The (Chocolate) Bar of Steel

Way back in April I wrote of the difficulties of collecting and saving food, and recounted having got a chocolate "Lois and Clark" trading card at the San Diego comic con back when the show was on, probably around 1993. On the way back to Los Angeles I decided to eat it rather than try to preserve it in my refrigerator for years to come.

Just recently I heard from Matt Wright of Indiana who wrote:

I have the Lois & Clark Chocolate Card. I've kept it in a freezer for the past 12-14 years. I've been an avid collector of all things Superman for quite awhile. I really have no idea what I'm going to do with it. Is it rare to have one still intact? You're the first person I've come across that even knows what I'm talking about.

Matt was kind enough to take

and send these two pictures of the bar today, and the box it came in. I have no idea how valuable the bar is, but I would say it's rare to still have one, and I think it makes a great odd piece for any Superman collection. You can see that chocolate doesn't hold up all that well over the years and takes on a powdery or waxy look in spots. Thanks for sharing Matt!

Googling around, I found this story about a 100 year old chocolate bar left on the ice by Captain Robert Scott Antarctic Expedition that sold at auction for $686 a few years back. I picture a bidding war between a chocolate collector and an Antarctic Explorer Geek.

The Present State of Captain Future

I recently received a request for an update of the progress on the Big Bang Theory / Captain Future poster reproduction project I started recently.  Here it is.  While it's not a really complicated job to take out the text and clean up the little tears, it does take some time, and free time is difficult to come by.  I'm about halfway through the retouch job, with the price and the "First issue" text completely removed.

The requestor also said:

Seems odd it wasn't sold anywhere and that the set designers actually had to make that.

I just want to point out I'm only guessing that's the case.  the cover of Issue one of Captain Future didn't turn up in a google search of posters, though some later ones did.  But, knowing how productions and more importantly image rights work, I think they made it.  It is far easier - and cheaper - to find a public domain image that fits the bill for your production than it is to secure the rights to show an existing poster.  This kind of thing happens all the time.

From talking with the guys at House of Secrets, I know that artist Ragnar was approached and asked if he objected to his pieces being used on the set for Sheldon's bedroom; he did not.  I don't know (and it's none of my business) if they paid him to use them, but his work certainly got incredibly wide exposure being shown on Network TV.

And now, just to share a new Big Bang Theory collectible, here's the mousepad that was given out at the San Diego Comic Con - basically the DVD cover art:

I Don't Know Why I Save You, But I do

Being a cereal collector, I once in awhile buy those cereals that appealed when I was a kid - Cap'n Crunch, Lucky Charms, Trix, and especially Cocoa Krispies.  A cereal collectors magazine back in the 90's (believe it or not there were at least TWO magazines for cereal collectors, Flake and Freakie Magnet) had an ongoing debate about what was the best tasting cereal: Cocoa Krispies in whole milk, or Cap'n Crunch Crunchberries in the same.  It's a tough call, but the Krispies don't tear up the roof of your mouth so it's easier to get through a whole box).

Anyways, in a box of Trix I got last year, I found this little pamphlet, sealed in plastic.  I set it aside and put it in a box for storage - without even really looking at it.  My point is, I had this urge to collect and save the item in the box without even taking in what it actually was, it's Just What I Do.

Turns out it's a red tinted viewer for reading something off the back of the box it was in, which of course I'd thrown away.  No real big deal.  But - I still have the viewer, and it will always be somewhere in a box full of cereal stuff.

Or, if I display them on a shelf, it's a nice flat thing to go in the back.  Cool.

Greetings from Needles, CA

I also happened to, at least for awhile, really be into collecting Spike, Snoopy's brother from Peanuts comics. These are a couple I got at Knott's Berry Farm in Buena Park, that has a "Camp Snoopy" as an area for kids, so they tend to have a lot of good stuff.  On the tag you can see Snoopy's other, less known siblings, Andy and Marbles and Olaf and, um...Belle.  I confess I had to look the last one up on google...

Now that Halloween is coming...

...Don't you wish you had bought your M&M Vampire plush off-season, back when they were marked down? Now the rush is on!!