The Trash Collector

02/09/2024

THE HOBBIT [Photo] Book & Record 7” (1977)
Disneyland Records #368
THE HOBBIT [Photo] Book & Record 12” (1977)
Disneyland Records #3819

At a particularly young age, I was already a fan of the output of Rankin & Bass: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964) Mad Monster Party (1967), and Santa Claus Is Coming to Town (1970) being my three favorites, then and now. But on November 20th, 1977, I caught the television premiere of The Hobbit, their animated adaptation J.R.R. Tolkien's classic. In addition to horror/monster fare, I was almost just as enamored with fantasy and science fiction, so it's not surprising that this feature-length cartoon caught my immediate fancy. For my birthday, I was gifted copies of both the 7” and 12” book and record sets published by Disneyland Records, being compact adaptations of an already compact adaptation.

Of course, I soon found out these were based on a book which was also a prequel to a fairly extensive trilogy, known as The Lord of the Rings. So, for Christmas that same year, Santa brought me a cornucopia of printed Tolkien, including the original novel of The Hobbit, a box set containing the aforementioned trilogy, and a one-off parody from National Lampoon, namely Bored of the Rings. (Being the prudish child I was, after reading the first few pages of the latter, I alerted my mother to the book's questionable content, who returned it to the bookstore for a full refund the following week.)

It took me a the better part of a month to plow through all of them. (Even though my reading level was far above that of many of my peers, I was still only nine at the time.) Suffice it to say, I was hooked. Over the next few months, I attempted to consume everything and anything related to LOTR, including The Silmarillion (a tough read at the time), as well as Robert Foster's A Guide to Middle-Earth. (The latter I found on my uncle's bookshelf during a family get-together—he was a fan as well—and after I spent most of my family's visit glued to this particular book, he gifted it to me.)

At this time, the most exhaustive fantasy series I had read were the seven books in The Chronicles of Narnia. (Although Tolkien's efforts were far more challenging than C.S. Lewis' fare, I found them far more fulfilling and thought-provoking.) I was still immersed in the mythos when Ralph Bashki's big-screen adaptation of The Lord of the Rings premiered theatrically in November of 1978; although it only covered material from the first and second books in the series, it was enough to prompt me to go back and revisit the literary source once again in its entirety.

During this time, I scoured all media fantasy/sword and sorcery-related, but the only other franchise that caught my fancy to any real degree were exploits of Robert E. Howard's Conan, be it novels, short stories, comic books, and the like. (By the time Rankin & Bass released their long-awaited follow-up in May of 1980, an adaptation of The Return of the King—another full-length made-for-television feature—I had already moved on from LOTR and Conan, having since discovered the likes of Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd & the Grey Mouser and Michael Moorcock's Elric of Melnibone sagas. Soon thereafter, I was turned on to Frank Herbert's Dune, and my interest in sword & sorcery shifted to literary science fiction almost overnight.)

Suffice it to say, I was ecstatic when Peter Jackson finally started releasing his cinematic version of Tolkien's vision in 2001. Like many fans, I felt that it was the first time that the genre had received proper cinematic justice, despite any and all flaws. (A few of its ground-breaking predecessors still hold up amazingly well—Jason and the Argonauts (1963) and Dragonslayer (1981) being my favorites among them—but neither of them were nearly as ambitious or epic as Jackson's first three installments in the series. Those later entries devoted to The Hobbit, not so much.)

(Of course, most of the above photos were culled from the Internet, since my personal copies have been buried deep in stacked boxes over the last few decades.) Although my interest in the genre is nowhere near as great as it was some forty years ago, I still have a particular soft spot for Tolkien's influential catalog of fanciful tales.

12/03/2023

Really strange to be browsing Google News and read an article that unexpectedly references both you and a book you wrote well over twenty years prior (but curiously doesn't mention the title of said book)... lol

For the first time since its theatrical release decades ago, you can now watch this gory horror classic. Here's how.

07/09/2022

MY EARLY (AND CONTINUED) OBSESSION WITH DARK SHADOWS [PART TWO]:

By the end of the 1970s, my interest in all thing Dark Shadows began to wane. It seemed that there was no hope that I would ever be able to actually watch the episodes (it had yet to be shown in syndication on the few local television channels our family could actually get), and my interests had started to shift from older horror films to more modern fare. (I had joined a few fan clubs, receiving their sporadic publications about my beloved TV series, but they weren't enough to keep my interest for any length of time...)

