Colouring Book Theatre: The Space Sentinels and the Time Machine

Time to crack open another vintage colouring book and see the madness inside!

The Space Sentinels and the Time Machine-1978 Rand McNalley

As a kid I seriously thought the world of Filmation's syndicated superheroes "The Space Sentinels" and wish it was better remembered today.

The show did get some pretty cool merchandise (I own quite a bit) and I was thrilled to find this colouring book.

Even though Rand McNalley is largely known for road atlases, they did have a children's book division and I fondly remember their Hanna Barbera children's books of the mid-1970s.

So grab your crayons and check out this adventure after the jump! 

Colouring Book Theater: The Fantastic Four meet the Witch

Time to crack open another vintage colouring book and see the madness inside!

Fantastic Four Meet "The Witch"-1977 Whitman Publishing

Fantastic Four was one of my favourite comic books as a kid, the treasury editions quickly imprinted on my young brain and I was a fan for life.

My last take on a Fantastic Four colouring book was well, disenfranchising, so hopefully, this one is a little better. At least this one has Johnny and not Herbie the %$#^ing robot.

I already love the cover artwork with the three male heroes battling the titular Witch while Sue makes jazz hands.

 Check it out after the jump and when you're done, check out this other book from the series.

Colouring Book Theatre: Shogun Warriors starring Great Mazinga

It's been a long time since I did a CBT here at PlaidStallions but yesterday I found a treasure trove of books at a local shop including this gem.

I love the Shogun Warriors colouring books because they're kind of nuts but in a real good way. 

They were the creation of Canadian cartoonist Owen McCarron (who also created the Marvel "Fun and Games" comic) and it's painfully obvious that he was probably given no back story to the characters and free reign to do whatever he wanted.

So he just had fun with it, it's so super absurd with no thought to scale or science that just kind of has a wonderful childlike charm to it. I imagine very few kids would complain.

 Check it out after the jump and when you're done, check out this other book from the series.

Colouring Book Theatre: Gerrry Anderson UFO

UFO by Purnell (1971)
One of the nicest things I received at Mego Meet was this colouring book, which frankly, I didn't know existed until it was placed in my hands.

The one caveat my pal Corey had was that he hoped it would be featured on CBT. Wish granted!  (One little bit of trivia, the striking woman on the cover is Dr. Strange's real life mother)

While filled with colourful costumes, purple wigs and cool tech, Gerry Anderson's UFO is also a show that featured dark story lines and adult themes. It doesn't exactly scream "Children's colouring book" which of course, makes it all the more delicious to me. (See Dune)

Grab your crayons and join me after the jump.

Colouring Book Theatre: Planet of the Apes Activity Book

It's been a while since I cracked the spine of a colouring book so what better a subject than Planet of the Apes?

I was drawn to this art craft activity book because of this nicely drawn but kind of dark cover from "Conquest of the Planet of the Apes".

Sheese, even Power Records chose to sidestep Conquest due to it's violent themes. Grab your crayons and join me after the jump!

1981 Parkes Run Colouring Book Catalog

Hey remember those big colouring books you got on birthdays and Christmas? They were done by a company called Parkes Run and they made a lot of cool licensed stuff using licenses like Superman the movie, Popeye, Peanuts and the Marvel comics characters!

Adult Colouring books are the all rage right now but I'd settle for this one, which was given to me by my aunt Cathy in 1978!



Oh Man Wolf, where's your movie? 

 Anyway, check out the 1981 Parkes Run Catalog here!

Colouring Book Theatre: Horror

Horror (1982), World Publishers

        
It's weird to be doing a Colouring Book Theatre on a Friday but this October and this is one of the coolest colouring books I've ever found.

I discovered this in a shop called Planet of Stuff and bought it unopened mainly because it had Peter Cushing as Arthur Grimsdyke on the cover!

The content is just as grisly and gory.

Grab your (red) crayons  and join me after the jump

Colouring Book Theatre: Dune Activity Book

Dune Activity Book (1984), Grosset & Dunlop.

