Monster S-I-Z-E Monsters!

From a dog-eared pile of yellowing comic books found in an old box at the back of The Haunted Closet.., a collection of comic book ads that both tantalized and intrigued me, then and now.

This Frankenstein's monster is "...so lifelike, you'll probably find yourself talking to him. Won't you be surprised if he answers?" I would, as this "7 ft. tall monster" is just a poster. Also available: "Boney" the skeleton.

And some variations of the same ad...

Boney gets his own ad, too!

These ghost puppets claim to be "life-size"!

This ad cross-promotes the ghost puppet with a scary sound effects record, conveniently available to order on the same page.

But why settle for merely "controlling" a monster when you can become one?



And if you're going to be prowling around the neighborhood all night in one of those masks, you better take a flashlight!

If you're in the market for vampire blood, we've got two kinds: regular and fake.





Here's the usual assortment of classic pranks, gags and novelties..

I bet you never thought there'd be a way to make cigarettes smell and taste awful!

A sneezing party? I don't want to know.

How to wind up on the Dept. of Homeland Security's watch list...

This magic card deck claims to have been "a sensation at the World's Fair!"

I just like the image of the guy leaning up against his newly inflated 10-foot balloon, waiting for the neighbors to come by and gawk.

Half these X-ray specs ads seem to be emphasizing the possibility of seeing through a ladies dress...I guess they knew their readership.

Same goes for these secret spy scopes. Your mission, should you choose to accept it: ogle.

These hypnosis gimmicks also seem to emphasize their potential use on the fairer sex...






And now, from the animal kingdom... live worms, flesh-eating plants, and the noble sea-monkey ("head like a horse, tail like a monkey"....so like us.)

And if you're not up to the responsibility of caring for a real animal, how about a life-like rubber vampire bat? (Note the small print--order this blood-curdling bat and you also get a Flying Fish Monster, Chattering Skeleton, Pre-Historic Animal, Black Widow Spider, Shrunken Head, and a Magnetic slimy creature[?])

How about a giant "evil" snake? (Evil is in quotes because he's not really evil, just misunderstood.)

Why is the lady pictured so horrified by this fake chicken?





Tired of being mistaken for a girl on the telephone? There's someone you should talk to: Eugene Feuchtinger!

Now that Eugene has you talking like a man, let's do something about that puny frame of yours. Tall-up!

Now we need to do something about that baby-face of yours with some quick-change facial hair. If you're not quite sure what color "Deluxe Van-Dyke" will match your own hair, you are invited to include a hair trimming with your order form, to be matched by their "experts". I'd hate to be the janitor in that receiving department.

Now that you've got some new facial hair, you'll need to groom it. This comb looks like a switchblade to me, but the ad copy says "Pull out what looks like a hunting knife." (?) What exactly would I be hunting with a switchblade?

Perhaps you'd like to order a new customized T-shirt, like your friends Steve and Lion.

Or stay cool with this Fonzie iron-on shirt instead.





Ah, the "surprise package". Just send in your 75 cents or dollar, and trust them not to send you some cheap peice of junk that doesn't do what it promises.

A variation of the surprise gift aimed at the monster kid...






Why are you sitting around reading comic books...

...when you could be selling $285 mink coats at a mark-up to friends and family?

Or make money and earn prizes, like "shoe skates" or a pitch-back, by selling seeds to your friends and neighbors!

I love these personal endorsements from successful associates Chipper and Dan...

But if you really want to make money, there's the "money maker". I love how the first ad depicts the typical user: not as a kid, performing a feat of magic for his friends or parents, but as a slick, smirking businessman cranking his way to financial independence.

Now that you've got some money, you'll need to keep it somewhere. Here are two different versions of a great little mechanical bank, where a spooky hand reached out to snatch your coin.

Speaking of coins, coin collecting is exciting! Don't believe me? Just check out this artist's rendering. (I'm not sure if the seated adult is the boy's father, or a coin-collecting instructor, but it's all very exciting.)

