Hepcat

Is this one acceptable here or is this thread limited strictly to the pajama brigade?

That's like me. I collect comics of certain characters in the Four Color run because I like those characters specifically. I then file those comics chronologically under that character's title as opposed to under Four Color Comics.

Here's a link to the thread with my tribute to Ramona:

Here are a couple more devoted to my very favourite Walt Disney characters:

I've got a whole bunch of nice Four Color Comics I don't think I've posted in this thread. Here's one of my oldest:

Hey, there's nothing wrong with lower prices. I have no problem with them at all. The lower the prices, the more I can add to my collection!

The problem with the health care business is that there are very few barriers to entry which means there's going to be unlimited competition. I'd suggest a railroad stock or two instead. The need to move bulk and other goods cheaply overland is not going to disappear this or even next century. Moreover the barriers to entry in this business are insurmountable. The cost of building new competing rail lines these days is way beyond reason. Therefore the very few existing players have a really cozy oligopoly indeed. My two favourites right now are CP ($86.06) and CNI ($131.34) because I really like their coast-to-coast and down to the Gulf of Mexico rail networks..

I disagree!

Yes, and with helicopter parents who drove them everywhere so that they never needed to walk. Including of course to schools where they were always just passed through to avoid damaging their fragile egos so they never had to learn anything like the multiplication table or the capital of France. I mean why bother? Everything's there on your cell phone anyway, right? And buy stuff? Hey, the current generation thinks that society/the government should just give them more and more free stuff - including a college education. But then perhaps a college education should be free these days since that's what the "learning" most students acquire these days is worth. Forgive me I'm a curmudgeon and I'm rambling again....

Gerry "Kid Dynamite" James passed away a few days ago on the very same day as former teammate Kenny Ploen. James was born in Regina, Saskatchewan but attended Kelvin High School in Winnipeg. But in 1952 at the tender age of seventeen(!) he joined the Winnipeg Blue Bombers professional football team as a running back thus becoming the youngest player in post-WWII CFL history. He played at both halfback and fullback, returned both kickoffs and punts and kicked for the Blue Bombers over a ten year stint from 1952-62. (He missed the 1956 and 1963 seasons due to injury.) He played in one more season in 1964 as a RB and kicker for the Saskatchewan Roughriders. He rushed for a total of 5554 yards on 994 carries for an average of 5.6 yards per carry with 58 TDs over those years. His best seasons were 1955 when he rushed for 1205 yards with an average of 6.4 yards per carry and 1957 when he rushed for 1192 yards with an average of 6.1 yards per carry. (The fact that the Blue Bombers had the absolutely sensational Leo Lewis in the backfield as well beginning in 1955 served to limit the number of times James got to carry the ball.) He was the CFL scoring leader in 1957 and 1960 as well. He also set a CFL record with 18 rushing TDs in 1957 which was equalled by Jim Germany of the Edmonton Eskimos in 1981 but wasn't broken until Mike Pringle of the Montréal Alouettes notched 19 in 2000 (although James did it in a 16 game season while Pringle did so in an 18 game season). He won the Schenley Award as Most Outstanding Canadian in 1954 and 1957 and was a CFL West All-Star in 1955 and 1957. He played in the 1957, 1958, 1959, 1961 and 1962 Grey Cup games with his Bombers emerging triumphant in the last four. Gerry James was inaugurated into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in 1981 and the Blue Bombers' Ring of Honour in 2016. But he also played hockey at the highest levels after the Blue Bomber season ended! He was with the Winnipeg Monarchs when they lost in the Memorial Cup (junior championship) final in 1951 and was then transferred to the Toronto Marlboros with whom he celebrated a Memorial Cup championship in 1955. He then played 154 regular season games from late 1955 to the end of the 1959-60 season for the Toronto Maple Leafs of the NHL as well as 15 playoff games. He scored a total of 14 goals for the Leafs in the regular season and one more in the playoffs. The Maple Leafs had tried to get him to play only hockey but they weren't willing to make up the salary he was getting from the Blue Bombers and he was better at football anyway. The Maple Leafs only valued him as a "policeman" which in more modern parlance is a goon or enforcer. As a result the Leafs had him with the Rochester Americans of the AHL for part of the 1957-58 season and the Winnipeg Warriors of the WHL for the duration of the 1960-61 season. His most extraordinary achievement though was on 30 November 1957. After playing in the 1957 Grey Cup game at Varsity Stadium in Toronto in the afternoon, he played for the Toronto Maple Leafs that same evening! Hey, he had nothing to celebrate after his team's 32-7 loss to the Hamilton Tiger-Cats and Maple Leaf Gardens was just over two kilometers away so why not? (He must have packed up his skates for the trip to Toronto.) A fellow does need to earn a living however he can. Then after the Blue Bombers won the Grey Cup on 28 November 1959, he joined the Maple Leafs who went on to be Stanley Cup finalists that same season in early April (though they lost 4-0 to the Montréal Canadiens). I don't believe these feats will ever be equalled. All things considered, Gerry James therefore had one of the most extraordinary careers of any professional athlete going back to the very early years of the 20th century. Here are some of the Gerry James cards and photo pages I have in my collection: 1954 Blue Ribbon 27 September 1958 Weekend Magazine 18 November 1958 Star Weekly 1959 Topps 1962 Post Cereal 1960-61 Parkhurst 1960-61 Shirriff James' desire to play continued to burn even after he was no longer capable of competing at the highest levels. He played amateur hockey for the Yorkton Terriers of the Saskatchewan Senior Hockey League in 1964-65, 1965-66, 1966-67 and 1971-72. Beginning in 1973, he then coached the Yorkton Terriers, the Melville Millionaires and the Estevan Bruins of the Saskatchewan Junior A Hockey League for eight seasons. In 1988-89 he returned to coach the Moose Jaw Warriors of the major junior Western Hockey League from which Memorial Cup finalists are drawn. Here's a book outlining his career: ' Gerry James was inducted into the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame and Museum in 1982 and the Saskatchewan Sports Hall of Fame in 1994.

