Mighty Men and Monster Maker

The Mighty Men and Monster Maker was one of my favorite toys growing up. For some reason it found it's permanent home at my Grandmother's house. Fortunately, we visited my Grandma's house several times a week, so it got a lot of use. I would burn through paper on the contraption pouring countless hours into creating a variety of monstrous combinations.

And while I loved the toy, I was always fascinated by the blue-ish grey monster hands that adorned the box. It wasn't until last year, when visiting a friend's home and looking at his still boxed monster maker, that I learned that the hands were actually produced by Don Post Studios.

Here's another look at the monster hands along with a shot of the sculpture...

And just for a good laugh, here's the original commercial for the Tomy Mighty Men and Monster Maker (no sign of the hands here though)...

Random Sunday Morning Mask Pic: Halloween 1961

Image Source: Clotho98 Photostream

Halloween Society Catacomb - Monsterland #7

The Catacomb article of the February 1986 issue of Monsterland Magazine featured a write-up on "the Wondrous World of Jim Lawrence". The article describes Mr. Lawrence as a mask collector, mask and monster maker, and was the wholesale manager at Morris Costumes...

More Halloween Expo Photos

The Night Owl Ghoul posted an impressive set of photos from the 2013 Halloween Expo. In addition to some nice close-up shots of a ton of masks, there are a number of shots of masks I hadn't seen yet from the expo from Ghoulish Productions and Zagone Studios...

Image Source: Night Owl Ghoul

Don Post - E.T. Mask Ad

This full page ad for the Don Post Studios E.T. mask could be found in issues #24 & 25 of Fango for the final two issues of 1982. Also showcased within the ad were licensed Dark Crystal masks of Aughra and Pod Peasant. This was a good era for mask ads in Fango, these same issues featured a full page ad for the Don Post Studios H3 masks too.

More Topstone Goodness

Raymond Castile recently posted four pages from the 1970 Topstone catalog on his Flickr Photostream. Here's a peak at two of them...

Image Source: Raymond Castile

Happy Paczki Day 2013

Topstone Brute

Calling all fans of Topstone, retro, and shlock masks... I acquired the original urethane master copy of the Topstone "Brute" mask with the intention of putting the mask back into production for a short time. That time is now my monster mask loving friends!

For $119 + shipping, you can be the first monster kid on your block to own one. Drop me an email here if you're interested. I've been playing around with color on the first two copies and here's a peek...

Arrrrrg Matey

Image Source: Snaptorium

Amazing Rubber Masks

When I stumbled upon the And Everything Else Too blog yesterday I wasn't prepared for the onslaught of pop culture goodness that I was about to be exposed to. While there was post after amazing post filled scans of old school commercial illustrations,  I was immediately struck by these pages come from the Chicago based World Wide Diamond Co., catalog...

 The Illustrations of the Topstone masks are awesome and feature a handful of lesser known masks like the "Saber Tooth Space Man" and "Goony" that never appeared in the pages of Warren Publications. Based on the illustration, I can only speculate as to exactly what you would get with the Frankenstein rubber mask. Was it a Topstone, or a Don Post? Who knows.

Image Source: and everything else too