SLABBED SATURDAY - Dual Adam Hughes CGC SS!

Been waiting a while for these to come back! Trinity Comics hosted an exclusive signing event with legendary cover artist Adam (AH!) Hughes and I just couldn't pass up the opportunity.

His run of "Catwoman" covers is nothing short of incredible, and his cover for the semi-recent "Superman" #12 is a personal fave in no small part to the obvious homage to the opening of the classic Supes Paramount/Flesicher theatrical shorts from the 1940's.

I'm not sure if I'll ever part with these slabs, but I routinely put others up for sale on the Sanctum's eBay store, so keep an eye out! And be sure to follow Trinity as well as other CGC-authorized stores such as Alpha Omega Certification and CGC themselves to get your own signed books!

Thrifting Pickups - Week of 1/10/21

This was definitely a prosperous week, as I only ended up hitting two locations yet still managed to find well over $200 worth of goodies!

A visit to 2nd and Charles netted me "Asterix & Obelix: Kick Buttix" for PS2 and "Crime Life" for the original Xbox. Thanks to prior trade-in credit, I paid zero dollars out of pocket.

Everything else in the picture came from a Goodwill stop; the discs were all $1 apiece and "1999" was a whopping $2. I got a kick out of seeing a CIB copy of "Halo" that wasn't an NFR or GOTY edition!

Just goes to show that, even in the midst of a pandemic and a recession, there are still plenty of treasures to discover... #ThriftingIsntDead !

"BACK IN TIME II" - Commodore 64 Remix CD - 1999

If there's one thing I love, it's old SID Chip music. And growing up with a Commodore 64 as my first ever computer, I grew quite fond of the machine and the tunes its games produced.

Fast-forward a decade and change later, and I discovered the awesome website c64audio.com, which featured pure SID chiptunes, as well as some lovingly-crafted remixes of classic C64 game tracks.

For a very short time, they even had their most recent remix albums available for sale in a physical form, including "Back In Time II". I purchased this CD because it contained some killer tracks from a few of my all-time favorite C64 games such as "Forbidden Forest" and "Batman: The Caped Crusader".

This is an excellent collection, and I'm honestly surprised it isn't available for download anymore, especially since c64audio IS still releasing chiptune and remix compilations, even under the "Back In Time" series name.

These songs deserve to be heard and appreciated by any Retro Gaming fan. Please give 'em a listen!

DOWNLOAD 1

DOWNLOAD 2

320kbps CBR

IDEAL WORLD - "THE MADHATTER'S LAST TEA PARTY" 1997 CD

 

For the first time in a long time, I'm stumped. I mean absolutely STUMPED... because for the life of me, I can't find a single shred of information online about this band or their album.

This is "The MadHatter's Last Tea Party" by the band Ideal World. It was released in 1997 through Hand In Hand Records (which is apparently either gone, or turned into a modern indie label run by teenagers). The jewel case has no UPC. There is no information on Discogs. The whole album is a mystery, I tell ya!

It's a pretty bog-standard late 1990's Rock album. The styles shift all over the place, although tracks such as "Looking At Me" and "Disarray" show some obvious Faith No More influence. The opening track "What Choices Do I Have?" is one of the best of the bunch, a simple and straightforward Pop Punk track with a catchy chorus.

If anyone anywhere has more info on this one, please feel free to share in the comments. Until then, simply enjoy this mysterious offering that's as bizarre as the Mad Hatter himself!

**UPDATE 2/7/21: Well holy crap, I found some sites attributed to this band! There's an Official Site as well as an Unofficial one and even a third site! Sadly, none of these have been updated for well over a decade...**

Internet Archive

DOWNLOAD 1

DOWNLOAD 2

320kbps CBR

"SMURFING IN THE AIR" 1984 Kid Stuff Read-Along Record

Here's one of the hardest-to-find "Smurfs" Read-Along records, "Smurfing In The Air". It's one of the most famous short tales in the classic "Smurf" run of the 1980's, being reprinted in various formats such as in a paperback as well as a comic book.

This story features the same narrator and music as Kid Stuff's other "Smurf" Read-Along released in 1984, "Smurf's Daydream". If you enjoyed that story, you'll more than likely enjoy this one, as well.

YouTube

Internet Archive

DOWNLOAD 1

DOWNLOAD 2

192kbps CBR

UNDERGROUND LOVERS - "DREAM IT DOWN" 1994 CD

It's always odd to me to find that the biggest albums of certain bands' careers end up being lost in the aether, available nowhere online to stream or download.

Such is the case with "Dream It Down", the 3rd album from Australian Indie Rock / Electro Pop band Underground Lovers. It was one of their more commercially successfulefforts (albeit their last on Polydor), and spawned a few singles.

It's absolutely a 1990's album through and through, and anyone who enjoys ballad pop will dig this one.

DOWNLOAD 1

DOWNLOAD 2

320kbps CBR

Thrifting Pickups - Week of 12/27/20

The last Thrift of 2020 yielded some pretty awesome items!

"ZOIDS" DVDs and games are hard to come by, especially in good condition; I picked up the Volume 1 DVD and it looks like it was just taken out of shrinkwrap! It will more than likely end up on the Sanctum's eBay store soon, so keep an eye out!

The two CDs were $1 apiece, and both are OOP. Believe it or not, between the obscure Indie Rock band CD and the big-budget Hip-Hop Soundtrack, the Soundtrack is the one that isn't available anywhere for streaming!

And finally, the biggest hitter of them all, and one helluva way to end the year: a FIRST EDITION hardcover copy of Stephen King's debut novel "Carrie"! It was only $1 at Goodwill. It, like pretty much every other 1st Edition book I find, headed straight to my wife's library.

If this is how 2020 ends in terms of thrifts, I can't wait to see what 2021 will bring!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

HAPPY NEW YEAR, Sanctum Dwellers! I hope we all have a much more joyous and prosperous year than 2020. Lots of OOP stories, music, and games to share in the coming weeks... so STAY TUNED!