In the early 1980s, I started to sell off some of my DS comics and books in order to finance my obsessive and ever-widening collecting habits. Then, in 1985, one of the local stations announced that they would begin airing reruns of Dark Shadows, starting with the first appearance of Barnabas. Mostly out of curiosity, I decided to record them on our family's now-aging Betamax, since the episodes would be shown in the early morning while I was on the school bus headed for high school. It didn't take long before the spark returned, and I was once again engrossed by this childhood obsession with Collinwood. By that summer, I spent countless hours tracking down the DS collectibles with which I had previously parted ways, scouring local flea markets, thrift stores, comic book conventions, and the like...

Apparently, these reruns coincided with a country-wide revival in all things DS. It became far more difficult in re-obtaining these once childhood treasures, as the demand started to exceed the dwindling supply, with the availability and prices reflecting this. (As of this writing, I still haven't managed to secure a complete high-grade run of the comic books, and am still two books short—at least as cover variants are concerned—of having the entire paperback series.) Thankfully, I held onto the two board games as well as the two jigsaw puzzles, and was even able to upgrade a couple of them along the way...

About two years after re-airing episodes, the local station ceased (just short of finishing the first flashback arc), leaving me with a severe case of DS coitus interruptus. But that did little to dissuade my reignited passion for all thing Dark Shadows...

About the time that Dan Curtis introduced the (sadly) short-lived TV revival in 1991, MPI began releasing compilations of the original episodes on VHS. Unable to afford them new (they only included four episodes for about thirty bucks, if I remember correctly), I scoured local videotape outlets futilely attempting to complete my spotty run. (At one point in the early 1990s, I managed to purchase a significant number of them through Suncoast Video from their discount bins over the course of a year-or-so at $3.88 a piece, but even then I was left with innumerable holes. And I adamant about not watching them until I could view all of the episodes uninterrupted, back-to-back. So, it wasn't until many years later when they were eventually released on DVD that I would continue my journey through the Collinwood mythos...)

In the early-2000s, I began self-publishing a semi-pro magazine called Trashfiend which was devoted to 1960s and 1970s horror fare. With the third (and ultimately final) issue, I wanted to dedicate its pages to Dark Shadows. I approached Dan Curtis Productions with this, but they insisted that—if I were to do so—I would have to pay a fee. (It wasn't a tremendous amount, but it was far more than I could afford at the time, since the costs of producing Trashfiend far exceeded the returns, which is why it soon folded.) So, I reluctantly cut the Dark Shadows coverage down to about half, which made it exempt from any resulting copyright fees. I had already spent a fair amount on buying various DS collectibles—mostly from Ebay, a still burgeoning online auction many of you may have heard of—in order to index and scan them for this issue. The issue sold well, but—again—the financial returns were not enough to save the publication, as I am still in the red for this endeavor to this day...

A few years back, I was gifted a complete DVD collection of the series by close friends. Although I have made considerable headway over the years since viewing all 1225 episodes, I have yet to finish it in its entirety. Granted, I was already well-versed in all of them, but I think much of my hesitation in completing them is due to the fact that I know it will eventually come to an end. Forty-plus years ago, I never imagined that I would ever have the opportunity to watch the series in its entirety. (Chalk that up to being a 1970s kid limited to whatever local television decided to dish up.) So, I have resisted the urge to binge-watch my beloved childhood obsession to completion, somehow comforted by the fact that there will always be yet another episode for me experience and to enjoy with nostalgic earnest...

02/06/2022

WHY MY FIRST MUSICAL OBSESSION WAS THE BAND KISS:

Early on in childhood, I wasn't particularly obsessed with music; yes, efforts by The Ventures and Iron Butterfly and Steppenwolf were instrumental in my musical education, and remain some of my earliest favorites. TV, films, and comic books took up so much of my time that there was little room for anything else. But—in the summer of 1977—I purchased a comic magazine from the local Mitchell's Pharmacy that (for whatever reason, for better and for worse) caught my pre-pubescent attention. It offered the fictional exploits of a four-piece “super-hero” team fashioned after an already popular rock outfit, whose theatrical stage personas fit well within—and seemed predestined for—the genre in which it was being exploited. Naturally, I was intrigued by the fact that these self-professed “super-heroes” were actually real-life rock stars...

