Saturday, December 27, 2014

Your Loot... Report Out, on 3!


Doug: Happy Holidays again, friends! For many of us, family travels are prolonging the celebrations. With that in mind, we waited a day to do our annual query on our readers' reports on Christmas cheer received. So it's open for you this weekend -- what wonderful gifts (comics-related or otherwise) did you receive? And shoot -- if you gave something cool, tell that, too! Thanks in advance, as always, from both Karen and I for stopping by and making this a wonderful community.

Doug: As I mentioned the other day, our celebrations this year are falling over several days. In fact, I'll probably be back either late Sunday or on Monday with a follow-up report. Our "nuclear family" (that sounds so 1950s, doesn't it?) shared gift-giving yesterday. It was great, and please understand that in no way are we dreading our son's impending marriage; quite the contrary. But we were able to "do" Christmas one last time with just the four of us. I think everyone treasured the experience. In comics-related presents, I received the Hallmark Adam West Batman ornament, as well as a copy of Rob Kelly's Hey, Kids - Comics! paperback. I've heard nothing but great things about the latter, and am really looking forward to reading it over break. My "big gift", which came from my sons and future daughter-in-law was a soundbar for our family room television. It was really easy to hook up, and while we're still getting used to it and tinkering with some of the settings, I'll say that cosmetically it makes the room look wonderful. It replaces a large 5-disc changer that doubled as a receiver and DVD player, with six satellite speakers around the room. That the new soundbar is wireless and can operate other devices via bluetooth technology really cleaned the place up! I should also mention that I gave a treasure away, too. My oldest son was the recipient of the Fantastic Four Masterworks that reprints #s 51-60. I remarked to him that he might hold in his hands the single greatest 10-issue run in all of comics. High praise indeed.




Karen: Out here in the desert, it was just me and my hubby this year. We'd had enough of traveling, and everyone else was staying put too. But that was fine with us -we are happy just spending time together. My guy spoiled me with some terrific gifts this year. Nothing comics-related specifically, but I'll toss out a couple: this incredible Bruce Lee Hot Toys figure I have drooled over for ages, but am too much of a cheapskate to buy for myself; and this awesome Frankenstein bust with eyes that light up and has the voice of Dr. Frankenstein (Colin Clive) proclaiming, "It's alive! It's alive!" when you throw the switch in front (all accompanied by electronic buzzing sounds). We'd seen this at a convention two years ago and I really wanted it but did not pull the trigger. So my husband tracked it down. It's just perfect! He really outdid himself this year. What a guy.


Karen: Your turn!



21 comments:

Rip Jagger said...

Let me kick things off.

Got lots of stuff I needed (i.e clothes) but you guys don't want to hear that rot.

Thanks to my beloved daughters I racked up the following flicks:

The Avengers
Captain America: Winter Soldier
X-Men: Days of Future Past

and the total gem of the haul...

Batman - The Complete Television Series (Wahooo! The thing I most wanted this season!)

It's enough super-heroic mayhem to keep me smiling throughout the winter.

Rip Off

Redartz said...

Got some good viewing there, Rip!

My wife graced me with some DVD's as well: Gaurdians of the Galaxy (I may be the only person left who hasn't seen it yet). Also, she found "Flight of Dragons" thanks to Amazon. I'm stoked; I loved that on tv back in 1982 and have wanted to see it again ever since.
Big gift was a Nintendo Wii U; on which I plan to acquire Lego Marvel Super-Heroes (seems like Karen recommended this in a post some time ago)...

The Groovy Agent said...

I was good this year! Got the Blu-Ray edition of the complete 1966 Batman series (got the cards and Matchbox Batmobile with that--woot!)...Guardians of the Galaxy on Blu-Ray...the complete Clint Eastwood Man With No Name on DVD...the Complete Deathlok tpb (17 kinds of awesome with even the Michael Golden short!)...Batman pajama bottoms...Groove am happy!

Simon B said...

My wife gave me Marvel Comics: 75 Years Of Cover Art - a wonderful collection of ( mostly ) classic cover images, with loads of examples from great Bronze / Silver Age artists. Lovely stuff.

On the shiny disc front I was given Guardians Of The Galaxy ( well, duh! )and I bought my son Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Both fantastic films which should look amazing on Blu-Ray.

Away from Super Heroes, I also bought my son Seconds by Brian Lee O'Malley, a very cool-looking graphic novel from the Scott Pilgrim creator. I'll have to check it out when he's done with it...

J.A. Morris said...

I had a good Christmas, but not much in the way of Bronze Age comics. We got a recently published Marvel encyclopedia, the 'Guardians of the Galaxy' on blu-ray and a nice color collection of Sunday Peanuts comic strips from the 50s. That was about it for comics-related loot.

