Fireball XL5

It's funny how all things really are interconnected. For example, yesterday, I ran a brief reminder to check out today's Oddball Comics feature down the street at Comic Book Resources - Comic Book News, Reviews and Commentary - Updated Daily!. This, in turn reminded me of one of my favorite recent choices by Scott which was Gold Key's STEVE ZODIAC comic (check the Oddball Archives for this past June for that one). That reminded me that I still had the instructions from my 1965 Christmas present--the amazingly cool toy version of the spaceship FIREBALL XL5 from Gerry Anderson's British sci-fi puppet TV show of the same name. Finding those fairly easily in the vast Library archives jogged my memory that we also had an imported(nudge, nudge! wink, wink!) Japanese video! That's where these images are from. Unfortunately, all of this reminded me of the time about ten years back when I passed up the chance (don't ask!) to buy the wondrous and splendiferous FIREBALL XL5 lunch box and thermos painted by none other than Wally Wood!!! AARRGGHH!! Sniff! Anyway, after that painful, bitter memory I didn't feel like writing about the show anymore or even linking to an online picture of said lunchbox that I found. Ahhh, regrets....

Oh, one more thing in the "everything connects" department: that one and only issue of STEVE ZODIAC that Scott Shaw featured back in June was drawn by artist Mel Crawford, better known for his children's books and referenced previously here http://booksteveslibrary.blogspot.com/2005_09_04_booksteveslibrary_archive.html at the Library back in September's Flintstones post.