        
A local half price book chain just added piles of these to their inventory,  meaning they found a stash of unsold Dune merchandise 30 years later.

          
I've already looked at the (wrongheaded) Dune colouring books before but they're so freaking weird (and this book was $4) that another trip to Arakis is just too good not to revisit.

Grab your crayons  and join me after the jump

Colouring Book Theatre: The Black Hole Sticker Activity Book

The Black Hole: Sticker Activity Book (1979), Whitman.

        This book is very dear to me, as a kid I got sick, "Miss a whole month of school" sick and my parents bought me a pack containing every Whitman Black Hole tie in to help pass the time.

          
Even though I'd never seen the movie, I became an uber fan that year as a result of the many comics and coloring books in that pack. 

This fun item was one of them and it's better than I remember.

Grab your crayons  and join me after the jump

Colouring Book Theatre: Six Million Dollar Man

The Six Million Dollar Man: Coloring Book By Saalfield  (1975), 

         I've done Six Million Dollar Man books before by Saalfield, but I always enjoy another dip into the Bionic Craze.

Colouring books are usually a mixed bag depending on what reference materials they give the artist, this may be the first time I can accurately deduce exactly what the artist had to work with.

Grab your crayons and beam down me after the jump

Colouring Book Theatre: Star Trek

Star Trek: Coloring Book By Saalfield  (1975), 

         Another submission from the very generous Tracy, this is the fifth time I've covered Star Trek on CBT and I do so because a) they are mostly terrible and b) I like terrible. 

           This book by Saalfield is head and shoulders above trek books I've reviewed before and it's well coloured to boot!

Grab your crayons and beam down me after the jump

Colouring Book Theatre: Mork from Ork: An Outer Space Activity Book

Mork from Ork: An Outer Space Activity Book (1979), Grosset and Dunlop.

          This month I received a box of joy from Tracy, who generously donated some colouring books so that I could share them with the world. 

           I thought I'd open with this remind of when "Mork Mania" briefly swept our landscape, distracting briefly us from Roller Boogie and .

This book also serves as a bit of a redemption for artist Tony Tallarico, who was last mentioned in this oddity, as it shows he was fully capable of drawing likeness.

Grab your crayons and rainbow suspenders and join me after the jump

Colouring Book Theatre: Lord of the Rings

The Lord of the Rings (1979), Whitman (Editor's note Today's submission provided and authored by Kurt, who has graciously us provided a glimpse into this neat book- Take it away Kurt!)

            I have very nostalgic feelings for Ralph Bakshi’s The Lord of the Rings.  It reminds me of the Age of the Video Store – that popcorn-scented archive of categorized racks of colorful, terrifying, sometimes lurid shelves of potential thrills and wonder.  In the Kid’s Corner, amongst the predominantly white clamshell cases featuring Mickey Mouse as the Sorcerer’s Apprentice and compilations of mainstream cartoons, were what I considered the “more mature” animated movies: titles like Rankin-Bass’ The Hobbit and The Last Unicorn or Don Bluth’s The Secret of N.I.M.H. These were cartoons that were thematically darker and stylistically unique, and to my young mind, Ralph Bakshi’s The Lord of the Rings was serious stuff.  Despite its shortcomings, I still consider it an ambitious and inspiring piece of art that honestly attempted to adapt a fantasy masterpiece that had previously been abandoned as unfilmable. 

            Another passion of mine was collecting coloring books, often buying a particular book for a single image.  I had a huge collection that, sadly, was destroyed by renters.  Over the years, I have gradually replaced some of my favorites and found new books that I never knew existed.  I recently ran across this Lord of the Rings coloring book by Whitman and was excited to see Bakshi’s vision in bold black and white line drawings.

            Unfortunately, what I ended up with was a lot of boring scenes and compositions with poorly drawn, often off-model pictures of the Fellowship walking. 

