Reunited...a tale of Gaiking Bazoler and his nose missile

Thirty-four years ago, back in the halycon days of 1974, my family lived in Tokyo, Japan. My dad had been granted a Full-Bright fellowship to spend ten months researching and writing about the variations in the forms of the Kata (movements) in various well-known Kabuki plays. He spent many hours viewing these plays over and over again, live in the Kabuki-za and in the process began translating these shows and then adding highly detailed stage directions, something that had never been done at that time in an English translation. From that time period, he emerged with two manuscripts, which would eventually be published in 1979 as The Art Of Kabuki-Five Famous Plays and A Kabuki Encyclopedia (These links are to revised versions of the books). In 1976, a year after our family had returned to the United States, my dad directed a version of the Kabuki play Terakoya at Brooklyn College, from his translation. An earlier post here showcased my brief role in the play, forever immortalized on video.

While we were in Japan, I of course, bought lots of toys. Lots and lots of toys. Or should I say, my parents bought them for me. I had many of the early die-cast Popy figures (and some vinyl, too) from the popular live action and animated TV series of the time. Kamen RIder, Mazinger, Kikaider, Inazuman Flash, Mecha Baron, Denjin Zaboga, Getter Robo, Robocon and a lot more. One of the characters I had was the Triceratops tank from the animated show Space Dragon Gaiking. It should be noted that some of these figures were released a few years later in the United States by Mattel, under the name Shogun Warriors. The toys were released with their original Japanese lettering and stickers for the most part, though Bazoler does have some English on one side of him. I'm not 100% sure if it was like that on the original Japanese release - all the photos I've found of Bazoler so far in my books don't photograph him from that side.

Since I was kid, I actually got to play with all these toys, which is something I'm most grateful for. Fortunately, I was smart enough to hold on to a fair amount of them (no boxes, though), but unfortunately, most of them have only survived as worn down and broken remnants of the proud, shiny toys they once were. Kamen Rider Amazon is missing half of his left leg (not to mention signature scarf), Mecha Baron has broken headwings, Zaboga no longer has his fist on a chain right hand, and so on. Even in the shape they're in, I'm thankful I still have them, as a good number have been forever lost to the ages. Where did my Jumbo Machinder Getter 2 ever go? I know we brought it back from Japan, but somewhere along the line it either got sold at a garage sale or thrown in the trash (hard to imagine the latter). In the box, today, a Mint Getter 2 Jumbo Machinder would command upwards of $1500 on Ebay.

Besides the broken toys and the lost ones, I still have bits and pieces of figures. A missile here, a hand there, a pair of legs there. One of the pieces I had was a dinged up, but still shiny silver curved missile of some sort. I didn't know what it was for until a few years ago I came across a photo of Gaiking Bazoler, the tank triceratops, in a book of Japanese toys and recognized the piece as his nose! So I had his nose, but no figure. I took the piece and put it safely in a plastic bubble (the kind you get from Japanese vending machines, with some kind of PVC toy inside) hoping one day I might be able to have the figure it went with.

Since the advent of Ebay, I've been able to replace some of those lost or broken toys of my youth. I've kept the originals, but replaced my Zaboga, Kamen Rider Amazon and a few others, with boxed and fairly mint versions of these characters. Every now and then I'd come across a Bazoler, but a complete one, and with the box they're in the $200 and upwards range. Luckily, last week I came across an auction for a loose Bazoler, but missing his nose missile! Unfortunately, he was also missing his two white plastic horns, but I figured if I could get him cheap, it was worth it. So, I put in my $25.00 bid and I won! Today, Bazoler arrived and he has been reunited with his missing nose missile. Or the nose missile has been reunited with Bazoler. Not that they were from the same box, of course! But, thirty-four years later, one Popy die-cast toy has become that much more complete, and in the process, I suppose, this more than thirty-four year old man, has as well.

