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Hi, folks!
If you're like me (and I think it's safe to say that you wouldn't be reading this if you weren't), you revel in the hunt to find new items for your collection that you could never find or didn't even know existed. For me, that usually involves comic books or strips based on Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica or Planet of the Apes, which are my main collecting passions.
In recent years, I helped IDW's Library of American Comics imprint put out a pair of books collecting the long hard-to-find L.A. Times Star Trek newspaper strips of the early 1980s, and wrote introductory materials for each volume. I'd foolishly let myself think I had every licensed Star Trek comic book or strip ever produced (see my index: http://www.hassleinbooks.com/pdfs/TrekComics.pdf). So you can imagine my surprise when my friend Mark Martinez, the proprietor of the Star Trek Comics Checklist website, alerted me to an eBay auction that featured a number of vintage Star Trek collectibles... including a comic strip of which neither he nor I had any knowledge. The hunt was on once more!
Some judicious research turned up the identity of the strip in question: the Star Trek Space Viewer, an inexpensive rack toy produced by Larami back in 1979, which contained strips reminiscent of the ones from McDonald's Star Trek: The Motion Picture Happy Meal toys that same year (though not the same stories). As the PlaidStallions site explains, "these low-cost toys were produced mainly by companies that never did any sort of TV advertising and their items seemed to be more commonly found at drug and grocery stores. (A recent episode of Family Guy has Peter ranting against 'Those terrible pharmacy toys.') Licensing everything from obscure cartoon characters to major players such as Batman or the Planet of the Apes, rack toys are the forgotten collectible."
Amazingly, this comic strip had remained off my radar until Mark discovered the eBay auction. But now that I know about it, I need to find scans of the comic strips for another upcoming project I'm working on for IDW. In addition, I hope to find scans of the comic strips from a similar item, the Battlestar Galactica Space Viewer, which also surfaced during our research.... arrrrgh!... since I'm also working on a BSG book. Any assistance would be extremely appreciated. Please let me know at [email protected]. Thanks in advance!
Rich Handley
Hasslein Books
If you're like me (and I think it's safe to say that you wouldn't be reading this if you weren't), you revel in the hunt to find new items for your collection that you could never find or didn't even know existed. For me, that usually involves comic books or strips based on Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica or Planet of the Apes, which are my main collecting passions.
In recent years, I helped IDW's Library of American Comics imprint put out a pair of books collecting the long hard-to-find L.A. Times Star Trek newspaper strips of the early 1980s, and wrote introductory materials for each volume. I'd foolishly let myself think I had every licensed Star Trek comic book or strip ever produced (see my index: http://www.hassleinbooks.com/pdfs/TrekComics.pdf). So you can imagine my surprise when my friend Mark Martinez, the proprietor of the Star Trek Comics Checklist website, alerted me to an eBay auction that featured a number of vintage Star Trek collectibles... including a comic strip of which neither he nor I had any knowledge. The hunt was on once more!
Some judicious research turned up the identity of the strip in question: the Star Trek Space Viewer, an inexpensive rack toy produced by Larami back in 1979, which contained strips reminiscent of the ones from McDonald's Star Trek: The Motion Picture Happy Meal toys that same year (though not the same stories). As the PlaidStallions site explains, "these low-cost toys were produced mainly by companies that never did any sort of TV advertising and their items seemed to be more commonly found at drug and grocery stores. (A recent episode of Family Guy has Peter ranting against 'Those terrible pharmacy toys.') Licensing everything from obscure cartoon characters to major players such as Batman or the Planet of the Apes, rack toys are the forgotten collectible."
Amazingly, this comic strip had remained off my radar until Mark discovered the eBay auction. But now that I know about it, I need to find scans of the comic strips for another upcoming project I'm working on for IDW. In addition, I hope to find scans of the comic strips from a similar item, the Battlestar Galactica Space Viewer, which also surfaced during our research.... arrrrgh!... since I'm also working on a BSG book. Any assistance would be extremely appreciated. Please let me know at [email protected]. Thanks in advance!
Rich Handley
Hasslein Books
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