The book was on top of a stack of books,
which was one of several stacks on a palette which was walled off on three
sides and about half full with chest high stacks of books. Pete explained that Schiffer Publishing
takes great pains to insure that the books shipped to their customers leave the
warehouse in pristine condition. If a
book suffers any injury, any scratch, ding, or dent, it gets stacked on the
palette that goes to the pulper to re-enter into the commodity stream as
recycled paper pulp.
Finding this out and being a bibliophile,
I asked if I could rifle through the stacks to save some books from their
untimely fate if I promised to review anything I took. I ended up with about a dozen books. Mostly from the regional paranormal or
“ghost books” series.
Collecting Monster Toys does not claim
to be complete or comprehensive. I
appreciate it all the more for not claiming completeness. Too often a book will claim
comprehensiveness, and even amateur enthusiasts of the topic will soon realize
significant omissions. Although citing
the deficiencies of “comprehensive” guidebooks is a guilty pleasure of most
enthusiasts of all things horror it is a welcome respite to encounter a book
which does not claim to be a complete guide to the topic it addresses.
A problem that plagues many of the books
that do claim comprehensiveness is that they soon become dated due to the
static date of the book, and the passage of time after its publication. I was surprised when I looked up the date of
publication for the book to realize that it had been first published nine years
ago. The book has weathered well in the
passage of time.
Part of the durability of this title may
lie in the style that the author chose to present his material. Instead of using a chronological format, which
would reveal the publication date of the book as the end of the world after
which the world would seem suspiciously vacant, the author chose to break the
book into sections of pictorial representations of a selection of items. Although there are six chapters in the book,
the book is loosely divided into Universal Monsters and Japanese Monsters.
For those that don’t know what a Universal
Monster is, a brief explanation.
Universal Studios produced a series of monster movies in the 1930s. The first films of each of the franchises
were so successful that the studio produced many sequels often using many of
the same actors in the films although not always in the roles they
originated. The characters most often
considered the essential core of the Universal Monsters are Dracula,
Frankenstein, The Bride of Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, The Mummy, and The
Creature from the Black Lagoon. It is
permissible to include The Phantom of the Opera, The Invisible Man, and the
Metaluna Mutant from ‘This Island Earth’, but omission of the core six
characters is considered a significant oversight. This philosophy regarding the primacy of the
major characters of the Universal Monster movies is reflected in the packaging
and variety of merchandise available for the characters from those films. The author also reinforces the primacy of
these characters by grouping the memorabilia by character with several pages
devoted to each, smoothly transitioning into the next.
The author avoids the pitfall of
presenting a stale and uninspired survey and price listing of the memorabilia
which would reasonably be included in his chosen genre by infusing his
introductions to each chapter and the brief notes accompanying the hundreds of
beautiful color photos with humor and an ironic, but not sarcastic awareness of
the oddity of collecting toys when childhood has long been left behind. At the same time, the author avoids reaching
too far to infuse humor, and successfully maintains the balance between
recognizing the natural humor in toy collecting without seeming to pander to
his audience. The introductions are
well-written and illustrate the author’s awareness of the histories of the
characters without being too dry or exhaustively informational.
Monster enthusiasts needn’t bother reading
the infrequent pages of introduction to enjoy this book. The primary attraction for your average
enthusiast of monster movie inspired collectables is that this book is a
perfect guidebook for a trip down memory lane, or spending an afternoon
exploring the dark recesses of nostalgia national park.
A strange change has come over me in the
past few years.
I
used to be a collector. I enjoyed the
satisfaction which accompanies the acquisition of a complete set of any kind of
limited set of collectables. As I’ve
grown older, this compulsion has metamorphosized into an appreciation of the
existence of objects divorced from the previously accompanying desire to own
them.
