Holiday Cheer

In light of the horrors of the real world, here's a few holiday cards I've received this week.

First is one from Claymation Werewolf aka @ClaymationHowl

Next up is one from the staff at Underscoopfire.com

And the last one is from local (to me) artist Mister Reusch.
I mentioned him during last year's Creepmas countdown
Check out his Etsy shop for this and other awesome prints!

And here's the back...

SuperMegaFest 2012

Well, I tried last week to get Mail Order Monday back on track again and this week I have something else to post. Oh well! This weekend we went to an annual local comic convention called SuperMegaFest. We've been going to it off and on for a few years now and it's really starting to take off and grow.

When we first started going there were maybe a couple of artists, a handful of celebrities from the past and a dealer room. Now it's expanded to a few more areas in the hotel to accommodate more artists, and for some reason, lots of overly-busty models.
You can hit the show's site to see the full guest list this year.

The Great Pumpkin Delivers

Things are starting to wind down for this year's Great Pumpkin Gift Exchange. I'm still waiting on a few people to confirm they got their stuff but so far it seems like it was a success! A success not without its headaches and learning opportunities, but a success.

Here's what some of the participants got from their Great Pumpkins.

If I missed you, let me know and I'll link you up.

Shezcrafti

The Goodwill Geek
ConnQuest

Ron's Random Stuff

Shawn from Brandedinthe80s.com

As for me, I got an unexpected bonus gift! This was courtesy of ConnQuest.

He makes all kinds of magnets, which are what those tiny movie posters and letters are. He sent lots of letters, like a 2" high stack! He also included a couple of patches that make me wish I had a denim jacket with the sleeves torn off so I could put them on the back of it.

Especially excited about The Crimson Ghost one. Most people associate his visage with The Misfits (and rightly so!) without knowing where it originated. It's a great old timey serial picture. Best of all is the SLUG Zombies Series 3 12-pack which I'd been wanting to get for awhile. They'll be getting their own post next week.

My "official" Great Pumpkin gift came from Tommy Day at Tophat Sasquatch.

Even the box it was shipped in had Peanuts Halloween stickers on it. My wish list included LEGO minifigs and I got three: a pirate, a Hamlet-esque actor with skull and a cowgirl with lasso. Also included was a ziplock of LEGO-like candy bricks that you can actually snap together to build something, four packs of 80s trading cards (Return of the Jedi, Jaws 2 and TMNT x2) and a Tophat Sasquatch t-shirt.

Huge thanks to ConnQuest and Tommy for putting together such cool packages!

LEGO Monster Fighters - The Swamp Creature

If you follow me on Twitter you no doubt saw my excited live tweets from Toys R Us last Friday when I discovered the long awaited Monster Fighter sets on shelves. I held off on getting any that day because I knew I'd be able to find them somewhere else cheaper. I found all of them cheaper, plus one they didn't have, in one of our local LEGO stores today so I picked up the one I've been itching to get. Coincidentally, it happens to be the least expensive of all the sets: The Swamp Creature!

I haven't delved to deeply into the LEGO website to get the story behind these sets but it appears that each monster has a power crystal and Mr. Head Vampire wants them all for himself, probably to attain Ultimate Power...you know how that goes. But there is an intrepid band of Monster Hunters that are trying to collect these crystal because...well, they were too busy studying monsters in school and never got invited to the cool parties so now they take out their social frustrations on the poor monsters.

This 70 piece set comes with Monster Fighter Douchey McBaggins (ok I don't know what his name is, but he has a wallet chain, a sleeveless leather vest, a pompadour and a smarmy grin), his swamp skimmer, a tiny section of swamp (complete with frog, seaweed and fish) to hold the crystal, and of course, The Swamp Creature.

I rarely, if ever, say a LEGO set isn't worth what you pay and I'm going to keep saying that! For $7, I think you get a nice little set with plenty of play value. There are missiles on the side of the skimmer that you can flick to "shoot." I'm no GI Joe expert, but this guy and his skimmer are probably a good start to a custom LEGO Dreadnok.

We may never get officially licensed Universal Monsters LEGO sets, but at this point, I don't think we need them. They've done a great job covering the iconic monsters in this line even if they're not exactly the same ones we all love.

Head on over to Flickr to see the rest of the photos in this set. In closing, I'm totally stealing an idea from Shawn at Branded in the 80s' and putting together a lil LEGO Monster Sqaud action...

 

The League: When I Was 12

The League of Extraordinary Bloggers is celebrating its 12th week with an interesting challenge.

Grab Rufus and head to the phone booth, because this week, we’re going back in time! Dial up the year you turned 12, and revisit the last official year of your “childhood.”

While posts to the weekly topics are always varied, I think this week will be especially interesting because we weren't all 12 at the same time...well, I'm guessing most of us weren't. By the way, if you didn't get the "Grab Rufus and head to the phone booth" reference above, you need to see Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure!