A Kid at Heart

Some of the things I loved as a kid I never really outgrew. I still love old comic books, and I still get a kick out of dinosaurs.

Some years back I heard of a line of small dinosaur toys in Asia called, variously, "chocosaurs" (because apparently at one time they were offered with a piece of chocolate) and "Dinotales", and "furuta animals". Manufactured by a Japanese company called Kaiyodo, they are amazingly intricately detailed models. Furthermore, they do models of prehistoric animals that no one else bothers to mass produce.

Briefly, a few years back, there was an attempt to distribute them to the States, but it soon failed. I wanted to buy more of them to place around my office, but when I'd see them for sale on the Internet the prices were just frankly insane. But, finally, I've begun to see them advertised here and there for prices I don't mind paying ($5 to $8, post paid). So I've picked up a few.

If anyone is headed to the Pacific rim and wants to grab some more for me, let me know.

Camarosaurus.

Plesiosaur.

Allosaurus.

Hail Mark Martin!

Featured here is the latest addition to my somewhat jumbled attempt to reclaim the toys of my first childhood as I enter my second childhood. Years and years and years ago I had tons of plastic models kits and toys and giant piles of comic books. Of course I destroyed and lost the toys as I got older and sold the comic books for food money when I grew up.




Slowly, and haphazardly, I began to reassemble both the toy and comic book collections of my youth. Recently, at the web log of noted funny man/comic book creator/graphic artist Mark Martin, I saw a collection of classic Universal monster toys he’d found in a dump. I expressed some interest in the figures. As he had an extra Creature from the Black Lagoon, and the heart of a young boy (which resides in his chest and not in a jar on his desk), he mailed me the inert menacing orange critter. Out of kindness.

Mark Martin, King of Funny Books!