Let’s start with the cover (LOTR Cover): Frodo “has the Power!” while Gandalf photobombs.

Grab your crayons and still suit and join me after the jump

Colouring Book Theatre: Battlestar Galactica

Battlestar Galactica: Adventure Activiy Book by Grosset and Dunlap

I stumbled on this book over the holidays and that's good because i didn't know it even existed prior to that.

The artwork is credited to Tony Tallarico, a busy guy in comics and coloring books in the 60s and 70s (most famously for drawing those Dell "monsters as superheroes" comics which I am a fan of) who is quite capable of good work.

I'm really not sure what happened here but I have several theories.

Grab your crayons and still suit and join me after the jump

We're going to need a bigger crayon

I fondly remember getting the Spider-Man Vs Man Wolf book on Christmas eve 1978, it helped me pass the time until we got to the bigger presents. I'd like to reunite with it but I do worry that it will start a new obsession.

That Star Trek one is calling to me.....

Colouring Book Theatre: Star Trek color and activity book

The Amazing Spider-Man: "Star Trek Color and Activity book" by Merrigold Press

If anybody has been reading the blog, you'll know I pretty much adore Star Trek coloring books, mostly because a) They're terrible and b) often hilarious (see this for more)

When I bought this book it seemed familiar but I swore I'd never done it, that isn't totally true. This reprinted book is the other half of the story of "Rescue at Rylo" which I have reviewed here and commented that it made no sense.

That's because Merrigold Press broke the story into two pieces when they recycled it for the launch of Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Not a single kid probably cared, nor should, but I needed the closure.



Grab your crayons and still suit and join me after the jump

Colouring Book Theatre: The Amazing Spider-Man

The Amazing Spider-Man: "Spider-Man Unmasked" by Marvel Books

Recently a reader commented that I have never met a colouring book I didn't hate.

He was kidding but it did strike me that even though everything I do is done out of love, it does seem like i love to crap on them.

I'll counter that I'm drawn to the train wrecks for their comic potential but in the interest of fairness, I present a book that I have nothing but nice things to say about.

Published in 1983 by Marvel itself, this book retells the story of "Amazing Spider-Man #39" in coloring book format and well, they do a good job.

Grab your crayons and still suit and join me after the jump

Colouring Book Theatre: UFO Seeing is Believing

UFO: Seeing is Believing Coloring Book
By Whitman 1978

Another colouring book I found rummaging through  Planet of the Stuff a couple of weeks ago. Not to be confused with the Gerry Anderson UFO coloring book we covered a few months back.

Whitman had quite the little cottage industry capitalizing on the UFO craze in the late 60s/early 70s. A quick scan of Ebay reveals comics and puzzles bearing that beautiful art like this cover.

I'm assuming this book is made up of abridged comic stories, the majority of them don't make a lot of sense, due to the format.

Let's take a look at this after the jump...

Colouring Book Theatre: Happy Days

Happy Days Colouring and Activity Book

Another colouring book I found rummaging through  Planet of the Stuff a couple of weeks ago.

Like a lot of 70s kids, I non-ironically stood in a mirror going "Ayyyyy!" and begged my parents for a leather jacket. I loved Happy Days, had a Mego Fonize doll and even bought the (lame) Gold Key comic, so it seemed fitting that this would be a fun colouring book to review here.

However all that positive energy leaked out when I realized this book was from 1983, a time when Fonzie was a 35 year old shadow of himself and most of the interesting cast members were long since gone, paving way for a big pile of who gives a crap.

Let's take a look at this after the jump...

Colouring Book Theater: Valley of the Dinosaurs

Valley of the Dinosaurs

I haven't done a CBT at all this year, so I'm glad I found this book whilst visiting the groovy retro store Planet of the Stuff two weeks back.

I remember this show well as a kid, mostly because to me it seemed like an animated knock off version of my beloved Land of the Lost.

However I was surprised that the two shows came out at the same time, Lost was the clear winner as Valley never had another season.

Let's take a look at this after the jump...