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Read Posts by Chip Cataldo |
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July 15th, 2009
Well, I’ve got something special today for my loyal readers (reader?) out there. When I worked as a graphic designer for 8 years at my home town’s newspaper in New York, one of the things we’d sometimes have to incorporate into the ads was a piece of "line art" provided by a company specific to that particular product. This line art was sometimes provided by the local company and other times by the nationwide company if they were co-branding and co-op’ing the cost of the ad. It was also sometimes used to help in designing promotions for events in the paper, but with the dwindling amount of newspaper advertising sales these days it’s not done much anymore. These pages here are from a Kenner Toys binder that was sent to newspapers in the mid to late 80′s to help design such advertising and promotions.
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July 13th, 2009
Hello, and welcome to "Back To Normal" week here at The Highlight. LOL. Today we have the "Small Card" Green Lantern figure, which is technically a Shell Gas Station promotion produced for the Canadian market. This sub-line was released on smaller cards due to less space being available at point-of-sale (hey, it’s a gas station). No hanger-hole punches were stamped into the cards, so individual stations would sometimes use a standard hole-punch to hang them up. Finding perfect-condition examples is usually difficult due to that reason alone. Only eight characters were available : Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Robin, Green Lantern, Firestorm, Martian Manhunter, and Red Tornado. The second series figures (as far as the main line) are generally more difficult to find on these cards, but while I used to think that Red Tornado was the most difficult I now believe that Green Lantern is.
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July 10th, 2009
Well, sadly we’ve come to the final day of "Impromptu Super Powers Gallery Week." However, there’s something extra-special for you today…two rare figures that (as far as I know) don’t exist in online image form at any site other than right here. The Lily Ledy company out of Mexico produced the "Super Podores" line…and yet the Wonder Woman is the only one to surface carded so far. It’s a pretty bizarre circumstance since they obviously produced other figures, and loose examples of those have turned up. The Wonder Woman also has a variant that exists to the card back, with one version having a "guarantee" of some sort in a text block while the other one does not have it at all. Both card backs are pictured here. I’ve also included pictures of some Lily Ledy "overstock parts" which were apparently part of a huge find a few years back of mostly Star Wars pieces. I only have heads of Flash & Wonder Woman, but I’ve got some Batman torsos, Joker legs, Flash legs, and generally other body pieces you’d only find in a morgue.
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July 9th, 2009
Welcome to Day Four of "Impromptu Super Powers Gallery Week!" It’s Euro-Disney time! Okay, that was lame, but do you know how difficult it is to write concurrent witty opening statements for days on end? It’s damn tough, I tells ya. Today we serve up a healthy helping of European goodness, both with "Free Poster" stickers and without. As you can tell, the cards are much smaller than their US counterparts…with what looks to be Spanish, German and English language on them. Hey, that might be where I got the "Tri-Lingual" moniker from, eh? Every figure was probably released with and without the sticker, tho not all of them have surfaced in the collecting community as of yet. Here’s what I’ve got so far, and of particular note is the Lex Luthor…the crappiest condition figure I own. It’s a turd, but hey…I’m happy to have him as a permanent resident. I’ve only seen one other example and it’s in just as turdy of shape. Okay, enough about turd-boy-Luthor…pretty picture time, so enjoy!
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July 8th, 2009
It’s Day Three here at "Impromptu Super Powers Gallery Week," where on a whim I decided to just take good shots of everything I have foreign-wise and share them with everyone here at AFI and…well, does anyone *outside* of AFI read this thing? Chime in if ya do, I’d love to hear from you. Anyway, this go-around we have Gulliver…a Brazilian toy company that I’ve gotten quite fond of over the last 6 months or so. They produced both Super Powers, Secret Wars and Future Warriors (yeah!) figures, tho their Super Powers releases were pretty much in-line with the path Kenner took early on as opposed to the rockin’ designs they did for their Secret Wars releases. Save for one crazy hallucinatory moment that produced the quirky and bizarre El Captain Ray figure, their releases are pretty much main characters. Since I don’t have Ray himself I won’t be picturing him here, but rest assured that when I acquire one he’ll be the subject of his own blog. He’s just too cool to not highlight by himself. Gulliver Super Powers are all about cheap…flimsy cards, wafer-thin easily-damaged bubbles, and figures that Cason, Pierre and Matt could destroy as far as quality. Don’t take my word for it, tho…on to the photos!