Legendary QB Kenny Ploen passed away earlier this week after a long struggle with Alzheimer's. He was born in Lost Nation, Iowa and attended high school in Clinton, Iowa. In 1956 he led the University of Iowa Hawkeyes to their first Big Ten Conference championship in 35 years. He was then named an All-American as well as the Big Ten player of the year. The Hawkeyes then defeated the Oregon Beavers 35-19 in the 1 January 1957 Rose Bowl and Ploen was voted the MVP. He was elected to the Rose Bowl Hall of Fame in 1997 Ploen was then drafted by the Cleveland Browns but chose instead to sign with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers of the CFL simply because the Blue Bombers offered him more money. He played QB and on occasion halfback on offence as well as safety on defence for the Bombers from 1957-67. (Imagine pampered QBs being asked to play both ways these days.) Ploen led the Bombers to six Grey Cup appearances in 1957, 1858, 1959, 1961, 1962 and 1965 all against the Hamilton Tiger-Cats with the Bombers emerging victorious in 1958, 1959, 1961 and 1962. Ploen was named the MVP of the 1961 Grey Cup game in which he scampered 19 yards for the winning TD in overtime. Here's a clip from the game: Along the way he was the CFL All-Star at QB in 1965 and the Western Conference All-Star at QB in 1957 as well as 1965. Not surprisingly he was the Bombers' all-time leading passer when he retired. But what was surprising was that he was the Western Conference All-Star at defensive halfback in 1959 when he set a Blue Bomber club record with ten interceptions! While I never got to see Kenny Ploen play live, I was well familiar with his name from my football cards, the B/A CFL game broadcasts on CKSL Radio in London and the live telecasts of the 1961 and 1962 Grey Cup games on CFPL-TV. Here are some pictures of Kenny Ploen: Samples from the photo pages and cards I have in my own collection: 1958 Star Weekly 1958 Topps 1963 Post Cereal 1963 Humpty Dumpty And here are a couple of pictures of Ploen with legendary Blue Bomber coach Bud Grant: Kenny Ploen stayed in Winnipeg after his playing career. He joined CJOB Radio as an advertising sales rep and eventually became the sales manager. He also served as a colour commentator on Blue Bombers radio broadcasts. Ploen was inducted to the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in 1975, the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame and Museum in 1987, the Iowa Sports Hall of Fame in 2002 and the Blue Bombers' Ring of Honour in 2016. He was awarded the Order of Manitoba in 2007.