Edo Bosnar said...

Wow, Guardians of the Galaxy was a popular stocking stuffer this year - and Redartz, you may well be the last person left who hasn't seen it. Even I finally got around to watching it a few days ago. Also, I thought I was about the only person in the world who even remembered "Flight of Dragons."

Otherwise, it was a low-volume Christmas in our household, I did get something comics related: a nice hardcover edition of some Croatian serialized newspaper comics from the 1930s drawn by legendary Croatian comic artist Andrija Maurovic - he’s kind of like the local (and I don’t mean just in Croatia) equivalent of Hal Foster or Alex Raymond. The stories in the book, by the way, were written by a popular journalist of the time who also wrote pulpy action and suspense stories.
However, throwing the net a bit farther back, I again had some luck with online searches in late November, so in December a few early presents to myself arrived: really cheap, almost like new copies of some tpbs I’ve been wanting for a while – Agents of Atlas, Captain America: Forever Allies, and Gordon of Gotham. Also, like Doug, I quite recently got the Panini Deathlok digest from the Book Depository. So not a bad season, all in all...

Humanbelly said...

On the whole, a fine Christmas of thoughtful comic-y/pop-culture-y type gifts, yes indeed! Even the staunchly pragmatic, practical-gift-focused HBWife (truly, it's a character trait that borders on being comically predictable in her case-)(A consumer's guide volume that rates the fine arts programs in colleges & universities across the country for HBGirl, f'rinstance. . . ) reluctantly broke rank from tradition and surprised me with a Classic Dr Who Lost Episodes DVD set. Nice! Beatles BBC recordings vol 2; a great DiscWorld heavy-cotton t-shirt; and the CD of Dr Horrible's Sinagalong Blog-- what a fine wife! From other counties there appeared: Season one of ARROW; Season four of the current Dr Who; A fantastic Marvel oversized cocoa/coffee mug; the next three Prince Valiant volumes; a Harry Dresden compilation volume; Bealtes calendar; and from HBLad, a lovely Alex Ross Marvel Universe T, and. . . uhm. . . a men's extra-large Captain America Underoos set (which, okay, is seriously pushing the fanboy envelope past even where I'm really comfortable with it, I have to say. . . ). This was the rare Christmas where HBWife and I actually had more gifts to open that morning than our kids did-- who'da ever seen that coming??

Hope all you fine folks have had as truly a graet holiday as we've been luxuriating in!

HB

david_b said...

NAY, I SAY, yon Redartz...!!

I david_b have not, yet not seen GOTG as of yet, in movie house or on disk.

So I WILL be the title-bearer of this mantle, but I'm assuming I'll be slipped someone's blu-ray of it in 2015.

OMG, OMG, OMG what a great Xmas I had.. Awesome to have NEW and warm, wonderful in-laws (well, not quite yet.., but perhaps making it official in 2015..), a great couple of days. Perhaps the best present of all..

...except...

My wonderful sweetie gave me an electric keyboard.

..an actual electric keyboard..

(I'm still gobsmacked..)

Now I can still work on slide guitar solo's AND work out 'Green Onions' on my new smokin' keyboard.

(Yes, as I type, STILL gobsmacked..)

(I gave her a new 32" flatscreen in return, to start building my new home sound systems.., closing on my new home on the 13th of January.)

I did receive a copy of the new '41' book (love the Bush family..), some wonderful DVDs as well.

As for myself..? Yeahhh, I pre-ordered the standard DVD version of the '66 Batman series which arrived before Thanksgiving, STILL-wrapped, waiting for my new home and flatscreens to break it open; I may purchase the blu-ray set next year, sometime when the prices start whittlin' down. Plus, just won VF copies of classic ASM ish 40 and DD 13, and minty vintage 'Super Powers' GA and Aquaman on eBay. Need some of that old-fashion vintage yuletide love.

I've also got my eye on a new, improved 3/4 length heavy artic coat for the cold winter Tundra I've always wanted.

Now..? Just waiting.... on the 'cold winter Tundra' to actually arrive. It's been quite balmy around the Midwest here. I miss snow.

Cheers, everyone.., and thanks for sharing!!

Anonymous said...

Wow you guys got some great swag! For some reason my coworkers decided (quite arbitrarily) that yellow would be a good colour for me so I got a yellow polo jersey and a yellow t-shirt! Dunno why ...

My birthday falls in early December and my brother bought me a Samsung boombox. I'm not really an audiophile but at least this will give me an excuse to get some CDs. Apart from some assorted cheap novels I didn't get anything too extravagant. Didn't get much on the comics front; most of my coworkers and family don't even know I'm into comics. I'm thinking about getting some Marvel masterworks. Thor, or Adam Warlock/Infinity Gauntlet series maybe.