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July 7th, 2009
Hello, and welcome to Day Two of "Impromptu Super Powers Gallery Week" here at "The Highlight" as presented by "Men of Action" here at "Action Figure Insider." Yes, the quotation marks are being thrown around "liberally" and "frequently" for this go-around as we take a look at Brazilian company Estrela’s Super Powers releases. The more I think about it, the more I’d like to do a "run-down" blog of all the companies that produced Super Powers figures throughout the world. I think that’d be a nice companion piece to all these galleries. Then maybe Jason "Toy Otter" Geyer could copy/paste it into his archive at some point. While y’all are formulating your thoughts on whether or not you’d like to see that (please let me know if you do), enjoy the images!
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July 6th, 2009
I was goofing around with the light box today and taking some pictures for the website when I decided to start taking good, quality images of everything I have. So, I figured people might enjoy seeing some of the results. While I don’t have enough information to do a formal blog on the Super Amigos line, I’ll just let the pictures do the talking for now. Luthor and Darkseid are en route as I type this, but I’m sure Alex won’t mind me using his pictures of them until I replace them with my own. Enjoy!
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June 15th, 2009
Something that was lacking, but soon will not be. Just in time for the 25th anniversary! I almost hate to say this phrase, but it IS a site about a Mattel line : "Stay …
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June 14th, 2009
This is the greatest collecting day ever. Not only did my good friend Joe Grunenwald score me a 33-back Super Powers Batman off of eBay (when I thought I’d missed it), but I just unpacked the following…which all showed up at once. It’s mind-blowing. …
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June 8th, 2009
Hello hello! Welcome yet again to another installment of the blog preferred by none of my ex-fiancees…the Super Powers Highlight! I’m switching it up (still) before I get back to writing about the SP action figures and NOT covering one again this time. Super Powers to me, is more …
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June 8th, 2009
This is the first time I’ve felt compelled & justified in making a short "addendum" blog to one of my previous entries. As my loyal readers will remember, a short time ago I wrote about the Electro figure in my first Secret Wars Highlight. Well, my new friend …
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June 5th, 2009
A pretty damn cool thing, this is. It’s the pack-in catalog for the Secret Wars figures released by the Gulliver toy company in Brazil. Note that all the figures come with stands, as well. I’ve only ever seen two of …
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May 29th, 2009
When the end result shows up in the mail in bunches, it makes the soreness in the morning and the aches and pains when I roll into my condo at 11:30pm each night worth it. My boss at the piano store (where I have my packages sent) was kind enough …
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May 28th, 2009
For those who don’t check LOLCat on a daily or weekly basis, I thought this was hilarious and wanted to share it with y’all : Peace, Chip …
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May 26th, 2009
Well, hello everybody! I thought I’d switch things up a bit this week and do my first Secret Wars highlight. Not just content to give an overview of some common ruffian, I’m starting things off with a bang and putting the spot light squarely on Electro. As most Secret Wars collectors know, the line had been canceled after series two and Mattel decided to ship off the three figures currently in production to overseas markets. Of course, what that means today is that the three said figures…Electro, Constrictor, and Iceman, usually command pretty steep prices on the collector’s market. That’s not the only thing those characters have in common, though. None of the three actually appeared in the Secret Wars maxi-series, which was a common theme to the Mattel Secret Wars figure line. It makes you actually wonder what they were thinking back then…did they want a Marvel Figure line to combat Kenner’s Super Powers line, and they just figured they’d use the big Marvel event title to hitch their star to? Mysterious decision. Not only that, but a LOT of major players in both the series itself and the Marvel Universe proper were ignored in favor of more obscure characters. However, looking at the line today that definitely contributes to the charm of it. Based off of Secret Wars, yet really having nothing to do with Secret Wars, it’s a fun line to collect. Most of the pieces are readily had (though not with clear bubbles, especially series 2), and there are some rarities that aren’t THAT difficult as well as most of the vehicles being affordable. Electro is one of the rarities that isn’t THAT difficult to obtain. One seems to pop up every month or so on eBay.
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