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Showing posts with label Creature from the black lagoon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Creature from the black lagoon. Show all posts

Friday, June 26, 2020

Crestwood House Monsters: The Creature From The Black Lagoon



Hey, it's Friday night and you know what that means? Well, for a little bit, something different. Variety is the spice of life. Gnaw meen brah? I thought we'd spend a few Friday nights going over the much beloved Crestwood House Monsters book series. I was just a kid who loved robots and monsters (and misadventure!). Sometimes when your a kid it's hard to enjoy the things you love. Especially in the 80's and 90's. I sure the decades before had the same problem, but I can only speak from my own viewpoint. Duh.

The weekly trip to the school library often was an outlet for the very things I wanted to enjoy. Random paranormal books were always present, as were comic strip collections. But what was really a winner on those dusty shelves was the Crestwood House Monsters. Little hardback books individually focusing on a classic monster. I loved these and reread them over and over. I'd love to have a set of my own one day, thankfully they're available online. For free even, not late fee's or anything. No foolin' mister.

We're going to start off with a personal favorite of mine, The Creature from the Black Lagoon. My love for the Universal Monsters isn't a secret around here. The ghoulish gang have been around forever and find their way on a ton of stuff. The Gillman was one of the last of the monsters (if you don't count Chucky) and one of the more unique. He never appeared with the others officially (Monster Squad really skirted around legalities) and has always stood out to me. There's a limited preview of the book above and if you feel like reading the entire thing, it's free to do so (just follow the links).



Thursday, August 22, 2019

Remco X Universal


Nothing better than to get some Universal Monsters in the perfect scale for an adventure this Halloween. These days Super 7 has you covered with their excellent ReAction line, but back in the day Remco brought the noise with these superb figures. At that scale they can pilot the Millennium Falcon. Think about that. Gillman behind the wheels with Phantom manning the guns. Somebody give Dracula a light saber!

Thinking about these toys and Halloween gives me warm memories of those lucky years when Halloween was on the weekend. Spending all Saturday playing in anticipation of going trick or treating later in my Kooky Spooks green face with black eyes and robe costume. What the hell was I supposed to be? Who knows, but I damn sure was it and damn sure got some candy. I can't think of a better way to spend Halloween day than with some sweet Universal Monsters action figures. Or any day for that matter.


Tuesday, November 6, 2018

Creature Mushi


For Halloween, my wife surprised me with a Creature Mushi figure from The GodBeast. Creature Mushi is a Kabuto Mushi figure themed to homage The Creature from the Black Lagoon. Readers of Zone Base will understand why I would want such a thing. As all Godbeast creations, Creature Mushi uses the Glyos system and is a wonderfully hefty little figure.


Thursday, October 12, 2017

Transformers Universe-al?

Now that's a wing thing!

During Generation One, a Transformers sub line called the Vintage Horror Movie Series was conceived. Presumably that was near the end of the line around the same time the Rock Bots were also being thought of as a serious thing for Transformers. In theory it's pretty sound, Real Ghostbusters was making crazy money and Transformers were on the downturn.

Large mouth kick ass.

The line never made it past the drawing board. Literally, no prototypes or mock ups of the toys have ever surfaced (yet, anyway) and all that exists still is some of the concept art printed in the Transformers Generations book. While one can wonder if the monsters would have been worked into existing Transformer fiction, it's not hard to imagine Hasbro turning Transformers into a label and just feature transforming toys for some of these concepts (like an early version of Animorphs or Crossovers). As a horror and classic monster fan, I would have loved these and have always been a little sad that they never happened.

What's bugging you?


Creature From The Black Lagoon French Poster