Me and Fango? We Go Way Back...

I have been reading Fangoria close to the beginning. Not exactly all the way back (I would murder just about anyone for a Godzilla cover #1), but at least back to the fifth issue. Without belaboring things too much, I recently unleashed the oldest box of Fangoria issues in my collection for the first time in about a decade (I had the box taped shut from my move down from Alaska to California), and it was with extreme giddiness that I encountered some old friends again.

Meet the family...

#5, April 1980

#7, August 1980

#8, October 1980

#9, November 1980

#10, December 1980 

I saw many a copy of Fangoria confiscated by the teachers and narcs at school in my time. Myself, I had at least three copies snagged from me in my high school days. I had buddies that had them confiscated regularly. While Fangoria was not officially an "adult" magazine, or even close to pornographic in any means, the gore and violence displayed in the magazine (along with occasional slips of nudity) meant that the book was not considered proper material for the youth haunting the hallways of America's schools. Some stores refused to carry it, and of those that did, some did classify it as an adult magazine, and would refuse to sell it to minors. The trick in obtaining Fangoria at the time – as well as National Lampoon, another magazine that walked the "adult" line that was a must in those days – was finding the stores that would sell it to you. I had a couple of ringers where most, if not all, of the clerks were pretty open to just making a buck as long as they didn't get hassled about it.

#11, February 1981

#13, June 1981 

#15, October 1981 

#18, April 1982

#21, August 1982

After school, I started working for a news agency that supplied most of Alaska (and that had a couple of stores in Hawaii at the time) with magazines and books. Having an apartment meant bills and more bills, and since I had a pretty big comic and baseball card habit at the time, some things had to go by the wayside. Working for the agency made it a little easier in one way: we were allowed to take a certain number of magazines home each week after all open orders had been pulled, as long as we tore the covers off of them. For an older teenage guy, it was a great way to get dirty magazines for free, but I also discovered that I didn't have to pay for Fangoria anymore. I regret the decision now, because while I still have the issues from those days and I continued to read the magazine faithfully, they don't have any covers.

#25, February 1983

#33, February 1984

These last two issues are the odd ones out, issues that I did buy with covers within that "cover tearing" span, probably because I had some extra cash at the time, or in the case of Videodrome, wanted to have one with a cover. When I started making more money a few years later after being promoted, I started buying Fango again properly, but I still have big chunks in my collection that are coverless. Still, while covers might give certain issues some very modest resale value, it's the material inside that counts. And I don't plan to sell my old Fangos anyway...

RTJ

[Note: The photos in this article are fresh scans of my own covers in my collection. If you want to snag them and post them, that's fine. I don't care.]

Counting Up to Me Choking to Death on a Creature Adult Collectible Figure

[Click image to enlarge]

Yesterday, it struck me as odd when considering that in order to count down to Halloween, that I need to start on the 1st of the month at 31 to get down to 1, but in the end, we arrive at the 31st. Why don't we just count up? It seems to me that a COUNT UP TO HALLOWEEN would actually seem more appropriate since we are heading to the 31st. But, "countups" are not really a thing while "countdowns" have been long established as immensely appealing to populations of people all over the world. Especially NASA employees. And people who play NASA employees in movies and TV.

Putting these notions aside, I am, after a break of several eons, taking part once more in the Countdown to Halloween, which is a fun little blogroll maintained by my friends at -- wait for it -- www.countdowntohalloween.com/. [Or click on the handy cat mask button on the right hand side of my page.] Visit their site to see a list of blogs that will be posting regularly (some daily, some less frequently) throughout the month of October leading up to some celebration of something at the tail end of said month. (Really hard to keep these holidays straight anymore...)

The owners of the Countdown to Halloween site have been good enough to keep emailing me annually to see if I want to participate, though I last did so about four years ago or so. I had actually been meaning to use this opportunity each year to jumpstart myself back into writing regularly on the blog, but then found myself keeping too busy in passing the open windows to do so. This year, circumstance has forced my hand in getting the writing machine running again, and so, after a long sequence of skipped starts and shutters, I now have my site moving relatively smoothly in time to enjoy the Halloween season. 

Of course, I needed some aid in this effort. In my case, aid comes in the form of regaling myself with a few small purchased items, generally monster toys and comics, books about horror movies, or a handful of horror and science fiction DVDs to add to my collections. A well-timed trip to Barnes and Noble three days ago allowed me the chance to pick up some of my favorite movie-themed magazines -- Fangoria, Filmfax, Famous Monsters of Filmland, and Video Watchdog -- as well as the dandy little guy displayed in the image at the top right of this post, a ReAction Universal Monsters Creature from the Black Lagoon figure.

I am not a collector who "keeps it in the box," so to speak, unless I have multiple copies of something. The Creature (being my favorite Universal Monster) will be freed of his plastic tomb soon enough, but in looking at him, I am trying to figure why the toy has an age designation of 14+ on the packaging. Not kidding... in a circle at the top of the package it says "Age 14+," along with the requisite warning about the toy being a "Choking Hazard. May contain small parts."

Was there an outbreak of 13-year-olds choking on inch-long rubber arms and flippers in this world? I know stupidity doesn't cut off once someone gets past their first teenage year, so it can't be that. Apart from a small 3.5" toy with only five points of articulation, there are no other parts with this thing, let alone small ones! There's no speargun or net like in the larger Sideshow figures, just a tiny, menacing Creature. Are pre-teens just shoving the whole toy in their mouths? Why doesn't this say " Age 6+" or something else? How dumb have kids gotten?

[Click image to enlarge]

And forgive me, Gertrude, for calling this a toy! I have just been informed by the top of the package that this (in all caps) is an "ADULT COLLECTIBLE - NOT A TOY". That's right. Adults don't play with toys, unless they are shaped like things that occur in the groin area or made to go in other things around the groin area. This is a collectible, and only made to be collected!

[Click image to enlarge]

But they are liars on this count. Right on the back of the packaging, there are pictures of the other, um, "collectibles" in this line, and just below to the left of those pictures, there is text that informs me that these figures, apart from being "sturdy," "plastic," and "posable," are also "ready for adventure!" But... they aren't toys, so I obviously can't play with them. So, what type of adventures can they have if they can't be played with at all? Does this imply that I am simply meant to free them and let them go off on their own? Is it "Choose your own monster and let them have an adventure"?

Or maybe these really are adult toys after all and the Creature is meant to have adventures in places that are not to be mentioned in polite company.

Maybe being from the Black Lagoon was simply a metaphor all along...