Shadow Pages

Hey again guys, it has been a rough week (and who knows how many more ahead) thanks to my new job, so I'm lucky to be posting this at all due to lack of energy lol. But here we are! As with every Magazine post, please click to make the image bigger, then right click and open the image in a new tab for full size!

How many times are you going to see this happen?

Today's topic is this old Shadowbox Collectibles: Millenium Catalog. Shadow Box Collectibles was a company that produced some rather awesome figures based mostly either mythological creatures or paranormal phenomena. Sadly, they went out of business some time ago, likely couldn't compete with the larger production of Safari LTD, Papo, Shcielch etc etc. Which really sucks, because these guys clearly had some of the most awesome lines of figures. Lets open it up and see what I'm talking about.

I ain't afraid of no ghosts!

Now lets get one thing straight. This was not a consumer catalog. I requested this from their website years and years ago. I thought I was getting a consumer catalog (there wasn't an option for either, so I just assumed as I did and still do like requesting free catalogs for cool stuff online lol), but instead I got this retail one, evidenced by lack of prices and the listings for display pieces. With that out of the way, you open up this book to GHOSTS! Any company can make a figure of Abe Lincoln and just call it good and sell it, but Shadowbox produced him (and the other famous figures here) in glow in the dark and packaged them as freaking ghosts. The fact they are not still around anymore baffles me. That Poe one sure is great. Who is with me?

Suck it Safari!

Remember my post about Safari Ltd's Lair of the Dragon's tube? Well these easily blow them out of the water (to Safari's credit at least their large dragons are not crazy). Man, are these guys really cool. All the smaller dragons here are just amazing. They don't try to be any specific dragons from mythology, and it really works for letting them get creative. They may be basic archetypes, but boy do they fit their roles well! I still regret never being able to find any of these. Especially the Abyssal dragon on the lower left of page five. Viper-dragonfish-angler...dragon, what more could you possibly want? Its strange that only he doesn't get the glow in the dark (how? how did they miss out on that opportunity?), bundle, or keychain treatment like the rest. Also awesome about these guys is that they went to the trouble of putting them in little dioramas for the collector cards. The St. George dragon is pretty cool, though it doesn't do very much in terms of uniqueness, but it looks to be a great sculpt, and I like the little knobby spikes on his arms and legs. Plus there is a glow in the dark version! So freaking cool! Time to move onto the next page, or else both the regret and gushing will only continue...

I want to believe... That I can have these one day.

When I was a kid, I had a phase where I was obsessed with anything alien. I don't believe like I did back then (have you seen Ancient Aliens? some people really are nuts), but I still have a soft spot for alien toys (but lets save that for a later post). These really are some cool UFOs! They look alot like those in my old UFO books, so the description isn't kidding about being based on sightings. These would look epic on a shelf. As for the Zetales, they were on the cover so I figured, why not? Actually not a bad looking display. Its nicely lighthearted and shows you can only take a phenomenon so seriously and you should have fun with it now and then. Plus how many alien toys do you see like this? Answer: Only this one. Or 5000 pieces as the magazine suggests.

Aliens. Always aliens.

Here is Shadowbox's first sets of aliens. Of these I only owned the Alien Lifeform set in the display box on the 11th page. It might of been the only Shadowbox toy I owned too... But I feel like I had at least one other one somewhere. Anyhow that Roswell sculpt is pretty sweet! I'd definitely display that!

 Does the X in Xmas stand for Xeno?

For the final few pages, lets look at their best alien figures. The alien collection has some neat looking toys, and they manage to work equally well when cast in glow in the dark material. The Chupacabra depiction doesn't fit with what I normally associate with the cryptid, but its a neat sculpt all on it's own. Finally Shadowbox had a line of Christmas ornaments that re-purposed the alien molds (along with a few new ones) as surprisingly perfect ornaments. If I ever saw these you can bet at least one of them would be on every tree from that point onward. My favorite has to be the Reptilian under the UFO.

Even the back cover is cool!

Lastly, we come to the back cover. Not in this issue were pictures for Shadowbox's Bigfoot, Yeti, or Loch Ness Monster but there is the poster on top with some of the Fantastic Myths and Legends series in a rather neat, if not strange art piece. A big diorama with all the figures would of been cooler, but the art isn't bad. So long Shadowbox, we hardly knew ye. You were simply too col to survive in the market.

Well thats it for this week. Yes, I technically posted this on Sunday. But I'm just going to say this counts because I call Sunday part of my weekend. Probably try to post again on Saturday. Either way, peace out!