The Asteroid Witch

The Greensboro Cultural Arts Center in North Carolina recently honored one of their hometown heroes, late great comic book illustrator, Murphy Anderson, with a plaque installation --read about it HERE! We also honored this special occasion with a post over at THOIA HERE! So as promised, it's now time to do the continuation of honorary commemorations here at AEET as well, with a couple of great DC one-pagers via The Unexpected #116 and #119, as well as this wonderfully, witchy-weird, gorgeously illustrated sci-fi classic from the Ziff-Davis, 1950 debut issue of Amazing Adventures #1.

The Art of Top Value

When I was a kid I loved old advertising art, (okay, I still do) --especially colorfully cute ones like this full-pager from Top Value Stamps in 1956. It's fun to analyze each teeny, simplified scene featured below, noting the choices made by the illustrator of what to include, and not include, so the miniature size of everything "market, station, and store" still reads well, and with style, to the naked consumer eye. Yep, I like this ad so much that I also think we should blow up each one of these splashy green environments and really give them a good going over. Please do enjoy!

Flick Bozo's Switch

It's not just the internet that has a way of ruining things, sometimes production houses do just fine on their own. Sometimes it's inadvertently, but mostly it's with questionable design choices that leave people giggling as they gasp in disbelief. I mean, we've all seen the disastrously funny Jesus light switch, for example, right? Undoubtably a bad concept from the get-go with its head-scratching lack of switch placement awareness, not to mention the "Honor thy Father..." quote. Welp, now Larry Harmon's beloved TV superstar, Bozo the Clown can be added to the list of "Limp OFF / Rise ON" wall applications. And yes, it's not as lined-up with the backplate imagery as the Son of God classic is, but seriously, any time you are putting a phallic shaped thang between a man's legs (or near a man's crotch area-- especially one that hangs down and then pops up when you touch it), uhhh, need I say more? Easy to install, too? Oh come on, now!

"Gayrock" 1902

Check out this amazing "Gayrock" Guaranteed Clothing (Kohn Brothers) sampler guide from the Spring and Summer of 1902 Chicago, featuring swatches of fabric for Victorian era, fine wear, gentlemanly suits. That is, this is what the book is for the first half anyway, then you get to about the middle and it suddenly turns into someone's fascinatingly slap-dash scrapbook, full of antique clippings and other assorted illustrated ephemera and odds 'n ends. The colorful M-Born & Company calendar spread is quite beautiful, and that floaty ram's head at the finale below, coincidentally enough, reminds me that I need to pick up my cult robe from the tailors. I say, blade snags at the 'ol alter of sacrifice are so bothersome!

THE MONSTERS KAIJU: Sea Monster

Pop Mart's THE MONSTERS KAIJU blind boxed series collection from 2022 contains nearly a dozen neato tributes to classic Kaiju, and mostly feature Labubu in a majority of the giant monster roles: Gamera (aka Giant Turtle), Mecha Godzilla (aka Robot Gojimomo), and even as King Kong for the ultra rare and very expensive "super secret", etc! But my personal favorite as spotlighted here in today's post is Sea Monster! Fans of Ultra Man (1966) may recognize this monster mash-up as a combination of possibly Ragon and Guesra, ankle deep in the ocean and towering to great heights, --and large enough to hold a cute tugboat under arm even! As with all things Pop Mart / Labubu, this is a fantastically produced figure series with overall incredibly clever, high quality character sculpting and packaging. Please keep yourselves tuned in right here to see more of these in future AEET posts... and for more sea monster thrills, CLICK HERE!

Hoop-la

When our birthday-suited bathing beauty of the previous post is ready to rise from the marble slab and get prepped for a night on the town, one key ingredient to her fabulously feminine look is a Hoop-la. What's all the Hoop-la, ya ask? Well then, let the pictures below do the talking (and if anyone out there knows a good Hoop-la untangler, I'd very much appreciate their contact info-- thank you!) Fun packaging design though, with a very thoughtful placement of that letter "O." I actually stumbled upon this thing buried in a record rack amongst some old 33 1/3rd vinyl.