Plastic Iron Men

I figured now would be a good time to showcase my Iron Man action figure collection, as the movie has just arrived in theaters. I would have liked to also have had some scans of my vintage Iron Man comic book collection, but, unfortunately, that box of comics went missing a few years back. How you might ask? That, I have no answer to. I've got around thirty-five long boxes of comics now, not to mention about a dozen boxes of magazines, so I suppose with all that, one box might somehow go astray. I guess it just got up, sprouted legs and walked away one day, tired of being 'just another box' of comics. I guess, in a way, I did neglect my Iron Man books for some time and only realized, a couple of years after they disappeared that they had in fact done just that! The story (what there is of one) goes back to when I moved into my then girlfriend's (now wife) apartment in Lodi, NJ in early 1996. It was a one bedroom apartment, so all my long boxes of comics stayed back at my parents house in Queens, NY. Over time, I'd bring a box or two back to the apartment, going through them, rebagging and cataloging them, bringing most of them back to my folks house when I was finished. I was too busy filling up new boxes with recent purchases to be able to store all my old stuff. I do distinctly remember, however looking through my box of Iron Man books. I still have my old list, dated Aug 26, 1996, which places it just about seven months after I had moved to Lodi. Each book in the collection is listed and graded. My earliest issues were #'s 5, 7, 10 and 15. Then it jumped to the mid 20's and continued up to #178, for a total of about 90 individual books (I also had doubles for about 10 issues). This would not have filled one long box, just a short one, with some room. I also remember selling or trading to a couple of dealers those few early issues at a con in the late 90's. So, still, I should have been left with the remainder of my Iron Man collection. In 1999, we bought a house in Hackensack. I remember the moving day well. Whatever comic boxes I had were moved in my own car, as I wasn't about to trust the movers with my comics. The apartment in Lodi was small and I was pretty thorough about checking every last nook and cranny before we left to make sure nothing was left behind. I can't see how I would have missed even a short comic box. Fast forward to around 2003. For some reason, in the intervening four years I hadn't thought much about my Iron Man comics. By this time, most of the comic boxes that were back at my parent's house had been transferred to my new home. Still, about six or seven boxes remained back there. I was now regoing through my books and it suddenly hit me....'um..where are my Iron Man comics?'. I could not find them anywhere and was pretty perplexed. So, that's pretty much it. I hadn't thought about them for a few years and then I went to check them out they were gone. Nothing else (that I can recall) from my collection is missing, so I don't think they were in a long box with other books, as those would be gone, too. So, I can only think they were in their own short box. I don't have any memory of selling off the rest of the Iron Man books, so it's truly a mystery as to where they went. Every now and then I do get a bit upset about it, but what can I do. Luckily they weren't the most valuable books I had (I think I'd be a bit more pissed if my Spider-Man collection vanished) with most books only in the $2-$10 range. Still, it'd be nice to still have them, of course. Ah, well. So, instead of any Iron Man comic scans, I bring you photos of my Iron Man toy and statue collection. Works, for me. Hope you like them.

DAREDEVIL

After many months, a new post. This time around we've got a few early Daredevil covers. The covers for issues # 5 (inks by Vince Colleta), 7, 10 and 11 are by the late, great Wally Wood; issues #12 (inks by Vince Colleta) and 15 are by John Romita Sr. Issue #7, where Daredevil battles Submariner is one of the classic, iconic Marvel covers of the 60's. This issue also features Daredevil in his red costume for the first time. Enjoy.

Terakoya - 1976

Here's something from the Leiter Family Archives that most of my friends might not know about. Back in the Fall of 1976, my dad, Samuel L. Leiter, who at the time was Professor of Theater at Brooklyn College (later to be chair of the dept. until retiring in February, 2007), translated and directed a production of the Japanese Kabuki play, Terakoya. Around the same time, his first (of many) books was published - The Art Of Kabuki, Famous Japanese Plays In Translation, of which Terakoya was one. For a synopsis of the storyline for Terakoya, click on this link: Terakoya Synopsis For the role of the young prince, Kan Shûsai, I was recruited. At the time, one of my father's best and most promising theater students was the yet to be famous TV actor, Jimmy Smits. Jimmy played my father in the play. I have many great memories of working on the show, in rehearsal, getting to put my own make-up and just being around the set and working with all the actors. It was the only show I ever did; later as a student myself at Brooklyn College, I took a couple of acting classes for fun. Here's the only known surviving photo of me in make-up. It was scanned from a pretty beat up Polaroid. The video included here is from a performance of the play that we put on in Brooklyn College's television studios. It was intended to be shown on their cable access TV station I think, but I'm not sure if it ever aired. Unfortunately, the entire show hasn't survived the years - only about 45 min of it still exists. The voice-over narration is by my dad. Represented here is my entire on-stage appearence. I'll try and get some of Jimmy Smits performance up soon. A few brief clips of it were shown on some early 90's TV shows of the 'before they were stars' variety. As I don't have DVD editing capabilities (or at least don't know how to edit a DVD!) I've filmed this off of my TV, hence the slightly shaky camerawork. Hopefully I'll be able to upgrade the video down the line.

