The breaking of the 78th seal of the Roboplastic Apocalypse is a galaxy ranging ride through preproduction materials of the old Kid Stuff book, record and tape sets of the 80s! SEE pictures of my trip to the Bear and Bird Gallery's "Outside the Box" exhibit showcasing old printer's proofs and original art from childhood literary classics like Transformers: When Continentas Collide and Slaves of the Insecticons! HEAR my stunned amazement at the selection of strange and unknowable items from the production process of the read along book sets of my childhood. READ about the shocking unexpected find buried within the pile of papers I bought! What original Pablo Marcos Transformer art was up for grabs? What mysterious José Delbo robot drawing is haunting my every waking minute? And does Siimon Bisley even lift? Find out all that and more in this BEARS, BIRDS, BOTS AND ROBO HORSIES OH MY edition of the podcastalypse!
Or download it directly
See everything that was on exhibit at Bear and Bird's Flickr.
If you look on the back of your Transformer books by Kid Stuff you'll see their address listed as 450 N. Park Road, Hollywood, Florida 33021. Well that's just a few zip codes and two city bus rides away from me so I took a picture of the building that is there today, which I imagine was where they made the legendary Transformers adventures When Continents Collide, Satellite of Doom, Storms of Destruction, Jaws of Terror, and Slaves of the Insecticons. I got to meet Pablo Marcos and have him sign some of the Kid Stuff books he illustrated a couple episodes ago so these stories are kind of special to me.
Imagine my surprise then when I was at the comic shop the other day and their upstairs gallery had on display a ton of old Kid Stuff book and tape preproduction materials! Actually you don't have to imagine because this episode was recorded right when I was seeing it all for the first time. There was art from tons of different book and record series including G.I. Joe, Marvel and DC Super Heroes, Masters of the Universe, Barbie, She-Ra, Poochie, Webster, Sesame Street, Muppets, and of course the Transformers. Plus to top it all off, every last bit of it was for sale! The whole exhibit is ongoing through March so you want to check it out before people like me (except with money) buy up everything.
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| 'Satellite of Doom' Composition mock up (above left) and 'Slaves of the Insecticons' printing proof (above right) |
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| I couldn't place the scene of Optimus and Prowl (above left) in any Kid Stuff book I know of but the piece to the right is from 'When Continents Collide'. |
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| More original Pablo Marcos art from 'When Continents Collide'. Not bad at 60-75 bucks a pop. |
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I don't know what these were but the clear plastic layer on the top had the black line art and the layer beneath it was all the colors.
I don't know anything about He-Man or G.I. Joe Kid Stuff releases but these were cool looking to me.
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| I kinda wanted to get the printer proof of the Kid Stuff Transformers display (above left) but I'm not really a preproduction collector. However, I could not pass up the chance to buy a bundle of Galaxy Rangers materials (above right) all together for only 20 bucks! |
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The bulk of what was in the Galaxy Ranger pack was these storyboard style composition mockups. They're not really that interesting but the real treat was yet to come...
The big surprise for me was this set of Galaxy Rangers 35mm film frames! Since the book used animation cels from the second episode of Galaxy Rangers as illustrations, the production materials included clips of 35mm film with frames from the cartoon!
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| Goose piloting Ranger-2 flying alongside Ranger-1. |
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| The Cybersteeds, or space robo horsies as I call them. |
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| Check out these guns and Niko in a classic 'smack my head' moment. |
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SHOW NOTES OF THE PODCASTALYPSE
- Bear and Bird Gallery's "Outside the Box" exhibit
- That time Pablo Marcos signed my When Continents Collide
- John Braden biography
- Outside the Box flyer
- ShockPopComicCon in Ft. Lauderdale in two weeks.
- Simon Bisley ABC Warriors Gallery
- Simon Bisley art on Facebook
- That time Derek Yaniger told me Simon Bisley inspired his G2 approach.
- 500lb Simon Bisley interview at ComicBookResources.com
- William Simpson has done more much more than Transformers.
- Happy Tree Friends in 'Copyright School'.