Within a month of buying the full-color one-shot from Marvel Comics, I spent my meager earnings on a copy of KISS' Rock and Roll Over album, their most recent release. I was immediately won over, although I admit that was musically ignorant of current musical trends, even music in general. For me, it was new, it was different from anything I had heard up until that point in time, and thus it was relevant...

For the next few years, KISS became “my” soundtrack of choice. None of my peers had been previously aware of them, and all of the adults in my life showed a pronounced disdain for their music, so my growing rebelliousness naturally gravitated towards everything KISS. Granted, none of KISS' “sex, drugs and rock'n'roll” lyrics actually resonated with me, but the music itself would prove to have an impact on my aural aesthetics for years to come...

By the Fall of 1977 (I was in fourth grade at the time), I was so entrenched in the KISS mythology that I had chosen to “represent” them by going as Ace Frehley for Halloween. (My mother pieced together an elaborate costume for me—as she often did—and two of my closest friends wound up going as Peter Criss and Paul Stanley as well. Alas, Gene Simmons was nowhere to be found. lol) I've included a vintage photo I recently laid my hands upon (thanks to my sister) showing all three of us in all of our bargain-basement glory...

Over the next few years, I continued to indulge in this obsession: I joined the KISS Army, I bought all of their available albums, whilst snatching up whatever merchandise I could lay my hands on, et al. Between religious indoctrination and some lackluster output (their solo albums, as well as Dynasty, natch), I lost interest, and eventually dumped all of my KISS merchandise at a local flea market. It was more than a decade later that I eventually revisited the band's output, only to realize that—yes—I still adored their 1970s output...

“The Greatest Rock'n'Roll Band in the World” is an egregious claim, by almost any standards. But as far as 1970s rock bands is concerned, they were pretty damn good. Infantile and politically-incorrect lyrics aside, they were far better than most of their peers at the time: Consistently memorable, straight-forward hard rock music with catchy riffs. (Admittedly, I am biased, as they were my introduction to the genre.) But, apparently, their music resonated with countless others as they can still claim to having one of the largest followings in popular music...

Without a doubt, much of their success and cult following is due their theatricality and branding, but I still—to this day—feel that their first seven albums offer some of the best rock music of the 1970s. (I still listen to them constantly even though the lyrics often make me cringe.) It doesn't surprise that so many of the bands that I like and love cite them as an indispensable influence. No, they weren't the “Greatest Rock'n'Roll Band in the World,” but they will be remembered as one of the rock greats by countless Gen-Xers and the generations of music fans that followed. For better and for worse...

At some point, I'll post another installment that includes a few more KISS-related memories, but that will have to wait for another day... ;)

12/06/2021

The Curse of Collinwood (1968) [Paperback Library]
The Phantom and Barnabas Collins (1999) [Paperback Library]

MY EARLY OBSESSION WITH DARK SHADOWS [PART ONE]:

My mother grew up in a particularly impoverished environment. Because of this, garage sales became an important part of her entire life, even after she married and was no longer dependent on such second-hand offerings. Many of my earliest memories were of her, myself, and my younger sister stopping by any and all yard sales on our way to whatever errands we ran on a semi-weekly basis...

Whilst making a grocery run to Everett, we stopped at just such a sale, where the owners had dozens of boxes of paperback books for the meager sum of twenty-five cents each. (This would have been around 1975, when I was about six years of age.) Digging through the voluminous cardboard contents, I discovered two softcover books that bore the likeness of both Barnabas Collins and the highly sought-after Dark Shadows label. (The Curse of Collinwood and The Phantom and Barnabas Collins, respectively.) Prior to this, I had absolutely no clue whatsoever that my beloved television series spawned a long-running series of loosely-knit novelizations chronicling the exploits of my blood-sucking, childhood hero...

This revelation led to a lifelong pursuit of the Dark Shadows novels from the short-lived publisher Paperback Library, their gold-embossed background and oval-framed cover art firmly entrenched in my psyche. As much as the comics, these were to be my childhood grails, since they were my only other connections to a TV series with which I was completely obsessed, but had never seen...