John Byrne and Terry Austin - NYC Creation Con - c. 1979

The pics below were taken by my dad at a Creation Comic Con in NYC in the late 70's. I'm figuring it's likely 1979, right during the heart of the Claremont/Byrne/Austin run on X-Men. I remember their table being swarmed with people and briefly thinking about getting a commission, but realizing there was no way I'd be able to. Take a look at that piece Austin is working on....pretty darn
detailed! For years I thought that they were working on a convention sketch, but as I found out a couple of years ago, it was, in fact, the cover to The Comics Journal #57, Summer 1980.  odd that they'd be working on a published cover at a comic con!

That's me, off to the right, eagerly enjoying watching Austin at work. Even the pencil sketch that Byrne is working on in the first shot (likely later to be passed on to Austin) seems to be possibly a group shot, as if you zoom in and rotate the pic 180 degrees, you can see that there's more than just Wolverine there. The paper that Byrne is holding over the drawing, to prevent his hand from smudging it, looks like it's hiding Nightcrawler, as it appears to be his hand coming out from under it. What's odd, though, is that the pencil sketch appears to be the same image as the cover, yet Austin is also inking that same image. Strange. As if they were working on the same piece, like a recreation. John Byrne has a forum on his webpage and I think I'll have to ask about this, should he even remember. The photo of John Byrne in conversation, was after a talk he did. I only seem to remember being around for his talk just a little while. I don't remember any of what went on. It was at this same con that I got a Moon Knight sketch from Bill Sienkiewicz, which I then brought over to have inked by Joe Rubenstein. The two were working together on the character's appearences in the back of The Rampaging Hulk magazine. Moon Knight didn't yet have his own title.

                                                     

Keeping the Star Wars flame alive...

