your hats and gloves, you're gonna need 'em, because this tale is also illustrated by the great, L. B. Cole, who many of you THOIA freaks know as the man responsible for an amazing array of precode horror comic book covers! From the October 1947 issue of Manhunt #1.

Pic-Pac Hollywood Viewer vs. Glug-A-Jug Hillbilly Bank

Pic'd up a couple neato thing-thangies this week, the first being a midcentury Pic-Pak Hollywood Viewer featuring a View Master style thumb wheel spinner to scroll through multiple mini images of old Tinseltown landmarks, movie studios, restaurants etc, all within its own teeny, self contained view box. It was surprisingly difficult to line up my new phone camera lens with the Pic-Pak peep hole though so I only included a few examples below, and even still they look like you're squinting through The Blob to get a look. This is a actually a neat contraption though, and as mentioned before, taking a likely technical tip from View Master. My only gripe about it is that the bikini babe illustration on the front definitely got my hopes up that there'd be some bikini babe action on the slides as well, but nope! Anyway, maybe one of the other "series no." delivers on that. The other funny thing I found on my recent antique hunt this week was a funny plastic Glug-A-Jug Hillbilly Bank from the "Land of Mountain Dew!" Haha... great illustrations and just a fun way to store your spare change in a moonshine jug for'ta save up and buy yerself a new pair o'boots, or maybe some dawg food for that scrawny 'ol flea bitten mutt.

Universal Studios Mug '88

Speaking of man-made monsters, check out my new ceramic Universal Studios Florida mug from 1988, containing two of my all time favorite man-made monsters-- King Kong, and Jaws, aka Bruce the Shark! If that ain't enough awesome on one mug, also note it contains illustrated imagery from Psycho, Ghostbusters, Back to the Future, ET, and Earthquake! It even features two of my favorite animated Hanna Barbera characters-- Fred Flintstone and Yogi Bear! I guess I shouldn't leave out "Murder, She Wrote" even though I've never watched a single episode of it in my life, but yeah, that's still one magnificent mug for $3, eh? Excellent condition too!

"Man-Made Monster"

Time for a fun little madcap experiment in monster cuteness from the December 1946 issue of George Pal's Puppetoons #7. Here we find jittery Jim Dandy (yep, they're all puppets) getting sucked into a not so tall tale featuring Frankenstein's look-a-like monster --or is it actually a long lost cousin of Shrimpenstein?! Either way, I spent waaaaay too much time trying to clean up these pitiful lookin' pages and make 'em presentable, --hope everyone enjoys it immensely! 

Figure Quarterly **ADULTS ONLY!**

These educational figure drawing / photography / sculpture / painting magazines from the 50's are full of lovely information-- that is, if you can tear your eyes away from that beautiful Betty Brosmer cover for a few minutes! And yes, there are many other attractive photo features throughout as well (see end of post for a strappy sandaled sample), --and yes, you might even learn a thing or two about drawing from Jefferson Machamer's insanely wonderful "The Model in Cartoons" article... but yeah, umm, what the Hell was I talking about again?