Free Downloads Blast Off! Rockets, Robots, Ray Guns, And Rarities From The Golden Age Of Space Toys
Back in print in a softcover edition, Blast Off! chronicles the golden era of space toys, featuring hundreds of color photos of these beautiful and sometimes bizarre playthings, plus prototypes, original packaging and instructions, catalogs, advertisements, vintage comic-strip and pulp-magazine art, and more from every corner of the globe. An essential resource for the collector or anyone with an eye for pop culture and the love of fun! Introduction by Harlan Ellison.
Series: Blast Off
Hardcover: 256 pages
Publisher: Dark Horse Books; First Ed edition (November 7, 2001)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1569715769
ISBN-13: 978-1569715765
Product Dimensions: 11.3 x 8.9 x 0.8 inches
Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds
Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
Best Sellers Rank: #1,692,836 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #427 in Books > Crafts, Hobbies & Home > Antiques & Collectibles > Dolls, Toys & Figurines > Toys #2988 in Books > Comics & Graphic Novels > Publishers > Dark Horse #40857 in Books > Comics & Graphic Novels > Graphic Novels
Blast Off! does what other collector's books only pretend to do. Collector books usually center around value guides, and pass themselves off as glorified shopping lists for toy shows and antique malls. Other books forego any knowledge of the subject whatsoever, and go with photographic essays of the nostalgia craze. A third sort of book tells long stories about growing up in some bygone era. All three sorts of books have, understandably a small readership and limited popular appeal.The authors of Blast Off!, on the other hand, did the hard work of writing a real book, somehow combining it with the best photos and graphics I've seen in a collector's book, and sprinkling in enough anecdotes and oral histories to keep it interesting. This book is a major effort from an accomplished team: a knowledgeable collector, a lively writer, and an avid fan and history buff--the last being Mike Richardson, publisher of Dark Horse comics and owner of the Things from Another World sci-fi comic shops.Blast Off! launches itself as an overview/ intro to the golden age of space toys, but its appeal is really wider than that. This is a book collectors will want, not simply to locate market values for haggling at the junk shop, but to remind them what they like about their hobby. Beautiful and imaginative graphics evoke the promise and wonder of the space age, but the book is so lively and informative I had to read it twice: once to read the captions and look at the pictures, and again just enjoying the text.It's impossible to overstate how great this book is. The photographs are incredibly clear and bright, and the subject matter is drawn from endlessly rich collections.
Over the years there have been many books written about space toys. From Leland and Crystal Payton's Space Toys: A Collectors' Guide, 1982 , to the sections on space toys in Stuart Schneider's now classic 1993 book Collecting the Space Race, to the recent UFO & Alien Collectibles Price Guide published last year by Dana Cain, numerous publications have presented space toys of one kind or another. Yet despite the substantial interest in the topic, the definitive study remained to be written - until now. For some of the best writings on space toys, like the Payton's book, are now painfully outdated; others , like Cain's, sufferfrom slipshod research and shoddy organization; and many, like the recent Space Toys of the 60s:An Illustrated Collector's Guide by James Gilliam are too tightly focused on a particular toy type to offer a survey of the field as a whole.Blast Off changes all that. It is a book that sets a new standard for the study of space toys and for toys in general. Many things make this book a pacesetter. To begin with, it is fastidiously accurate. Years in the making, it is the result of painstaking original research about the toys and toymakers who created the most popular space toys. From Archer to Johillco to the origins ofJapanese tin robots, each manufacturer and their toys are presented in detail. In addition, the book covers virtually all the categories of space toys including: rayguns, tin robots, playsets, comic books, pulp magazines, original advetising, space figures, space helmets and clothes, games, card sets, and many more.
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