Shortly thereafter, the neighbor lady across the street in our small neighborhood admitted to her own obsession in Dark Shadows, and within a few days, she had dug out and gifted me with several more novels, namely The Secret of Barnabas Collins and The Demon of Barnabas Collins. At this point in time, I had absolutely no idea that Paperback Library had produced a total of no-less-than thirty-two novelizations (in addition to four Dark Shadows “special editions”...)

Thereafter, I managed to obtain a few more books in the series, but it wasn't until 1976 when my mother, my sister, and I had the opportunity to sell at our “local” Swap Meet (specifically, the Puget Park Swap Market) that I ultimately discovered the cache of Dark Shadows novels that had been produced in previous years...

During the mid-1970s, my mother began creating and sewing doll clothes, a life-long interest of hers which displayed her creative interests. My father okay'ed her pursuits at the time, if only that they would contribute to our family's overall income. During our very first selling at Puget Park, I wandered off to purview other tables, and immediately discovered a vendor a few aisles up who had two card tables covered in nothing but Dark Shadows novels for only ten-cents each. (He had stacks of the books, with multiples in copious quantities.) With only a meager eighty-cents at my immediate disposal, I wasted no time in desperately purchasing just-as-many new books for my growing collection. I quickly returned to our stall, begging for more money with which to buy the rest of the books which I needed to finish off my run of Dark Shadows novels...

Being a responsible parent, my mother told me that I could buy whatever I wanted with what monies I made from the unwanted books and toys I was myself selling. Over the next hour, I began hard-selling my wares (to the best of my eight-year-old abilities could muster), and eventually I found a woman who succumbed to my sob story. Soon, with another dollar in hand, I immediately rushed to the vendor selling Dark Shadows novels, only to find that they had left for the day. I was unsurprisingly distraught, even to the point of tears...

Over the next year-or-so, I managed to eventually obtain most of the remaining books in the series (they proved to be fairly common still during the 1970s), from various garage sales, thrift stores, and—of course—the aforementioned flea market which we continued to visit, as buyers and/or sellers. By the end of the 1970s, I had acquired a complete run of both the Paperback Library novelizations as well as the Dark Shadows comic books from Gold Key. (Thanks to the various flea markets which we attended, I also managed to obtain various Dark Shadows merchandise, including the two jigsaw puzzles as well as the two board games associated with my beloved series...)

In the years to follow, I made some mistakes. But, more on that later... 😉

09/29/2021

ALIEN [Photo] Movie Novel (1979)
[Avon Publishing]
ALIEN Action Figure (1979)
[Kenner Products]
ALIEN Jigsaw Puzzle (1979)
[HG Toys]

All of my exposure to films in the 1970s was heavily filtered through the handful of television stations to which we had access (at least until my father bought our first Beta VCR in the late 1970s), so my perception/s of horror cinema was entirely dictated by the likes of Universal, Hammer, and the glut of 1950s atom-age giant monster fare. Suffice it to say, Alien (1979) was a game-changer...

Now, I didn't get to see this film in the theater when it first came out. Going to the movies was an extremely rare occurrence for our family in the 1970s (I can count all of the times on two hands, with fingers to spare), and when we did, it was always “family-friendly” fare. (I didn't get to see my first R-rated film in the theaters until 1981, thanks to my friend Jonathan Marlow; unfortunately, this first venture was the rather disappointing Halloween II.) After seeing the bone-chilling trailer for Alien on television, I begged and pleaded with my father to take me, but he never relented. I did, however, get these three pieces of tie-in merchandise for Christmas that year. (What's amusing is that the oversized photo-novel not only showed stills for all of the gore in the film, it also included photos for numerous blood-drenched outtakes that were excised from the original theatrical release...)

I did get to finally see the film a year-or-so later when it was eventually featured on Showtime. We didn't have cable, so we dragged our cumbersome Betamax over to my aunt's house in order to record it. Suffice it to say, I literally wore out that dub in just a few years from constant play; thankfully, I managed to buy a used pre-record just as the drop-outs and constant tape stretching made the tape completely unwatchable...

