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Glorious Glass: A look back at some of my favorite collector’s glasses

Posted in advertising, comic books, movies, nostalgia, pop culture, reviews, Star Trek, Star Wars, Superman, The Flash with tags advertising, Burger King, comic books, glasses, McDonald's, movies, nostalgia, pop culture, reviews, Star Trek, Star Wars, Taco Bell on July 28, 2009 by Paxton

Fast food joints used to give out the best swag back in the day. At the top of this swag list was commemorative collector glasses. These were glasses made from ACTUAL glass (not f’n plastic) with kick ass graphics all over it usually given away as a premium with a purchase of food or drinks. Actually, collector glasses didn’t just come from fast food joints. The convenience store 7-11 as well as soda giants Coke and Pepsi both created collector’s glasses that were distributed in stores, gas stations, supermarkets and/or fast food joints. The heyday of collector glasses was in the ’70s and ’80s, but glasses were also released in the ’50s, ’60s and ’90s. Burger King recently revived the collector glass (real glass!!) tradition in May 2009 with their four glass set for the new Star Trek movie (Thanks, Michelle for finding those for me).

So without further ado, here are a bunch of my favorite collector glasses from the ’70s and ’80s. You can click any of the below images to see it bigger.

Burger King Star Wars/Empire/Jedi Glasses (1977, 1980, 1983) — The most famous of all commemorative glasses, the Star Wars Burger King collector glasses are what everyone thinks of when you mention “collector glasses”. A set of four were released for each movie. Surprisingly, it is not very hard to complete a set of all 12 as they made a crap-ton of them. Here’s a pic of the Star Wars set. Here’s a pic of the Empire Strikes Back set. Here’s a pic of the Return of the Jedi set.

Glasses for Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom by 7-Up (1984) — This is probably one of the more obscure glass sets. Made by 7-Up to commemorate the second Indiana Jones movie, the glasses were only released to certain local fast food chains so getting a full set is extremely hard. I don’t care about a set, but I would love the Mola Ram glass (far right hand side) with him holding the still beating flaming heart. That is BAD ASS. A year earlier, in 1983, there was a set of three glasses created by Coca-Cola for Raiders of the Lost Ark but the set was never released. Check those glasses out here.

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Odds ‘n End from around the internet

Posted in comic books, movies, The Flash with tags comic books, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, movies, Superman, The Flash on May 29, 2009 by Paxton

Several news items popped up this week that caught my interest and I thought that you guys would also enjoy them. One is an update of an earlier story, the other two are new.

Back in February, I told you about Action Comics #1 going up for auction.

This comic was notable because it featured the first appearance of Superman and it ushered in the Golden Age of superhero comics back in 1938. Before this comic, there were no superheroes as we think of them today. Well, that copy of Action Comics was sold for $317,200. Not bad for an initial 35 cent investment, right?

Well, another legendary comic book went to auction recently. That comic is Showcase #4 from 1956 and it features the first appearance of the “new” Flash (who also happens to be my favorite comic book character of all time).

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Quick history of Watchmen and a review of the movie

Posted in comic books, movies, pop culture, reviews, Watchmen with tags comic books, movie reviews, movies, Watchmen on March 12, 2009 by Paxton

Okay, I convinced Steph to come with me to see Watchmen last night. Wednesday nights are sometimes our impromptu movie nights because the theaters tend to be devoid of annoying teenagers talking on their cell phones and to each other. We saw Iron Man this way and it can be a pleasant experience.

I’ve had several people ask me what I thought of this movie so I thought I’d do a semi-movie review. I’m also going to talk a bit about the graphic novel because I’m guessing the majority of you may not know the history behind it. It’s interesting how big a release this movie became considering the average movie going patron may not really know who or what Watchmen is or where it came from. So before I talk about the movie, let’s just do a quick recap about where the story of Watchmen came from and what it’s about. If you just want the movie review, you impatient sonova-bee sting, then skip down to that section.

Watchmen was a twelve issue comic book limited series released in 1986 and 1987 by DC Comics. It was written by legendary writer Alan Moore who also wrote other famous limited edition comics League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, V for Vendetta and From Hell. Moore is notorious for being extremely anti-establishment and has preemptively dis-owned the movie versions of all of his comic novels. Alan Moore’s idea was to take a hard look at superheroes and portray them as normal, flawed human beings. Moore based the story in our reality, albeit a slightly altered one in which superheroes existed. In keeping with our reality, even though the characters are called superheroes, only one character displays obvious supernatural powers. The appearance of these heroes has altered the outcome of certain historical events including the Vietnam War, which we win with help from the heroes and Richard Nixon’s presidency which is extended because of the win in Vietnam. Moore would use this setting to deconstruct the idea of superheroes as benevolent crime-fighters and show that they, too, are susceptible to the human traits of selfishness, greed and murder.