I got very lucky this weekend. My neighbor of the last eight years has decided to move. That's not why I got lucky; he's a great guy and we'll certainly miss him and his wife, but in the process of cleaning up his home, where he's lived for forty years, he discovered some vintage Kenner Star Wars figures. The figures were his son's, who's around my age. Saturday afternoon, in the midst of a nap, the phone rang. It was Ralph next door. 'Might I take a look at some of these Star Wars figures that he had?' My wife had mentioned earlier in the week that Ralph had said something about Star Wars figures, but I had forgotten about it. 'Sure, I'd be over in a little while,' I said. Before heading over I took a look thru a recent issue of Toyfare magazine to get an idea of what some of the vintage 12" figures and 3 3/4" figures were going for in loose shape. I figured these might be a bit beat up and missing weapons (which they were). The prices listed were a bit too high for reality, as I used a better judge and went onto Ebay, checking some ongoing and recently completed auctions. Unless the figures were mint and complete, or in boxes/carded, they weren't going for too much. I took the 30 second walk over to Ralph's place and followed him down to the basement, where laid out on the pool table were Kenner Star Wars carrying case boxes, filled with figures, as well as three large scale figures, of a Stormtrooper, Darth Vader and Chewbacca. They were all without any weapons or accessories, and kinda dirty (especially the Trooper) but they weren't broken (aside from a loose arm on Darth). I figured on Ebay the lot of large figures, cleaned up, might sell for $25 or so. Add in Ebay and Paypal fees and you're not making a killing. The small figures were also almost all missing their weapons, but the figures were intact and just in need of a bit of cleaning. (Funnily enough, the R2-D2 was in better shape than mine!). I figured you could get a couple of bucks each on Ebay. In addition to the figures, there was a loose Tauntaun (c. 1980) and die-cast Snowspeeder. But there was more. There were a few boxes of Matchbox/Hot Wheels cars as well, all in carrying cases. There was even a Corgi Superhero cars carrying case that was pretty cool. A few of the Corgi diecast superhero cars were there, but most all of the cars were pretty beat up. One last bit of stuff was in the best shape. A full box filled with maybe thirty vintage Burger King glasses for The Empire Strikes Back and a few for Peanuts and a couple of other comic titles. These were all in pretty much perfect unused condition. I remember having some of the glasses and they were used in our house...and dropped, as well. It's funny how you can have an emotional connection to a glass, but my Burger King Star Wars glasses meant a lot to me. At this point, Ralph's son, Greg, had come down to the basement and I gave him my assesment of the worth of the figures. I didn't really know the value of the cars (not much, at least based on condition) or the glasses and I told him this. I offered some money for the Star Wars figures, but he was not willing to take any money and offered the lot to me for free. Wow..great..sure - Thanks! I could see there were a number of the smaller figures that I didn't have and I'd always wanted the 12" (the Darth and Chewie are more like 14") figures. Cool! Ralph had mentioned he was just going to throw them away, but I assured him that there was no need for that! He said he'd box them up and bring them over later. Later in the evening, after getting home from dinner, I saw Greg's wife, Vicki, in front of Ralph's house. I recounted the story about the figures and said Greg will be welcome to 'visit' his old toys whenever they might be in town (they live in Saratoga, NY). She then mentioned she'd heard about my collection and would love to see it. So I invited her over. A little while later, she and Greg came by, with Greg bringing over the SW figures and carrying cases. It was really quite a cool thrill to be handed over his childhood toys. Even though he hadn't remembered the figures, you could see he got a lot of play value from them. Now, they'd stand beside some of my own vintage figures and fill out the collection. All told, there were 31 figures, including about 11 or so 3 3/4 inch figures that I didn't have, all from Empire. A bunch of Cloud CIty guys, like Lobot and some of their security guys. The figures went up to Jedi, as there was even a Leia Boush helmet, but, alas, no figure. The top pic here includes some of the new additions. See if you can notice the new ones from the last blog entry pic!

Star Wars - Happy 30th Anniversary!!

It's been awhile since I've done much of an update on this blog, so in honor of the 30th anniversary of Star Wars, here are some pics from my Star Wars collection. Included here are a bunch of my original, vintage figures, including the original Early Bird Luke figure, with the double extending light saber. Because of the nature of the thin plastic on the second extending section of the light saber, alot of these pieces tended to break off. Luckily mine is intact. The first releases of Obi-Wan and Vader also had the same double telescoping light saber function, and I have those as well. Unfortunately, however, the entire length of those lightsabers are now gone (along with Kenobi's cape.) I also have the Early Bird versions of Leia, R2 and Chewie. Chewie's missing his crossbow and Leia her original blaster. In case you were wondering just what the Early Bird figures were, when Kenner got the license to produce Star Wars toys, they weren't initially thinking action figures. With the films massive popularity they realized an action figure line was going to be a neccesity. But with almost a year needed to produce a line, they saw that they would not be able to get product into the stores by Christmas. So, without any figures yet ready, they came up with the ingenious idea to put out a certificate package to be in the shops for Christmas that could be redeemed by mail for a set of four figures that would be sent out in the early months of 1978. Besides the mail-in certificate for the initial four figures, the 'empty box' as it's come to be known, came with a picture display stand with drawings of the main characters and a flat black board with the character names that the figures could be placed on, as well as a Star Wars club membership card and color Star Wars stickers. Below is an audio clip, also from 1978 of me reading some descriptions of the action figures from the back of one of the cards. I should be 10 years old on this bit of analog tape. I remember recording this and a few other things on an old Radio Shack portable tape deck, which is now long gone. Click on the link to hear it. Justin's 1978 Star Wars Ad The bottom set of pics are of the very rare 1995 Power Of The Force Boba Fett with only one of his hands having a painted dot on the back. As you can see in the close-up pic of his left hand, there's an unpainted sculpted circle. I only found out about this variation (at one time worth around $200 MOC) after the fact. When the Power of the Force figures came out in 1995, I bought two of each character. I'd open one and keep the other on the card. Naturally I wound up opening the rare one, unknowingly. As a loose figure, it's only worth around $25.