Until I was finally afforded this first viewing, I had to settle with the above book, toy and puzzle. (I'm still flummoxed by the fact that they had produced merchandise for an R-rated film obviously aimed at children—not a big deal now, but this is the earliest attempt to do that as far as I know.) At some point in the 1980s (like most of my childhood acquisitions), I sold or traded them off at the Puget Park Swap Meet we frequented. Worse yet, I have never had the money or opportunity to replace them. (I did trade the by then damaged Alien oversized action figure for an original Aurora Monsters Model Kit—The Forgotten Prisoner of Castlemare, if you must know—but that too was sold off some years back when I hit hard times...)

Alien was one of three “modern” films that completely changed my perception of what horror could be, the others being Halloween (1978) and Phantasm (1979). (The latter were the first two Beta pre-records I ever owned, bought used from Video West—the ONLY local video store in Lake Stevens at the time—and which cost me a godforsaken amount, but seemingly well worth it.) For the next few years, I all but abandoned the style of monster movies that predominated my youth, but—thanks to nagging nostalgia—I soon returned to obsessing over the horror fare from yesteryear as well...

Note: Again, all photos have been pilfered from the Internet... ;)

09/29/2021

THE VENTURES Wild Things LP (1966)
[Dolton Records]
IRON BUTTERFLY In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida LP (1968)
[ATCO Records]
STEPPENWOLF LP (1968)
[ABC Dunhill Records]

As I mentioned before, growing up in rural Western Washington left me culturally deprived, especially when it came to music. Almost everyone I knew listened to country western, with two two major exceptions. In addition to country, my paternal grandfather was also an avid classical music fan, so I was exposed to that growing up (thus my love for Brahms and Rachmaninoff). But it was my father's listening habits that left the greatest impression on me at the onset...

By the mid-1970s, my father had a very modest (but fairly eclectic) collection of about three dozen vinyl records. About a third consisted of surf music (Beach Boys, Jan & Dean, and—of course—The Ventures), another third was made up of various K-Tel compilations (mostly of the vintage rock'n'roll variety), and the remainder consisted of whatever else had managed to catch his fancy over time. He was not the type to search out new tunes or artists, but instead would play the same records over. And over. And over again. (The only time I ever remember him actually buying “new” albums was during the late 1970s, when Anne Murray and ABBA became his go-to background music...)

I didn't became heavily interested in music until the beginning of the 1980s, but he had a few records with which I became obsessed at a very early age. (And—not surprisingly—which would educate my later musical interests.) Pictured above are the “big three,” all offerings from the late-1960s, and easily the three “hardest” albums my father owned. (Admittedly, Wild Things seems a bit out of place alongside the other two, but it was still heavier than pretty much everything else in his easily-accessible collection.) I would constantly borrow all three—heavily worn from scratches and the rubbing alcohol he would use to regularly clean them—and play them on a small, portable record player I had inherited from my aunt. (Not quite of the Fisher Price variety, but obviously still marketed towards children and teens. No doubt, my excuse for a turntable only damaged them further...)

By the late-1980s, I had already acquired my own, high-grade copies of all three discs (already being an obsessive record collector by that point in time), all of which I still own. (In addition to many other recordings from the catalogues of these three bands.) My life-long love for 1960s surf, garage rock, and psychedelia can undoubtedly be traced back to these initial three albums—as well as my love of guitar-driven music in general. Honestly, I don't know if I would be as obsessed with punk, hardcore and metal if it weren't for these particular musical building blocks... lol

There were a few other albums from the same batch which I still love and listen to (which I'll probably write about at a later date), but these (undoubtedly) had the greatest impact on my listening habits, even to this day...

09/18/2021

FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND #146 (August 1978)
FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND #153 (May 1979)
[Warren Publishing Company]

Despite the fact that I have an excellent recall for many of the “firsts” from my childhood—those films, comics, magazines, toys, et al. that had a profound impact on me—I cannot for the life of me remember the first issue of Famous Monsters that I ever read or owned. (Suffice it to say, it immediately became my favorite publication upon discovery, as it not only opened me up to a world of cinema beyond the limited scope of local television broadcasting, but also made me aware that there were others—countless others—who shared this obsession.) I do remember that it was nearly impossible to find at the local newsstands; some did carry it, but the few that did only put out a few copies, which were almost always gone by the time I had an opportunity to visit them...