Here's a tribute I've posted on a couple of non-comic forums: Ramona Fradon passed away a couple of days ago only weeks after announcing her retirement on 5 January 2024 from a long career illustrating comic magazines and comic strips. She got her start in comics shortly after graduating from the Parsons School of Design in Greenwich Village, New York when she started landing assignments at DC Comics in 1949 illustrating the occasional backup story in Gangbusters and Mr. District Attorney plus a couple of "Shining Knight" stories in Adventure Comics. It wasn't until 1951 though when she got the regular assignment of illustrating "Aquaman" stories in Adventure Comics for which she's probably still best known. Her run on these "Aquaman" stories lasted from Adventure Comics 167 cover dated August 1951 to Adventure Comics 282 cover dated March 1961. Along the way she illustrated the story in Adventure Comics 260 which came to serve as Aquaman's Silver Age origin: She was also the co-creator of Aqualad in Adventure Comics 269: Aqualad of course immediately became Aquaman's regular sidekick. Here's a great splash page from Adventure Comics 270: She also did the interior artwork for Showcase 30 cover dated February 1961 which was the first comic with Aquaman as the title character: She then took a few months of maternity leave for the birth of her daughter before returning to illustrate another run of "Aquaman" stories in World's Finest Comics from issue #127 cover dated August 1962 to issue #139 cover dated February 1964 when the "Aquaman" series ended. In 1965 she finally got to do her first cover for Brave and the Bold 55: Shortly thereafter she and writer Bob Haney fleshed out editor George Kashdan's idea for a new superhero, Metamorpho, in Brave and the Bold 57 cover dated January 1965. Here's her cover: She illustrated one more Metamorpho feature appearance in Brave and the Bold and then the first four issues of Metamorpho's own title covers and all: Evidently Ramona Fradon really enjoyed illustrating "Metamorpho" stories because Haney's scripts were in her own words "goofy" which allowed her to use her imagination and give full flower to her exaggerated style. But I personally had very mixed feelings about Metamorpho at the time since I was serious about my superheroes and didn't like the campy way in which Metamorpho was portrayed. That actually proved to be the beginning of the end of my two and a half year fascination with DC superhero comics. I migrated to Mad, Drag Cartoons, Creepy and Eerie magazines shortly thereafter. After taking seven years off to look after her daughter, she returned to comics by illustrating Fantastic Four 133 for Marvel in 1973: But she'd gotten used to working from a detailed script at DC and found it difficult to work from the brief one paragraph story outline Marvel had given her. She was back at DC in short order where she worked on titles such as House of Secrets, House of Mystery and even Star Spangled War Stories! She then illustrated these runs: Plastic Man from #11(March 1976) to #20(November 1977) Freedom Fighters from #3(August 1976) to #6(February 1977) Super Friends almost all from #3(February 1977) to #41(February 1981) Though I wasn't buying those comics then, her style was actually very well suited to the Plastic Man and Super Friends titles. Here are a couple of the covers (not mine): n 1980 she moved over to drawing the Brenda Starr, Reporter newspaper strip when Dale Messick retired and continued with the strip until 1995. More money for less work may have been her motivation. Once again, Ramona Fradon's style is fully reflected in Brenda Starr's appearance: Here's a book on her artwork: Plus she was also the cover story feature of AlterEgo 69: I met Ramona Fradon at a Toronto comic con in 2007 or so. She was a pioneer in her field and she'll be missed by her many fans.

I bought this model kit a few months ago at my local hobby shop, Wheels and Wings: I'm a big fan of the Romulans so I couldn't resist this re-issue in a tin even though I already have the original in my model kit collection! I wish AMT would issue a kit of this later variant of a Romulan Warbird: It's very well designed for confronting any marauding Federation or Bajoran imperialists!

Harveys needed to be bumped up anyway! I'll have to see what more I might be able to add.

Thank you! It does.

Is the Marvelmasterworks discussion forum still in operation or has that been closed?

Oh wow! That means any self-respecting collector needs them both! Sadly I have neither, but I collect so many kits of all kinds that there are many "holes" in my collection. Still a Penguin kit or two is among my top ten Wants among Aurora kits. Have you been able to determine when each of these kits was issued though? You might try asking the fellow at Old Model Kits. He has quite a bit of knowledge/expertise in regards to the evolution of the Aurora logo.

I buy only complete kits but I'm willing to buy unsealed ones as well. The advantage to the unsealed ones of course is being able to look at the contents. Even so I leave my sealed ones sealed.

Incidentally I have individual shots of most of the model kits in my cabinets so if you want a closer look at any of the individual kits just let me know.

Styx (? - 20 January 2015 R.I.P.) was a street cat who'd been taken to Animal Rescue by a neighbour lady of ours in 2009. I knew though this would be a death sentence for Styx since he wasn't in any way cute or cuddly and nobody would adopt him. I couldn't let that happen to a cat we knew from the neighbourhood and sometimes fed. I therefore decided that we'd adopt him even though we already had three cats, two of which we'd also taken in off the street in the last two years. But from the very first day we took him home Styx absolutely radiated gratitude for having been taken in and given a forever home. As such he was always very eager to please and therefore absolutely the best photographer's model. His attitude after being picked up and placed somewhere was "Oh? So you want me here now?"

I just tried to Edit my previous posts with links that did not embed with the cursor and Enter technique but it didn't work. I'll experiment later with a fresh post.

Thank you for the useful tip! It's a time saver. I'll remember it.

Ahhhhh, but I believe you were posting the links one at a time. One at a time the program will embed. But if you copy and paste several picture links at once (as I did above) the program embeds only one picture.

Let's see if this works: https://i1101.photobucket.com/albums/g434/Balticprince/HepcatMonsterKits.jpg https://i1101.photobucket.com/albums/g434/Balticprince/HepcatAuroraMonsterKits.jpg Hmmmm. No, it seems that the program here can still only handle embedding one picture link when it's given several at a time. Stupid machine.

Oh hi Stu! I see you're up to your old tricks again and you're as engaging as ever. Has actually contributing to a website you've taken the trouble to join ever crossed your mind though?