Hmm seems like GotG was hot this year with the release of the movie. I've watched it ... OK well,the last 45 minutes of it at least. While I'll always say it's not the real GotG to me without Martinex, Vance Astro, Charlie-27 or the rest of the original team, this movie did look like a lot of fun from what little I saw. This was probably the Marvel universe movie that was most like an out and out comedy. Chris Pratt really got into shape for this movie!

My nephew said he is a fan of the new Flash TV series, but it was just before Christmas and I already bought his presents,so I didn't get the chance to get him any Flash swag. I'm already looking at some Flash dolls, er, I mean action figures to give him for his birthday in March. That, and maybe a t-shirt with the flash lightning logo on it.



- Mike 'two yellow jerseys, a mug, two glasses,and a box of chocolates' from Trinidad & Tobago.

Dr. Oyola said...

Mike, I may be a Marvel Zombie, but the Flash does have one THE best logos of all-time.

Anyway, Xmas is in two-parts this year. We did Xmas day with my family - nothing comic related, and tomorrow we open gifts with the in-laws, where I am bound to get some more swag of the kind you guys might care about. . . we'll see and I will report back.

I did buy my buddy's kids a bunch of bendable DC character figures, which I hope they will like (but no Flash, alas!)

I am really interested in that Hey Kids! Comics! book.

Doug said...

Thanks to all for sharing today (and more tomorrow, including another report from me!).

I did want to tip everyone off to a self-gifting I'd mentioned a couple of weeks ago. Being curious about Edo's multiple recommendations of the Panini Marvel Pocket Books, I found The Book Depository in a Google Search. They are located in the UK and charge around $8.50 for these books (the price does vary by edition). The most attractive aspect of the process is the free S&H to anywhere in the world!

I placed an order on the 18th of December for four books: Thor "When Gods Go Mad" and "In the Shadow of Mangog", Deathlok "Origins", and Captain America "The Coming of the Falcon". I received the first three books today (the 27th), and each in a separate envelope as Edo had said. The books arrived in great shape.

So what do you get? Each book is 5"x7.5", or about 2/3 the size of a normal tpb. But man -- are these little guys heavy! There is certainly no short-cutting on quality. The paperboard for the covers and the paper for the interiors are equivalent to what you'd find in the full-sized books. Everything is full color as well. And being a fellow who wears bifocals, I will declare that there is no problem with the size of the lettering. These books look and feel great!

The first Thor volume reprints #s 179-188 and the second volume contains #s 189-198. So basically I got roughly the same material contained in an Essentials for the same price, but in color. The Deathlok book reprints Astonishing Tales #s 25-28 and 30-35. I don't know what the Cap book contains, but will let you know after it arrives.

So, a very high recommendation, echoing what Edo has said before. And if you're interested, there are several other volumes that contain Bronze Age Spider-Man, Avengers, and 1980s X-Men. Check it out!

Doug

Doug said...

Osvaldo --

Picture the 20 or so of us regulars sitting around telling stories about when we were kids. I've read the first 4-5 essays so far and for the most part have had a little smile on my face the entire time.

One thing I did learn, and wished I'd known earlier, is that there's a dedicated to this sort of thing, and by the same name! Check it out --

http://heykidscomix.blogspot.com/

Doug

Doug said...

"there's a dedicated to this sort of thing"

Yeah, that would have made a heckuva lot more sense if I'd inserted the word "blog"...

Doug

Edo Bosnar said...

Wow, so glad that I'm no longer a voice in the wilderness about those Panini digests. Yes, they don't skimp on anything - as Doug said, it's like having slightly miniaturized TPBs, but often at less than half the cost.

Elaborating on Doug's point, there are also Panini digests collecting most of the Lee/Kirby FF, plus Hulk volumes that collect those first 6 issues plus some material from the Trimpe years, several Iron Man books (including the Demon in the Bottle and Armor Wars - I have the latter two), a Silver Surfer book collecting the first five issues of the Lee/Buscema series (have that one, too), and Byrne's X-men: The Hidden Years in 3 volumes (have those as well).

And I think I've mentioned in the comments before that the Avengers books were a like hitting the jackpot for me: the three digests collect everything from just before the first Bride of Ultron two-parter to the end of the Nights of Wundagore story - and if I recall correctly I paid a little for $20 for them all.

Dr. Oyola said...

So, I got three trades. . .

I got. . . the "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow" trade - the last pre-Crisis Superman story by Alan Moore, which I have long loved but never owned.

I got the Dark Phoenix trade, which goes a long way in reconstructing my collection X-Men which I regret selling in the late 90s.

