This was my first visit to WonderCon in San Francisco and I really enjoyed myself. WonderCon is known as the sister-show of San Diego Comic-Con. I’d say it’s a smaller sister, but even though it wasn’t as huge as SDCC, it has it’s benefits. Since it’s a smaller show, that means there’s less of a crowd and you could get more face time with the stars, which is nice. (Speaking of stars, I met and talked with Henry Winkler (Fonzie) and saw artist Jim Lee.) I also finally met Daniel M. Davis of Steam Crow Monster Commute and Michael Fleming of tweedlebop!

WonderCon features the best in a variety of specialty programming including the very best from, pop culture, Hollywood film and television, but comics are still king at this 23-year-old event. Watchmen was prevalent, but so was Star Trek, Star Wars, G.I. Joe and other comic heroes. This was a nice warm-up for me, as I await SDCC in July. Please enjoy my photos from the show with my slideshow or visit my WonderCon 2009 Flickr set. Perhaps you should consider going to WonderCon next year.

After seeing the photos from the 2009 Toy Fair, which included this Duke themed G.I. Joe Rapid Roller, I can see that toy makers are preparing in a big way for this summer’s G.I. Joe movie. I think that this toy is cute, but I don’t think I’ll be purchasing it. It’s something the kids will definitely enjoy though. When the movie comes out August 7, I can’t wait to see shelves full of G.I. Joe of all shapes and sizes. Even if it’s covered with toys that I’d probably not buy. This time they were thinking of the children (and their parent’s wallets).

Water! Wood! Wood beats water! When Battle Beasts were first released I collected as many as I could. They were little anthropomorphised animals with body armor and each had a unique weapon. Too bad I can’t find any of them now. I was so into these toys, I’d draw new ones out on graph paper in my free time. The reason I was so into them was probably that they were a spin-off of Transformers, which I also collected like crazy. (Both sets of toys had heat sensitive stickers on them too.) What a great way to take advantage of the already popular game of rock, paper, and scissors.

When you were a youngster in the early 80′s and wanted to entertain yourself with an electronic game, you were pretty limited. Before I was lucky enough to own an Atari 2600, I played with an original Speak & Spell. It was a gift from my parents and my dad hooked up an AC adapter to it, to save on batteries. I’d play with it for hours learning how to spell. Just hearing that familiar electronic voice again and a rush of memories flood my brain of days past. Perhaps it was my fondness of the game that’s helped me be such a good speller today.

You can still enjoy the classic fun of Speak & Spell with online emulators like the one from Kevin St. Onge or Jake Smith’s version. My favorite game was the hangman styled game called Mystery Word. The only problem I had was the pronunciation of words. It was difficult to tell the difference between certain words it wanted me to spell. For example “specific” or “pacific”, they both sounded the same on that single-chip voice synthesizer and I usually guess wrong.

Take a gander at this sweet collection of vintage toys that TCM Hitchhiker (aka Jason Jerde) has up on flickr. He’s got a spectacular set of photos of vintage Mego toys (which includes Star Trek, Marvel, DC and even KISS), some Remco Universal Monster figures and even some the 12″ Joes, all from the 60′s, 70′s and 80′s! It’s a classic toy overload!

I’m a big fan of vintage toy figures. If you like this post perhaps you’ll like Superhero Pajama Party!

Yes America it’s true! You can have your very own Topps’ Obama Trading Cards! The cards will be available in 6-card packs for a suggested retail price of $1.99 and will ship on January 3rd. It seems kind of odd to make Presidential Collector Cards. Does every president have a baseball card?

As a kid I used to collect baseball cards. Just a few mind you and I traded them all away. I really didn’t collect them since I’m not really a baseball fan. Years later I started collecting Marvel cards and Garbage Pail Kids cards. I’ve still got tons of those somewhere and I still enjoy looking at them. Even as a Obama supporter and card collector, I can’t see myself ever owning these. But if you want to give these to me as a stocking stuffer, I won’t be upset.

I just saw this at FAO Schwarz – it’s a Make Your Own Muppet Whatnot Workshop! The choices are limited, but where else can you make your very own Muppet to play with? Choose the color, eyes, nose, hair and outfit. Order now and get your Muppet just in time for the holidays. It’s too bad there’s not more body colors and shapes to choose from. I’d pick a Gonzo or Dr Bunsen Honeydew character.

Obama in the White House – Master paper toy crafter, Matt Hawkins created this Obama action figure and this cool looking papercraft White House mecha. If you like this, check out Matt’s other free, downloadable papercraft of Obama at his Build-O-Bama Blog.

Did you catch the recent episodes of the animated Clone Wars TV shows on Cartoon Network? I did and they weren’t all that bad. I’m not a Star Wars nerd and I’m well above the target demographic, but if these episodes are any hint as to what we can expect, then I’ll continue to watch. I mean it was cool seeing Yoda fighting and dismantling tanks in the first episode. The animation was well done and very fluid. I didn’t expect to enjoy it, but I did. I’ll be watching it again next Friday @ 9pm.

You also might have noticed the huge displays for The Clone Wars toys at your local store. If not, it is located right behind the massive swarm of people. I saw an entire section and endcap covered with the stuff, including loads of captivated fans.

At sometime in your past you might have played with Play-Doh and perhaps you’ve enjoyed the ever popular Mop Top Hair Shop. Well, since Halloween is nearly upon us, I have a treat for you. I was contacted by Els Stevens, from Belgium, with some interesting photos of a rare Play-Doh set from 1984. In Belgian it is called “fantomasque graaf griezelhoof” which roughly translates to “phantomasque horror head count”. Looking closer at the pictures you’ll see he resembles Dracula and once you push the colorful dough through, he looks quite gruesome. It also comes with some neat molding masks.

Since this is such a rare piece, I was curious if anyone else has ever seen this before? Perhaps an English version or something similar? It’d be cool to find out more info on this classic creature.

I hope you enjoyed the pictures and thanks again to Els!