That started to change when Star Wars hit it big in 1977. Unfortunately for us old school monster fans, Famous Monsters shifted its focus to science fiction, although it did mean that sales increased, thus local outlets began carrying more copies, so I was finally able to buy it new on a regular basis. (By the early 1980s, my tastes shifted from the recycled sci-fi coverage now offered by Famous Monsters to the more modern, bloodier fare found in Fangoria magazine. So, my beloved childhood monster mag soon went to the wayside, and was pretty much ignored until I began re-collecting them in the late-1980s—long after they had ceased publication altogether...)

Concerning #146: A few years back, a fellow horror fan contacted me on Facebook, asking me if I was the same “Scott Stine” who had been mentioned on the Fang Mail letters page of issue #146. As it turns out, I was. Honestly, I only vaguely remembered sending Famous Monsters a letter in early-1978, but had absolutely no idea that they had ever acknowledged it in print. (Not surprising, really, as they reproduced a single line of my letter, burying it in a sea of comments that is difficult to find even when one knows it is there...)

Concerning #153: On the way to visit my paternal grandparents during the winter of 1978, we stopped off at a local pharmacy, where I bought the latest issue of Famous Monsters. Whilst perusing its contents at their farmhouse, I mentioned to my folks that the magazine was holding a writing a contest. (The idea was to write a story around a hastily scrawled illustration featuring a number of aliens. Submissions would be judged separately for three different age groups, and I belonged to the youngest.) Unexpectedly, my father then insisted that I write and submit something. At this point—being about nine years-old—I had tried my hand at writing a handful of times throughout the years, but I wouldn't become even remotely serious about it until high school, as art was remained my primary focus. Regardless, I hashed out a few hundred words of drivel in order to accommodate his demands...

A few days later, my forced submission was mailed. A few months later, I discovered that I had won first place for my age group. Although my writing skills may have been a tad more mature than many others my age, my entry was truly awful—and now it was there for all to see. Even then, I knew it was uninspired dreck, so I was far more embarrassed than proud...

I guess I should be proud that I was first published (as a writer) at the age of ten (in Famous Monsters, no less), but the circumstances surrounding it have always left me feeling irked. But, there it is. (Anyone so inclined could probably unearth a copy of my piece online—as I did a few years back—but if you do, don't expect any signs of literary genius on my part... lol)

Note: The cover images above were—once again—swiped from various online sources, as my copies of said magazine are currently buried... ;)

09/15/2021

E-MAN V1 #4 (August 1974)
[Charlton Comics Group]

Growing up, I knew nobody who was remotely as obsessed with comic books as myself... except my older cousin Larry. Whenever we would hang out, we would spend most of our time reading, discussing and/or trading comic books. Our interests were uncannily similar, so I relished any opportunity to do this, as he exposed me to so much that was outside my limited availability. On one such occasion, he introduced me to E-Man, a superhero title from Charlton, a “second-tier” comics publisher which I already adored (mostly due to their horror output). Unlike the more “serious” fare from Marvel and DC, E-Man was quirky, surreal, much different brand of “fun” which undoubtedly widened my previously limited horizons...

Written by the talented Nicola Cuti, and illustrated by the equally-talented Joe Staton, I immediately fell in love with the character and title. Unfortunately, Charlton comics were particularly difficult to come by in my neck of the woods, so this would be the only issue I would see until some years later, when I became a more avid collector. (At that time, my greatest impetus for tracking them down was the back-up stories of “Rog-2000” by John Byrne. But more on him later...)

Alas, E-Man only lasted a mere ten issues (1973-1975), but they remain one of my favorite non-horror titles from the long-defunct Charlton. The creators revived the character in 1983 for First Comics, and—even though I picked up the earlier issues from this incarnation—it never had the impact of its 1970s predecessors...

Now, I may be mistaken concerning the exact issue (this may have only been one of several he owned and which I perused during said visit), but I'm hoping Larry Tallman can enlighten me to any details I may have overlooked, as he was a few years older than me, and thus might recall the circumstances better. (I do remember he was living just a few blocks from my maternal grandmother at the time, and just across the street from Norm's Market, a corner store I would occasionally frequent for comic book purchases...)

Note: This installment is accompanied by yet another online stock photo, as my collection of comics—including my long-since acquired run of E-Man—has been buried for the last few years...