Watchmen graphic novel

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My Own Album Cover and Action Comics #1 goes up for sale

Posted in comic books, random, Superman with tags comic books, personal, Superman on February 27, 2009 by Paxton

Okay, had an interesting week this week. Work and personal stuff kept me from typing a proper article. So, I have a potpourri of stuff to talk about today. The first is a cool email exercise that creates your own personal album cover, including band name and album title. It’s totally random and uses Wikipedia and Flickr to find the info. It was first sent to me by my friend Steve and I’ve passed it along. Here are the instructions:

1 – Go to Wikipedia. Hit “random”
or click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first Wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.

2 – Go to Quotations Page and select “random quotations”
or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last few words of the very last quote is the album title.

3 – Go to Flickr and click on “explore the last seven days”
or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days
Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

4 – Mash it all together.

5 – Post it, with this text and TAG the friends you want to join in. (Or just the ones that you think might have the skills to know how to do this – that is why I tagged these people!)

So, without further ado, here is my album cover. My band name is Run Like Hell and the album’s name is “Doing Something Interesting”.

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My Compulsion to Collect

Posted in collecting, comic books, humor, personal, soda with tags collecting, comic books, Garbage Pail Kids, personal, soda on November 17, 2006 by Paxton

I have a weird compulsion to collect things. Nothing outlandish like naval lint, body parts or other people’s souls, but things more under the pop culture umbrella. I’ve tried to collect things since I was a little kid. I remember having a bottle/can collection in our garage when I was 8 or 9. I was made to throw it away because my parents thought it was just “taking up space”. What the hell does that mean anyway? Doesn’t the car take up space? Or the hundred pounds of crap I push under my bed when I clean up my room? That takes up space, too. Hey, what do I know, I was just the innocent child permanently scarred by my uncaring parents (I see an episode of Oprah in my future). After that I collected Garbage Pail Kids for a few years. Those were AWESOME. I collected them in 5th and 6th grade. I think I still have them at my dad’s, but they may have been thrown out because…that’s right…taking up space.

In seventh grade I started my first big collection; comic books. From seventh grade through twelfth grade my friend Steve and I collected comics hardcore. We frequented this comic shop in Hoover called Curious George Comics and Arcana. It was run by this guy who I think is crazy, but I KNOW is a dirty hippie. I have no idea if his name was in fact, George, but Steve and I called him Curious George anyway. Years after his store closed I saw him at the mall. He was working as a telemarketer (surprise, surprise) and he was wearing a suit and tie carrying a briefcase….and he worked as a telemarketer. That’s what I’m talking about. I still called him Curious George when I talked to him. What a wacko (him, not me). But I digress (I do that a lot), I still have my comic collection in my garage. I thumb through it every once in a while. Looking through my hundreds of comics takes me back to a simpler time, a time before I was married, with a mortgage, and a job, no cat and no car. Damn, it certainly WAS a simpler time, I didn’t have anything.

Comic collecting faded for the most part when I went to college. Partly because I didn’t have the time nor the room to do it (nor the money). The only thing I could say I collected in college was books. I frequented a used book store and bought a ton of used books very cheaply to read. That’s the closest I came to a collection until my last year at Auburn; 1997. That is the year I started collecting Star Wars. That particular collection would consume me from 1997 until the end of 2004. I realize this may label me as a dork, but I’m sure I was labeled that before some of you knew this (haha). Many of you had seen my Star Wars Room back when I lived in Birmingham. It was a spectacular site, but it is no more. I stopped actively collecting Star Wars stuff when I moved to Jacksonville in Feb 2005.

So, what am I collecting now? Odds and ends. Kool aid packets and soda cans (stop laughing, that was serious). I enjoy finding oddball sodas you can’t find in a lot of places. I have old cans of Pepsi Free, Crystal Pepsi, Mountain Dew Pitch Black and New Coke. I have a can of Russian Pepsi Ice Cream and Taiwanese can of Pepsi Gold. Crazy ass things like that. It’s something to do. I’m weird, what can I say? I’m glad Steph married me when she did, I have her completely fooled (well, probably not). I’m also glad she puts up with it.