This is why this book was so enjoyable for
me personally. I was able to see all of
the rare Universal Monster memorabilia that I no longer desire for my personal
ownership. All of those rare and highly
collectable Aurora models that it’s almost impossible to see together in one
place. The author has assembled a
high-quality photographic archive of complete sets of these rare
collectables. So although I will never
own a full set of the Universal Monster Aurora model kits, I can vicariously
enjoy their existence any time I want to by leisurely flipping through this
book.
But it’s not just the rare collectibles
that I will most likely never see in real life that attract me to the contents
of this book. There are many toys and
collectables that I used to own, but have been lost to the carelessness of
youth or the generosity of my nature.
Seeing these objects again rekindled long forgotten memories from my
youth.
When
I was five years old I had the chicken pox.
I was quarantined for a week with two other young boys. We spent the week in our bathing suits and
there was a child’s wading pool set up in the kitchen that we spent most of the
week in when we weren’t taking baths or having calamine lotion liberally dabbed
onto the little red bumps dotting our skin.
They didn’t want us to scratch and scab and scar, you see. So they fooled us into staying moist by
making that week into an indoor pool party.
It might have been my birthday, but I can’t remember, it might have been
conciliatory gift-time to console us young prisoners. I was given a colorform set as a gift. I thought I imagined that colorform set,
because it disappeared from my life when I was still too young to remember
where things disappeared to and I never saw it again. There it was. Pages 129 through 131. The ‘Space Warriors Colorforms Adventure
Set’. The feeling of nostalgia it awoke
was intense. It’s unlikely that I would
be able to share that feeling with anyone else, but that was part of the
attraction of the emotion.
The only way I’m able to share that
feeling is by sharing the book, which I did inadvertently while at the Fangoria
Weekend of Horrors. A small group of
late night revelers ended up at my hotel room and when they saw the book on the
coffee table each person in turn flipped through it. Everyone recognized something special from
their childhood. Each person recognized
something different, but they all said the same thing, “Holy shit! I used to have that!”. If this review was compressed into one line,
that would have to be the one. Because
that’s what everyone says when they flip through this beautiful little book.
It was nice to see the Universal Monsters
Little Big Heads figurines, because for some reason they are the only full set
of collectables I’ve kept. And I admit
I felt a twinge of the guilty pleasure I mentioned earlier in this review, when
I noticed that the second series of the Little Big Heads, the black & white
set, which I own in its entirety, was nowhere to be found in the book. And I also admit that I felt a small surge
of the collector’s infatuation when I saw the Remco Mini-Monsters collection,
complete and carded and accompanied by the ‘Mini Monster Play Case’. But I know that if I were to go to all the
trouble of acquiring the object of my desire it would be exciting for about a
day and then end up packed away, neglected, in some sort of storage.
But thankfully John Marshall has saved me
the pain of experiencing the buyer’s remorse which inevitably accompanies the
acquisition of something long sought after.
Instead I can flip through this book anytime I want and vicariously
enjoy the satisfaction of ownership.
This book, as well as many
other books about toys and collectibles is available from Schiffer Books.
www.schifferbooks.comAbout the Reviewer:
Scott Lefebvre can write about whatever you want him to
write about.
Mostly because when he was grounded for his outlandish behavior as a hyperactive school child, the only place he was allowed to go was the public library.
His literary tastes were forged by the works of Helen Hoke, Alvin Schwartz and Stephen Gammell, Ray Bradbury, Richard Matheson, Stephen King, Clive Barker, Edgar Allan Poe, and H. P. Lovecraft.
He is the author of Spooky Creepy Long Island, and a contributing author to Forrest J. Ackerman’s Anthology of the Living Dead, Fracas: A Collection of Short Friction, The Call of Lovecraft, and Cashiers du Cinemart.
He is currently working on ten novel-length book projects which will be released in 2014.
He also publishes themed collections of interviews from his interview blog You Are Entitled To My Opinion.
His reviews have been published by a variety of in print and online media including Scars Magazine, Icons of Fright, Fatally Yours and Screams of Terror, and he has appeared in Fangoria, Rue Morgue and HorrorHound Magazine.