- More pictures I took at the exhibit
- Horrible Masters of the Universe song
- Got my Ultimate Edition Maxx Zero
- My conversation with Warner Archives about the status of their Robo Force and GoBots releases.
- Galaxy Rangers outro
- Steve-O Stonebreaker's Kid Stuff Transformers archives.
- Don't Rocket Punch Your Friends!
11 comments:
I love these sorts of production materials. I have a small collection of original comic art and some anime cels. I was lucky enough to get a deal on a Herb Trimpe Shogun Warriors page a few years ago. Wish I had more, but these stuff is never cheap. Sounded like you scored a nice piece though, too awesome!
You've really been on a role lately with the shows. They have all been great and you kept me company while removing a foot of snow from my driveway today. Thanks a lot!
Thanks for thinking they are all great! Thanks also for hanging in there and bearing with my irregular schedule.
Collecting preproduction stuff is always such a double edged sword. I really try not to collect anything super awesome, unique, or of great historical value because I move so much that all my things get trashed on a regular basis. But sometimes I just can't help buying up artifacts that really deserve to be in loving, stable homes. Original comic art like your Shogun Warriors piece would be a great source of pride for me but also a lot of worry when it has to eventually be packed up and moved to the next place. I can forgive myself for buying 20 bucks worth of Galaxy Rangers slides. I hope the Galaxy Rangers fandom can forgive me, too!
The funny thing about listening to podcasts is sometimes if I go back and listen again I can remember where I was when I was listening the first time. I'll bet if I listened to some episodes of WARP it'd take me back to when I was living in South Dakota. I wish I would have kept a chronological listing and archive of every podcast I have ever listened to since 2005. There should be a name for how listening to people talking to themselves can really take me back.
Steve, what did you think of Pacific Rim given that you're a giant robot kinda guy.
Pacific Rim is fantastic but the writing is a bit uneven and silly at times. Stacker Pentecost gets all the great lines and there's not a day that goes by I don't hear him in my head saying something from that speech he did. But I can't even name any of the other characters so for me personally it ranks only slightly beneath Star Wars in terms of impact it's had on my brain.
The only part I find myself embarrassed by when defending the greatness of this movie is that line about Gypsy being analog. Gypsy is analog? What does that even mean? Even if the pilot is an idiot and doesn't know what he's talking about, I can't imagine any scenario where that robot's technology can survive an EMP. The idea of kaiju clones that have babies and why anyone would send them into battle is also confusing to me. But overall it's the Star Wars moment for this generation of robot fans.
So glad to see you're not only still blogging, but still finding excellent stuff. I remember years ago when you were looking stuff up on library microfiche. I have a lot of catching up to do! Cheers!
It is always nice to touch base with one of my original vocal blog readers so thanks for writing. That brings the total of die hard macrocranians who comment up to about six or so.
Funny that you're so close to the former HQ of KidStuff. The old home of Peter Pan Records was Newark, NJ, right near me!
Was Dale Earnhardt and Richard Petty in this Revenge of NASCAR you're talking about?
It was a direct to VHS sequel to Stroker Ace that crossed over with Six Pack where Burt Reynolds and Kenny Rogers raced Dale Earnhardt to the death at the Hazard County 500 in flaming IROC Camaros.
Oh, wow. Galaxy Rangers was my favorite show as a kid, and I would love to see that packet of 35mm slides! I randomly worked with a guy a few years back whose first show was GR in NYC. He worked on some design and the 3D computer graphics in the ships and stuff wayyyyy back in the day. Have you ever seen/do you know of any cels/backgrounds existing for this show? I've only ever seen kids books, comics, figures and Laserdisc/VHS/DVDs. Rock on!
No, I don't think I've ever seen Galaxy Ranger cels at any of the conventions I have been to, and come to think of it, I don't think I've seen cels from any other Studio TMS show ever sold anywhere. I'm sure that somewhere, sometime, somebody probably sold some on eBay.
Yeah, I bet there's a file cabinet in the Studio TMS basement in Japan with all kinds of gold in it...I'd be surprised if any of it ever surfaced, but I'm keeping my eyes out! Thanks man!
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