Saturday, August 31, 2013

A FINAL FLING 'fore FALL
-and-
A Glimpse Within My Sanctum

Well, it seems with September a mere day away, I've missed my opportunity to post SUMMERTIME themed blog entries ("Summer" movies and music featuring Doctor Strange and others, but don't worry, I'll get them on here soon enough), so before August ends, I'll "TOSS" (you'll get that joke in a moment) a blog post here about one item in my DOCTOR STRANGE collection (and tease about a bunch of others). The summer item in question?

...a DOCTOR STRANGE FRISBEE!
(See? Now the "toss" joke makes sense.)



I should note that this is NOT an official item (so don't go frantic trying to track one down on eBay. You won't find one). This is a custom made product by good friend, and fellow Doctor Strange fan, Howard Hallis!

I am often quite impressed with the extra mile that Howard will go to make his special items have an authentic flair. This time, he gathered art from other similar Marvel product from the 1960's, and photoshopped together a nice hang tag. Purchasing a frisbee flying disc, Howard pasted his customized decal over the wrap-around hangtag and also made a Dr. Strange decal to affix to the center of the disc, thus creating an awesome homage faux item.

Howard sent this to me a few years back, and while not an authentic product, it has - like all other items he has sent to me - always been kept in a highly visible place of honor within my "Sanctum Sanctorum" (aka: man-cave, hobby-haven, collectibles cavern, rumpus-room, etc...).

The reason I mention this (and why the frisbee was in my hand today) is that I've had some time to work on re-setting up that room (after years of being unable to do so) and obtained a new pegboard/slotwall segment upon which to hang the frisbee and other items, clearing room from a slotwall / display unit there.

As a tiny teaser of some things to come, here is a glimpse into that area of my Sanctum Sanctorum, just inside (and to the left of) the door, and at a few of the slotwall/pegboard items therein (there is another section of slatwall on the opposite side of the giant display unit shown on the right of the pic. But that's a part of the eventual "tour" post that will hopefully be made before long).

An assortment of goodies.
On the pegboard on the left:
Custom frisbee, complete set of 6 different "Marvel Magic" tricks, Marvel guitar picks,
Marvel/Maisto vehicles; Defenders coupe (3 different packs), Defenders Airplane, Defenders Motorcycle, and Doctor Strange mega-truck,
Ultimate Spider-Man fighter pods figures (3 different sized sets - all with Dr. Strange).

On the white slotwall unit on the right:
Marvel Legends figures (foreign Doctor Strange variant with gold poster, Man-Thing, Doctor Strange), 
HeroClix boxes that feature Doctor Strange on the box (along the left side of the unit)
Diamond exclusive Marvel "Dark Side" figures (Dormammu, Man-Thing [Vermin behind him], Astral Dr. Strange)
Spider-Man; Spider-Wars Doctor Strange figure (regular and 2 different variants)
Super-Hero Squad sets (Secret Invasion, Doctor Strange & Ant-Man, Doc & Iron Man)
Mini-Mates box sets (Defenders, Marvel vs Capcom3: Dormammu / Trish, and "Strange Tales")
Marvel Universe Doctor Strange (classic & classic foreign variant, astral variant, "defenders" set with Silver Surfer)

As I said, there are more hang-tag items on the other side (and awesome goodies inside the main unit), but that's for another time.

At first, all these items were jammed onto the slatwall on this side (and some on the other end) of the white display unit, but I had no extra space for more, so a section of pegboard was required to make a little room. With the added pegboard, now all three surfaces have extra room for more swag.

Each section is for different types of items:
- pegboard is for ancillary items
- main slotwall is for figures of Doctor Strange / Man-Thing
- slotwall on other side is for other "6-Dimension" characters (Scarlet Witch, Black Knight and others - some are cool secrets awaiting their own posts).

So, take this post as a farewell to summer, and an invitation to come back for more goodness as Autumn approaches.


Sunday, August 18, 2013

LAZY, HAZY, CRAZY DAYS of SUMMER

I've been dying to blog here the past few weeks (and I've a few GREAT posts in the works, mostly dealing with SUMMERTIME themes of SUMMER MOVIES and MUSIC - but in the case of this blog, all the Doctor Strange related flix and trax in my collection).

However, since I've been underwater with my real-world responsibilities (which seemed to have reached tsunami-levels in the summer), and can't get to finish those time-consuming blogposts, I'll treat you to some quick and easy Summer-Time Eye-candy instead!

Taken from the assorted MARVEL SWIMSUIT SPECIALS of the 1990's (1992-1995), here are some speedo and bikini-clad images of DR. STRANGE and his lovely lady friends, CLEA & the SCARLET WITCH (and NIGHTMARE too apparently - which IS a bit Nightmarish). ENJOY!

DOCTOR STRANGE by P.Craig Russell & Tom Smith

CLEA by Jeff Johnson & Dan Panosian & Tom Smith


 SCARLET WITCH and CLEA by Kevin Maguire & Tom Smith

 DR. STEVENS (Dr. Strange's magic clone - long story) by Tom Morgan & Tom Smith

NIGHTMARE & ROXANNE by Joe Bennett, Mike Witherby & Sean Tiffany

SCARLET WITCH by Adam Hughes


I'll try to get something fresh up here on the blog before summer ends...

May the Wafting Winds of Watoomb keep thee cool!