He is the Assistant Program Director for The Arkham Film Society and produces electronic music under the names Master Control and LOVECRAFTWORK.
He is currently working on a novel-length expansion of a short-story titled, "The End Of The World Is Nigh", a crowd-funded, crowd-sourced, post-apocalyptic, zombie epidemic project.
Check out the blog for the book here: theendoftheworldisnighbook.blogspot.com
Check out the Facebook Fan Page for the project here: www.facebook.com/TheEndOfTheWorldIsNighBook
Check his author profile at: www.amazon.com/Scott-Lefebvre/e/B001TQ2W9G
Follow him at GoodReads here:
www.goodreads.com/author/show/1617246.Scott_Lefebvre
Check out his publishing imprint Burnt Offerings Books here:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Burnt-Offerings-Books/1408858196016246
And here: http://burntofferingsbooks.blogspot.com/
Check out his electronic music here: soundcloud.com/master_control
And here: master-control.bandcamp.com
Check out his videos at: www.youtube.com/user/doctornapoleon
Check out his IMDB profile here: www.imdb.com/name/nm3678959
Follow his Twitter here: twitter.com/TheLefebvre or @TheLefebvre
Follow his Tumblr here: thelefebvre.tumblr.com
Check out his Etsy here: www.etsy.com/shop/ScottLefebvreArt
Join the group for The Arkham Film Society here:
www.facebook.com/groups/arkhamscreenings
Stalk his Facebook at: www.facebook.com/TheLefebvre
E-mail him at: Scott_Lefebvre@hotmail.com
Mostly because when he was grounded for his outlandish behavior as a hyperactive school child, the only place he was allowed to go was the public library.
His literary tastes were forged by the works of Helen Hoke, Alvin Schwartz and Stephen Gammell, Ray Bradbury, Richard Matheson, Stephen King, Clive Barker, Edgar Allan Poe, and H. P. Lovecraft.
He is the author of Spooky Creepy Long Island, and a contributing author to Forrest J. Ackerman’s Anthology of the Living Dead, Fracas: A Collection of Short Friction, The Call of Lovecraft, and Cashiers du Cinemart.
He is currently working on ten novel-length book projects which will be released in 2014.
He also publishes themed collections of interviews from his interview blog You Are Entitled To My Opinion.
His reviews have been published by a variety of in print and online media including Scars Magazine, Icons of Fright, Fatally Yours and Screams of Terror, and he has appeared in Fangoria, Rue Morgue and HorrorHound Magazine.
He is the Assistant Program Director for The Arkham Film Society and produces electronic music under the names Master Control and LOVECRAFTWORK.
He is currently working on a novel-length expansion of a short-story titled, "The End Of The World Is Nigh", a crowd-funded, crowd-sourced, post-apocalyptic, zombie epidemic project.
Check out the blog for the book here: theendoftheworldisnighbook.blogspot.com
Check out the Facebook Fan Page for the project here: www.facebook.com/TheEndOfTheWorldIsNighBook
Check his author profile at: www.amazon.com/Scott-Lefebvre/e/B001TQ2W9G
Follow him at GoodReads here:
www.goodreads.com/author/show/1617246.Scott_Lefebvre
Check out his publishing imprint Burnt Offerings Books here:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Burnt-Offerings-Books/1408858196016246
And here: http://burntofferingsbooks.blogspot.com/
Check out his electronic music here: soundcloud.com/master_control
And here: master-control.bandcamp.com
Check out his videos at: www.youtube.com/user/doctornapoleon
Check out his IMDB profile here: www.imdb.com/name/nm3678959
Follow his Twitter here: twitter.com/TheLefebvre or @TheLefebvre
Follow his Tumblr here: thelefebvre.tumblr.com
Check out his Etsy here: www.etsy.com/shop/ScottLefebvreArt
Join the group for The Arkham Film Society here:
www.facebook.com/groups/arkhamscreenings
Stalk his Facebook at: www.facebook.com/TheLefebvre
E-mail him at: Scott_Lefebvre@hotmail.com
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