Images of Comic Con '09

Seth Green is happy to take a moment to chat with a

Slave Princess Leia at the Adult Swim booth.

Wouldn't you?

Aliens in America: A History of The Error Collectible

From Aliens in America episode "Mom's Coma" first aired 5/25/08:

INT-SPORTS COLLECTIBLE STORE-DAY

Justin (voice over): Every year, for my father's birthday, my Mother got him a piece of sports memorabilia from his wish list.  The whole thing had never really made a lot of sense to her.

Mom:What's the deal with this baseball card?

Clerk: It's worth a lot more because they misspelled "Yastrzemski."

Mom:  Well that's just stupid.

Ah yes, the error collectible: when something is rare because they made a mistake in production and some of them got out.  This is an odd sideline of collecting difficult to explain to someone who doesn't have the bug:  "So they screwed it up?  Wouldn't you rather have a good one in your collection?"  (Of course, any decent completist will have both).

One of the most famous error collectibles is the misprinted 1918 "Upside down Jenny" stamp with the airplane printed - you guessed it - upside down.  Only 100 of these were accidentally sold by the post office, all to a single collector at the time.  In 2005 a single one still in good shape sold for over half a million dollars at auction.

In 1987 Count Chocula released a box showing Bela Lugosi as 

Dracula, and some people protested that it looked like he was wearing a Star of David.  The box was pulled and corrected. Ironically, the story hit the news and hundreds (if not thousands) of speculators bought up the "Star of David" boxes before they disappeared, and saved them - but nobody saved the corrected version. It is now rarer than the error - I couldn't even find a scan of it to swipe online!

My own most recent "error" collectible purchase was this "Yoda and Mickey Mouse" Jedi pack of action figures sold near the Star Tours attraction in Disneyland.  Can you spot the Can you spot the mistake?  You can if you're a Star Wars geek...

Yoda's light saber is blue.  It's supposed to be green.

I bought this mainly because I heard about the mistake and 

happened to be down there, so I just couldn't resist.  It now resides in my storage unit.  I can't find a single error set selling on Ebay, so it's either very rare and valuable, or it's so rare that nobody knows about it - and it's kind of worth nothing.  I'll hope for very rare.

One time in my memory, though, an "error" collectible turned out to be nothing special through the simplest of reasons.  When I was a sophomore in college, a bunch of us got teaser posters for Star Trek IV that listed the release date as December 12, 1986.  Sometime later, though, we heard it was changed to November 26th.  Oh boy, we collectively thought, our posters are going to be worth a ton when they print the correction!  

The only problem?  They never corrected the poster, so all the copies of it have the same wrong date, and the "error" status is negated by being the only one available.  Oh well.  Like so many collector's who delight in the value of their items, I had no real intention of ever selling it anyways.

Aliens in America, by the way, is a great show on the CW.  Very funny - and surprisingly touching at times - about being a teen, high school, families, and being a Muslim exchange student in the midwest.  I don't believe it's been picked up for a second season, so try to see it now while it's running repeats, and hopefully the "complete series" will be available on DVD soon.

SDCC7: Return of The King

Elvis Trooper is Not Impressed by Tattooed Booth Bunnies. 

SDCC 4 : The Emperor has left the building

You want Elvis Stormtrooper's photo? Well, Elvis Trooper wants yours!

I actually don't know anything about this guy, except that he came up with this costume of an Elvis-turned-Stormtrooper, complete with King-type bling, and he's become a sort of fan celebrity at conventions.  I know I could probably learn all about him by doing a google search, but it's kind of fun just to see him as who he appears to be: Elvis Trooper.  So cool, he apparently got Superman to work security for him.

I consider the Burger King Trooper (seen here behind Seth Green lately of Robot Chicken fame shaking hands with fans) to be a pale copy of the Elvis Trooper.

Okay, I really don't.  He's pretty funny too.

SDCC 1 : Would you hang this in your living room?

Sure, it's a collectible here.  But on Kashyyk* it's just what they sweep up in any groomer's shop.

*The Wookie** home world for you non-geeks.

** The big hairy dog guy in Star Wars***, for you extremely non-geeky.

If you don't know what "Star Wars" is, you probably don't even know how to use a computer, so...you're on your own.

Double Collectible

If you collect cereal stuff, and you collect Star Wars stuff, you HAD to be pretty excited when Toucan Sam has a mail-in offer for an exclusive Han Solo action figure back in the early 90's.  I wasn't even collecting these Star Wars figures, and I think I sent away for two of them - and kept the cereal box (empty).

One of the Solo's is in storage somewhere, still sealed in the plain brown package he came in.  The Froot Loops box has actually been in a cupboard in my kitchen for over ten years, as if I didn't want to admit to myself I was actually saving it...

Well, it's finally old enough to be a little cool, I think.

Even a Jawa would've tossed these! (Tales From Storage Part 3)

Why do I still have these?  The torn up cards my Star Wars action figures came on back in 1978 or 1979?  The cards I clearly cut the proof-of-puchase out of to send away for Boba Fett?  (I sent away for 3 Boba Fetts, by the way).

Because I'm a fancollectorgeek, that's why.