July 11th, 2009
Originally published Nov. 28, 2006, at GJSentinel.com.
In this era of shopper mania about PlayStation 3 or TMX Elmo, it’s easy to grow nostalgic about a time three or four decades past, when the
Aurora company’s plastic monster models beckoned menacingly – but quietly – from store shelves.
Wide-eyed boys gazed at the bright artwork on those boxes, created by painters such as James Bama or Mort Kunstler, depicting the Frankenstein Monster, Dracula, the Wolf Man, Dr. Jekyll as Mr. Hyde, the Phantom of the Opera and more. At home, they struggled with the glue and paints needed to assemble the models, then often played with their creations until they fell apart.
Scott McKillop was one of those Aurora fans, and if he has his way, plastic monster models will return to excite boys of all ages by Christmas 2007.
McKillop, 40, a doctor in London, Ontario, is dedicating one year of his salary to starting up Monarch Models, which he plans to launch late next year with a “Nosferatu” kit, based on the Max Schreck vampire, Graf Orok, in the 1922 F.W. Murnau silent film based on Bram Stoker’s novel “Dracula.” The film has moved into the public domain, and thus no licensing of the character is required.
The kit, designed by artist
Gary Makatura and sculptor Jeff Yagher, and sculpted by Yagher, will be in one-eighth scale, the same as most of Aurora’s best-known monster kits, and will be “packaged to harmonize perfectly with the…
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July 11th, 2009
Originally published Sept. 27, 2006, at GJSentinel.com.
Some guys just seem to be particularly in love with this hobby of ours. Mike Rutherford, 38, of New England has long struck me as one of them. Check out his
Web site, which is stuffed not only with pictures of his own kit buildups, but with information about model kits both past and present and plenty of other genre subjects of interest to hobbyists.
Mike’s also a family man; his wife is Melanie, his kids are Michael and Madison.
MIKE RUTHERFORD AND MODEL KITS
Resin the Barbarian: You strike me as someone who truly loves this hobby and has for a long time. How long have you been involved in building kits, and what got you started?
Mike: Hello Todd, and thank you for this opportunity.
What got me started was my
Uncle Jonathan, in 1971.
When I was 4 years old and he about 10, he had both the Victim and the Frankenstein “Monster Scenes” kits. We would play with these as toys.
My grandmother had an old birdcage that we would use as a cage for the Monster to put the Victim inside of.
However, I didn’t get a model kit of my very own until a few months later. It was a glow in the dark kit called “Fiend” that was made by a company called Lindberg.
My first
Aurora monster kit was the glow version of the
“Forgotten Prisoner.”
Between the two of us, my…
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July 11th, 2009
Originally published Aug. 16, 2006, at GJSentinel.com.
“THE SALTY SEA DOGS”
Sculpted by Andy Bergholtz of
AB Sculpture Studio.
Available from
Dark Carnival.
1/4 scale, resin.
The first two “Sea Dogs” sell for $75 plus shipping; price on the Captain is $85; the set of all three is $175.
Kits in pictures painted by
Phil Sera.
The truth about pirates was ugly. They were thieves and murderers sailing the high seas, and the closest thing they probably got to taking a bath was the occasional saltwater spray from the waves. No fun at all. But the iconic images of pirates built around sources such as the Pirates of the Caribbean and Robert Louis Stevenson’s
“Treasure Island” – that’s fun.
Sculptor Andy Bergholtz celebrates those iconic images with his “Salty Sea Dogs,” a trio of buccaneers who are obviously very happy about being very bad. They’ve never had what Andy calls “official” names, but he refers to them as the Captain (the most recently introduced), Deadeye Henry and Frosty Bill.
Andy, 27, lives in St. Louis. He’s married and has kids: Lucy, 3; Andy Jr., 18 months; and a third on the way.
Norm “Kitman” Piatt wrote a terrific interview with Andy in the Spring 2004 issue of the now-defunct Modeler’s Resource. The magazine doesn’t seem to be available through the MR Web site, but it’s worth searching for you if you want a more in-depth piece about Andy. For…
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July 11th, 2009
Originally published Aug. 10, 2006, at GJSentinel.com
“KINGDOM COME SUPERMAN BUST”
First in a series of busts inspired by the artwork of Alex Ross.
Produced by
MikeTek.
1/4 scale, resin, one piece.
Price: $50, including shipping inside the United States.
Ten years ago, comic books were pretty much over for me. Not entirely over, I’d pick up a title every now and then, but for the most part the writers were putting out stories I’d read before, the artists drawing the same muscle-popping heroes. I stopped in at Comics Odyssey on North Avenue (like most comics shops I know of, it folded years ago) and browsed once a month or so, but only when I was bored.
During one of those stops, I happened to see a promo poster for the upcoming four-part series
“Kingdom Come” by Mark Waid and Alex Ross, neither of whom I’d heard of. I wasn’t interested. But then the shop’s owner pointed it out and said it would be good, so I figured I had little to lose and bought the first issue when it was available.
It was wonderful. Best comic I’d seen in years, since Frank Miller’s
“The Dark Knight Returns” and Alan Moore’s
“Watchmen” in the ’80s, and better than anything I’ve seen since.
Like “Watchmen” and “Dark Knight,” “Kingdom Come” is set in the future, when the children of the original superheroes are wreaking chaos around the world. They’ve grown up in a…
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July 11th, 2009
Originally published Aug. 3, 2006, at GJSentinel.com.
“PIRATE CAPTAIN”
Sculpted by
Jim Maddox.
Produced by H2Creative, info@h2creative.com.
1/6th scale resin bust in six parts.
$75 plus shipping.
Something about Disney’s “Pirates of the Caribbean” connected with me right from the start – and I don’t mean the movies, I mean the characters from the rides at Disneyland and Disney World, which I discovered when Johnny Depp was probably a year or two ahead of me in grade school. I’m pretty sure it’s because I was fascinated with the idea of “living” skeletons sailing the seas.
Like so many of the entertainment things I’ve loved in my life, I was introduced to the Pirates through model kits. Specifically,
a series of kits from the company MPC, heavily advertised in comics in the early to mid-’70s. I remember staring at displays of those kits every time Mom took us to Kmart.
I’m not positive, but I think I did end up getting one of those kits – one of the skeleton ones, I’m not sure which – and made such a discouraging mess of putting it together that I quit bugging my parents to buy me more. Now I’m hoping someone will repop the kits for today’s kids (and grown-ups) the way Polar Lights did for the classic Aurora monsters, because I’m not willing to pay eBay prices for 30-year-old boxes of plastic.
For the moment, however, corporate America doesn’t seem interested in the…
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