League Post - Shelf Expression

I've been away from the League of Extraordinary Bloggers for a bit and am happy to be back this week! The topic is pretty straightforward this week...

Shelf Expression. Take a picture of your shelves, featuring a few of your favorite things.

The "correct" term for this is Shelfie. Yup, it's a thing!
Here are a couple Shelfies for ya

This is the SciFi/Pulp/TV tie-in shelf. The Star Wars books on the left are maybe 10% of all the Star Wars reference books I own. I just can't get enough info beyond the movies. But now that that whole Expanded Universe has been tossed out, do I still need these? There's also the multi-color trades of the original Marvel Star Wars series from the 70s/80s. Fun!

In the middle-ish are a few pulp reproduction books including The Shadow, Domino Lady, Doc Savage, Captain Future and an Eerie Stories. I absolutely love these because they reproduce the entire pulp as it was printed, including the illustrations and even the ads!

There's also the only physical Doctor Who novel I own: Forever Autumn which takes place on Halloween. And as you can see, there's a variety of Doctor Who things on the shelf too.



And here is the spooky shelf! Starting on the left is my growing Gris Grimly collection. I highly recommend his Nursery Rhyme books if you've never read them! Although looking at Amazon, it looks like a lot of his older books aren't available. That's sad.

Next to those are a mixed lot of monster lore/field guide books. I've always wanted to have something like a Watcher's library filled with books dealing with all things occult and how to fight monsters. But lately those kind of books have been cranked out like nobody's business and there are too many to choose from.

Most of the right half is Halloween-eriffic! October Dreams is a great 650+ page anthology that will put your in a festive mood. I also suggest checking out I Luv Halloween if you like twisted comics. The book on the top (Stars, Spells, Secrets, and Sorcery) is one of my most cherished books. I got it at a book fair when I was in middle school (early 80s) and it was the first "magic" book I bought. Of course this was also around the time of the D&D/Satanism scare, which I also got into then (D&D, not Satanism).

What's on other League Members' Shelves?
Revenge of the Toy Box has the kind of storage space I dream about.
While Goodwill Geek has the more crowded shelves I'm used to.
You want monsters? Head over to Monsterfink's place!

And you can see the rest at Cool and Collected!

League Post - Shelf Expression

This week's League assignment is a fairly simple photographic request:

Post a photo of a shelf of items that displays your love for pop culture.

It's a little cluttered but if you click for a larger view you can find all kinds of stuff here.

And I couldn't just let it go at one. Here's the top 4/5 of another bookshelf.

Here's what other League Memembers are showing off
Monster Cafe Saltillo has lots of pics!
Plenty more toys over at Goodwill Geek
Lair of the Dork Horde shows a glimpse of his work desk

Halloween Tarot and Playing Cards

We've got a two-for for you today from US Gaming Systems, Inc. 

First up is their Halloween Tarot Deck & Book set. 

I used to be into this kind of stuff but more as a collector than anything else. I have a couple of tarot decks, a set of runestones that I actually used for divination in my late teens/early 20s and countless books. My best bud and I kind of got a rep in high school because we'd openly be reading the Necronomicon and Satanic Bible in school. 

I was interested in it all and really liked having what I now call a "Watcher's Bookshelf" with all kinds of books about fortune telling, witchcraft, and the occult. Today, most of the "Watcher's Bookshelf" is about hunting various monsters. I'll have to post a photo this month.

Book not pictured

I got this deck much later in life, mainly because of the amazing Halloween artwork in it. The four suits in the Minor Arcana are Pumpkins, Bats, Ghosts and Imps. Each card has the corresponding number of objects in the artwork. For example, the Six of Pumpkins has six pumpkins on it.

The Major Arcana is stacked with wonderful Halloween images as well. As you can see above, they incorporated Frankenstein's Monster and the Bride but went with a more Nosferatu-like vampire. There's also a black cat that seems to be the mascot as he appears on every card in the deck.

If you're not comfortable having Tarot cards in your home, you can go with their deck of Halloween playing cards. It uses the same art as the Tarot deck but it's cropped to fit within an oval design. Because there are fewer cards in a regular deck of cards, you also don't get all the artwork. It's really almost a crime that they only use part of the full artwork from the Tarot deck because those cards are really wonderful.

Be sure to visit the other bloggers that have their porch lights on by clicking below. 

They're waiting for you! 

Mail Order Monday - Deadly Self-Defense

From DC Comics Ghosts #24, 1974

It's really amazing just how much fighting knowledge was available to comic book readers over the years. You'd think with a few decades behind us that comic geeks would have evolved into lethal, jock-crushing, self-defense machines by now. With "no dull study or training" how could anyone pass up learning these secrets?

And seriously, dude in the ad, if you have green hair you gotta expect someone's going to want to kick your ass. I mean, you're just asking for it.

Mail Order Monday - Black Dragon Fighting Society

First off, let me welcome all the new folks that found us during the Countdown to Halloween! Things will be getting back to "normal" now...at least for the next few weeks until Creepmas gets here.

Click to enlarge

Count Dante? The only time I've ever heard the title Count used is when talking about European royalty or vampires. And it sure doesn't seem like a title you'd want to use if you're the Deadliest Man Alive. You'd probably go with Master or even no title with a single name just to show what a bad Mo Fo you are. Come to think of it, Dante isn't very intimidating on its own either...

Black Dragon Fighting Society? Doesn't exactly sound right. Society sounds a bit civilized and again brings me back to the European thing, maybe even sitting around sipping tea and having a lovely chat. I bet you would never have watched a movie with Brad Pitt called Fight Society, would you? Heck even without an unintentional pause it could sound like Black Dragon is Fighting Society. What did society ever do to Black Dragon?

I also noticed it says he got his title in 1967. The ad was printed in 1975. Wouldn't you have to keep competing to maintain the title? Or it it like Mr. President where people still have to call you that even after you're no longer in office?

The small print on the order form is hard to read, but for just a quarter (to cover S&H) you can get a brochure (not even a full catalog?!) of BDFS books, supplies and equipment. And for ordering early, you'll get that snazzy BDFS Identification Card. So all you have to do is send them a quarter and you can flash that card around to let people know you're a Black Dragon Fighting Society...member. At least until the playground bully decides the card is cool and takes it from you.

Freaky! The same day I posted this, Kirk over at Secret Fun Spot posted about someone who got Count Dante tattooed on them-self! Kirk has a book out about comic mailaway ads. It's called Mail-Order Mysteries: Real Stuff from Old Comic Book Ads!

As a gag, I went to Amazon and searched for BDFS and was shocked to find this. If you read the book's description, it seems like Count Dante did a lot of self-proclaiming...