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Monday, March 31, 2008

Super-Hero Stand-Ups - 1977

sg
I had this cool Aquaman cardboard stand-up (drawn by Neal Adams, no less) for a while, but had yet to post it, when my pal and F.O.A.M. member Damian "Tiny Titan" Maffei generously sent me the whole complete set of 'em! Thanks Damian!

These stands-ups(made by the same company that made the
Super-Hero Stickers put up here a few weeks ago) each measure around 6" high, and use some classic stock art to represent the characters. We've got a Neal Adams Aquaman, Flash, and Captain Marvel, plus a Curt Swan Superman and a Dick Giordano Wonder Woman. But no Batman, oddly enough.

Neat as they are, I never could understand what the appeal of these were, exactly. Even back in the mid 1990s, when I was working in an art studio designing products for Comic Images and we actually made Marvel character stand-ups, I didn't see why anyone would buy them, at least in the quantities we were producing them. After you pull out the little perpendicular base support, there you were. Put in on a shelf and don't touch it.

That said, these are still pretty nifty, so maybe you should just ignore the previous paragraph.
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sgComing Tomorrow: Our first-ever AquaShrine Contest! The contest will involve identifying the artist whose work is shown, and the first person to submit the correct answer will receive any one of the Super-Hero Stand-Ups shown today. (I presume you'd want Aquaman, but you can pick any of 'em!)

Be advised Tuesday's post will go up around 12:15am Tuesday. Good luck!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think the Flash art came from that Justice League Power Records album cover. And it's adapted from the classic Murphy Anderson Flash art of the same pose seen on lots of other 70s merchandise (including the Pepsi moon glass).

Oh, and they made a separate Batman set of a Batman (by Neal Adams), Robin, Joker, Penguin and Catwoman!

Chris

rob! said...

i guess it makes sense there was a separate Batman set, it just seemed to me that 1977 was a (relatively) low period for Batman merchandising, a valley in between the two peaks of the late 60s and the mid 80s.

Diabolu Frank said...

Those look great! They're wonderful for comic shops, but in a home? Dodgy...