1970's: THE SUPERHERO CATALOG OF GAMES, BOOKS, TOYS, & PUZZLES #1
I hope this post brings back a lot of fond memories for many readers. I grew-up in the 1970's & was totally into comic books at that time, a super-collector! I even liked toys & action figures too but was not really a big toy collector like I am now ( In hindsight I WISH I would have bought a bunch of stuff then, ha ha ). I remember one day, in the mid-1970's, I saw an ad in the back of one of my favorite comic books. You could get a catalog for, I think, 50 cents + postage that promised to be filled with all kinds of superhero goodies. Because I was a big fan of this kinda thing I mailed away for one. WOW! Was I ever happy I did! This is the 1st Issue of The SUPERHERO CATALOG OF GAMES, BOOKS, TOYS, & PUZZLES!! This catalog was pretty unique for 3 main reasons. One, It was published in a comic book format. Two, instead of photos for all the products they were hand-drawn like comic book art, and Three, it was jam-packed with tons of very cool superhero items that, at the time, you would NEVER SEE at all the department stores or even the best-stocked comic book shops. Now, I'm mainly sharing the pages that are "Batman-related" but this baby was filled with Comic Books, Specialty Books about Comics, Star Wars Toys, Super Hero T-Shirts, Action Figures, Micronauts, Novelty Clocks, Mego Dolls, Clothing, and many many other pieces of merchandise with all the DC & Marvel Comics Characters you could ever dream about!! And, oh man, I used to totally drool over every single issue. It was just filled with magic & I would fantasize about buying everything in it. I remember that I did buy a few pieces from it. I used to (still do ) totally love those HUGE Treasury Comics that DC made. I collected them & the ones that were harder to find I would get here. I bought a few weird Star Wars items. I fondly remember getting a Star Wars Stormtrooper Costume Helmet. I also remember buying a few Mego Dolls ( in the original boxes! ). One neat thing about the art was that the whole catalog was done by art students from the Joe Kubert School of Comic Art ( still in business today ). Kubert even drew a lot of it & the stuff he didn't was still sort of drawn in his style. I was a big fan of his artwork at the time ( really loved his Sgt. Rock books ) so this was just a bonus! So, does anybody else remember these? If so then please leave a comment & share your stories. I know there's gotta be a lot of people who loved these as much as I did. Also, I guess, if you have never seen one of these RARE catalogs before then there are some really great collectible toys to drool over, ha ha!
I hope this post brings back a lot of fond memories for many readers. I grew-up in the 1970's & was totally into comic books at that time, a super-collector! I even liked toys & action figures too but was not really a big toy collector like I am now ( In hindsight I WISH I would have bought a bunch of stuff then, ha ha ). I remember one day, in the mid-1970's, I saw an ad in the back of one of my favorite comic books. You could get a catalog for, I think, 50 cents + postage that promised to be filled with all kinds of superhero goodies. Because I was a big fan of this kinda thing I mailed away for one. WOW! Was I ever happy I did! This is the 1st Issue of The SUPERHERO CATALOG OF GAMES, BOOKS, TOYS, & PUZZLES!! This catalog was pretty unique for 3 main reasons. One, It was published in a comic book format. Two, instead of photos for all the products they were hand-drawn like comic book art, and Three, it was jam-packed with tons of very cool superhero items that, at the time, you would NEVER SEE at all the department stores or even the best-stocked comic book shops. Now, I'm mainly sharing the pages that are "Batman-related" but this baby was filled with Comic Books, Specialty Books about Comics, Star Wars Toys, Super Hero T-Shirts, Action Figures, Micronauts, Novelty Clocks, Mego Dolls, Clothing, and many many other pieces of merchandise with all the DC & Marvel Comics Characters you could ever dream about!! And, oh man, I used to totally drool over every single issue. It was just filled with magic & I would fantasize about buying everything in it. I remember that I did buy a few pieces from it. I used to (still do ) totally love those HUGE Treasury Comics that DC made. I collected them & the ones that were harder to find I would get here. I bought a few weird Star Wars items. I fondly remember getting a Star Wars Stormtrooper Costume Helmet. I also remember buying a few Mego Dolls ( in the original boxes! ). One neat thing about the art was that the whole catalog was done by art students from the Joe Kubert School of Comic Art ( still in business today ). Kubert even drew a lot of it & the stuff he didn't was still sort of drawn in his style. I was a big fan of his artwork at the time ( really loved his Sgt. Rock books ) so this was just a bonus! So, does anybody else remember these? If so then please leave a comment & share your stories. I know there's gotta be a lot of people who loved these as much as I did. Also, I guess, if you have never seen one of these RARE catalogs before then there are some really great collectible toys to drool over, ha ha!
8 comments:
I remember ALL of these ad pages. What memories. I was going through a Superman phase in those days and I had ordered a silver-plated Superman belt buckle that I still have to this day. When on vacation with my family in Wildwood N.J. (this must have been in 1974-75) and I talked my dad into taking us to Livingston NJ to the Livingston Mall where they had "The Superhero Shop". All my hard-earned sheckles I had accumulated for my holiday were spent there. I got the Bat-Plane with launcher, a life-size movable Superman (my sister got a Wonder Woman). Items not shown I had purchased were a Batman grapple launcher (the grapples had suction cups on them), a DC superheroes checkers set, and too many other items to name. I remember walking in there and asking the clerks if I could just stack stuff on the counter. Unfortunately, I have nothing left of all this stuff; I played with it. :-)
Thanks for the memories.
Man! I had so much of that stuff. I even had that alarm clock with the "Holy Good Morning--We have to wake him up" recording.
Great stuff.. brings back lots of memories.. of toys I didn't get! :)
yeah I remember these had not seen one in forever, I have about 90% of the items in this ad in my collection. I will try and take pics of them for the blog.
Hey! I actually have one of these catalogs in my comic collection! I thought it was just too cool, and I wondered if there was ever a #2!
Reading some of the captions makes me think the creators had a blast putting the catalog together. That was probably a fun place to work.
I also had that cool alarm clock, as well as the MEGO Batmobile and figures.
Yep, like the others I had the Batman and Robin alarm clock (over in the UK by the way). 'Time to get up and out of bed!' I seem to remember it shouting at me first thing in the morning before school!
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