Here's one for your collection. The "I Love You" penny...because nothing gets the ladies swooning like The Great Emancipator.

This next ad challenges you to imagine what it would be like owning an 88-page book of miniature repros of black-light posters.

Did you imagine yourself strolling confidently around campus, head cocked back in bemusement, draped in three adoring babes, while an idolizing underclassman cheers you on?

How about inviting the ladies back to your pad to watch a movie on your new 8 MM projector? As illustrated below, you can "stop to enjoy a particular frame..." Stag loop not included.

Space Ace (1984)

Space Ace: defender of justice, truth, and the planet Earth.

Space Ace was Don Bluth's 1984 follow up to Dragon's Lair, and although the gameplay fundamentals remained the same (timed joystick and button presses), Space Ace improved on it's predecessor in almost every way.

You play Ace, a macho star-pilot who gets zapped by alien Borf's new invention, the "Infanto Ray", a laser gun that reverses the aging process and instantly transforms whatever it hits into a baby.

Apparently Ace only gets winged, however, because instead of turning into a gurgling baby, he merely reverts back to the gangly 98-pound weakling he must have been before he hit puberty and changed his name from Dexter (and certainly before he met his current babe girlfriend, Kimberly).

Borf kidnaps "Kimmy" in his spaceship, and the adventure begins.

So aside from the obvious change in genre, what set Space Ace apart from Dragon's Lair? First off, the pace was much quicker, with many more decision points. Compared to the fast and frenetic action of Space Ace, Dragon's Lair just seemed to crawl.

Space Ace also came much closer to realizing the concept of an interactive movie by offering levels in a linear progression. In Dragon's Lair, you started at the front of the castle and ended in the dragon's den, but in between were a series of self-contained levels that appeared in more-or-less random order.

Space Ace levels unfolded like scenes from a movie, always occurring in the same order as you pursued Borf across alien worlds and through space, ultimately intercepting him at his headquarters to rescue Kimberly. (This had the added benefit of making Space Ace a little bit easier to master, since you were not constantly getting different levels thrown at you each time you died).

And Space Ace offered a new innovation--true branching. First, you had the option of selecting one of three difficulty levels (Cadet, for beginners, or for the daring, Captain or Space Ace, which activated additional levels of play).

Then, there were points during actual gameplay where the player could choose from more than one possible path (sometimes triggering variant action). In this branching space-bound obstacle course, for example, both the upper and lower paths are valid, and return slightly differing play.

But perhaps the most unique example of the new branching capability was the "energizer" gimmick. About once per level, a sensor on Dexter's wrist flashes, indicating an opportunity to briefly transform back to the muscular Ace.

Except for the final level, a complicated hand-to-hand battle with Borf, energizing is always optional. But if you do choose to energize by hitting the button, Dexter temporarily powers-up into his former bulked-up self and participates in an alternate level of play that you would have otherwise missed.

These transformations between personas often take on a comical tone. In one of my favorite levels, Dexter finds himself at the controls of a runaway motorbike, hanging on for dear life.


But after energizing into Ace, he coolly sweet-talks Kimmy while nonchalantly blasting aliens over his shoulder (the user is required to actually press the laser button, however!)


In another memorable level, Ace battles his "dark side", represented by a giant gray-scale version of himself, whom you defeat by baiting into shooting itself to pieces while scaling his enormous body, Shadow-of-the-Colossus style, until all that's left is his grim grinning head!

After some trial-and-error and memorization, and if your timing is precise, you'll end up shooting Borf with his own weapon, transforming him into a baby. It's implied that Ace and Kim will raise him as their own. Isn't he adorable?



SEPARATED AT BORF

Is it me, or does Borf bear a striking resemblance to the genie from Disney's Aladdin (1992)?

I'd be tempted to accuse Disney of ripping off the design...except they both look like they descended from this older Disney genie depicted in Our Friend The Atom (1957).