It's the last day of September, and this is your friendly reminder that October is up next, and it's gonna be a full-on month of Halloween horrors the likes of which you'll not find anywhere else on the www! I have a lot of comic book scans ready to go, plus the usual, and unusual, assortment of everything else too! Why, here comes an axe wielding ghost right now to welcome you inside this haunted little castle of ours, and to get this p-p-p-party really s-s-s-started already! Let's do this!
"--to be adorned in vintage Collegeville Halloween costumes!" said the mummy. Yeah, it really doesn't get much better than these devil and skeleton costumes I have for you today. Both come in the same, die-cut pumpkin window box package design, and both are complete with the exception that the skeleton frock smock is an unfortunately brittle, untouchable pile of disintegrated fabric (so no pix of that available, sorry!) Both masks though are quite glorious, and brightly colored, the devil in particular is in near perfect condition. The skeleton, though a bit warped, definitely steals the show with that black widow forehead and gruesome gore gushing from his boney bottom chompers. We haven't even exited September officially yet, but be warned that from here on in AEET is officially in Halloween 2025 mode! Hang tight for lots rots more fun 'n festive frights!
I found this vintage Sheraton Lounge drink stirrer the other day, featuring a long-legged lady perched high upon the end of a spoon. Molded and detailed in a clear, yellowish gold plastic, the revealing outfit compliments her many curves, and I super love that big bow in her hair. Unfortunately, (or fortunately), her face gets a little spooky upon closer inspection. I'm not sure what she's holding in her right hand though (a book, a brick, a waitress order pad?), and I'm equally unsure of what gang sign she's throwing with her left. I love stuff like this though. When I was a kid we always seemed to have a drawer full of these in the house, souvenired from the many different vacation spots and restaurants / bars we'd visited over the years.
Speaking of great packaging (see our previous post too), this vintage 1950's toy gun by Marx is sure as shootin' swell! Squeeze the giant trigger and the Signal Pistol makes a revving sort of WHEE! WHEE! siren sound that would absolutely scare the hell out of whatever you're aiming at! (CLICK HERE to hear it for yourself!) The gun apparently came in two different colors, both of which seemed to match the great red and black color scheme of the box art design. Weeee!!
Here are two examples of mundane, vintage product made more fun and attractive with nice packaging design. Simple, clean color combinations are always a wise choice, not to mention that adding a photo or illustration of a cute girl always helps too! So what would the modern day equivalent of "Receive-Ease" look like for everyone's smart phone? And I also hope that's not blood on the Shade-Pull package! Pull it down quick before the neighbors see what you've done!!!
If you just finished the other weird camera post that we developed over at THOIA HERE, well hold on to your tripods because you're in for another! And yeah, it's kind of odd that this particular issue of Strange Tales contains two stories featuring creepy cameras imbued with strange powers-- and I'm not talking negative, because we're all better for it now with two great posts, aren't we? To make things even more amazing, we get an eye poppin' glimpse of Atlas / Marvel fan fave artist, Gil Evans, and his frisky mastery of the female body. I'm sure all of the young comic book reading lads in 1953 were very pleased with this one! (Cover art by Sol Brodsky.)
In 1958, the juniors and seniors of St. Jacob High School (I'm guessing in Troy, IL) had a fun mermaid themed banquet and prom, and here's the nicely designed invite, event / menu program to prove it. Highlighted by cute, undersea art (and one rather Lovecraftian RSVP fish babe!), a super swell night was clearly planned out for all, full of deep sea themed songs and oceanic oriented grub. I even found a beautiful example of one of the honeycombed mermaid table centerpieces. If you were there that night and took any pictures (paging Bonnie Lou!), please forward them to me at karswell @ hotmail.com and I'll add them to this post-- thank you!
Check out these amazing WW2 era "Keep 'em Smiling" Humorous Letterheads that I stumbled upon the other day. As the packaging card reads: 3 different designs (6 pages each) and demonstrating with perfectly rendered illustrative likenesses, just exactly what we thought about all things "Axis of Evil" back in the day.
"GIVE 'EM HELL, JOE!"