Volume 2 of Hip Hop Family Tree - which a fantastic oversized collection of stories about the early days of Hip Hop culture, by Ed Piskor.

and best of all, and the best gift I got all season (except of course for love and good cheer!), something which was out of my own price-range. . .

Volume 1 of the hardcover Fantastic Four Marvel Masterworks Omnibus. So excited to dive in!

Great haul, comic-wise this year! AND I plan to use a gift card I got to order that book, Doug. . .thanks.

Garett said...

No comic presents for me, but I took advantage of the Boxing Day prices and picked up some Marvel Treasury Editions: the Giant Superhero Holiday Grab-Bag from 1976 with the Gil Kane cover (was up here a few days ago), Kirby's 2001, and Close Encounters of the Third Kind with some cool art by Walt Simonson and Klaus Janson. Also picked up The Art of the Simon and Kirby Studio, a new hardcover that reproduces many Simon + Kirby stories from the original pages, like those Artist's Editions that have come out recently. This book is not as giant as those, but bigger than a regular comic. Super clear reproductions throughout, intro by Mark Evanier. Some of their famous Boy's Ranch stories are in here, and a variety of other stuff. Looking forward to exploring this!

Also:
Superman: Phantom Zone by Gerber and Colan.
Infinite Kung Fu by Kagan McLeod. Some nice looking art and what looks like a whole lotta Kung Fu in this!
Blankets by Craig Thompson. Won 3 Harvey awards and 2 Eisner awards in 2004. I've seen this one around, so I'm curious to check it out.
And finally, Don Martin Steps Out! I'd like to get a Captain Klutz book, but this will tide me over for now. : )

The Prowler said...

I got tech for Christmas! A Dell tablet, folio case and a multi-function printer. Now if I can just learn all the different operating systems, I can make something happen! Fingers crossed!!!

I haven't caught any Christmas releases yet but I did watch Marvel 75, from Pulp to Pop and the "lift Thor's hammer" trailer.

Two quick questions: HB thoughts on My Name is Asher Lev? It's coming to town.
Doug, my fruit filled dessert graph is becoming awfully full, should I make room for another blog, ie Comic Kids?

(Out of all the reindeer, you know you're the mastermind).

Anonymous said...

I also got the 75 Years of Marvel Cover Art, a 2015 AsgardPress Classic Marvel Covers Calendar, and a 3+ foot Stormtrooper!

starfoxxx

Humanbelly said...

Prowl, I'm trying to remember why our own theater (Theater J) wasn't directly involved w/ the production here in DC back in 2010. It's absolutely in line w/ our artistic mission. Although pretty much everyone involved in it is/was one of our "regulars", I know that I never worked on it at all. I'm afraid I didn't see it, either-- although the folks that did loved it. Chaim Potok's work does seem to transfer very well to stage-- THE CHOSEN had a nice run here a couple of years ago as well. The play itself (production elements aside) is very well-regarded, and was recommended highly by our Helen Hayes Awards organization. I'd say it's very likely a good, thoughtful bet.

HB

William said...

I was out running around all day, both days this weekend, so I somehow missed this post. But I'll contribute anyway.

I got a lot of comicbook related stuff this year. Mostly action figures, and a couple of books.

For action figures I got the "History of the DC Universe" Manhunter figure, a set of all four of the NECA TMNT figures. (I've been wanting those for years), and the Mafex Amazing Spider-Man 2 movie figure from Japan.

As for books, I got the new "Spider-Man: Complete Alien Costume Saga, volume 1", and "The New Teen Titans, volume 1", both soft covers.

And my sister got me this very cool Spider-Man wall hanging piece that is on a stretched canvas just like a painting. The main image is a classic Spidey by John Romita with a bunch of old ASM covers in the background. It's pretty cool, and it was a nice surprise.

Hope everyone had a nice Christmas/Chanukah/Kwanza, and wishing all a Happy New Year!!!

Doug said...

Hey, again --

We squeezed both sides of the family into a gift-giving-palooza yesterday and I got some serious comics-related love.

I received the Cornelius PotA Hallmark ornament (because nothing says Season's Greetings like Roddy McDowell in full Ape garb), the Captain America "Winter Soldier" tpb (been wanting to read that), a 1000-piece puzzle of Superman covers from my future daughter-in-law, the Guardians of the Galaxy soundtrack on CD, and a $20 gift card to Barnes & Noble from my nephew which quickly became a pre-order of the Warlock Marvel Masterworks tpb (coming out on January 6).

So it was a Marvelous holiday to be certain!

Thanks to all for sharing -- Karen and I really love all of your reports.

Now, on to Happy New Year!

Doug

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