It's Almost Time...

Tomorrow, Oct. 1, is the beginning of the Countdown to Halloween! Check back here every day in October to see what spooky things I come up with. I'm kinda winging it this year, so I hope I can keep up. A special thanks to my brother, Scott, for helping me find stuff to post.

Don't forget to check out the Countdown to Halloween blog to see the hundreds of other blogs that are participating.

Happy haunting!

Walk This Way!

The Step Out: Walk to Stop Diabetes is in five days! Please help me reach my fundraising goal by making a donation. Click the link below to support me --

My Personal Page

Thanks everybody!

Pickin' Apples

My son Kenny and his girlfriend Jordyn went apple picking at Dunlap's Orchard today. They brought home a huge bag of apples and a jug of cider. I love Autumn!

My Favorite Posts - 2010

Gone in '09

The Mighty Marvel Superheroes' Cookbook (1977)

The Empire Strikes Back Virtual Sticker Generator

LOST: Seasons 1 thru 5 Trading Cards

Frankenstein Valentines

Krazy Little Comics

Shogun Cowboy Boots & Stormtroopers

The Empire Strikes Back PrestoMagiX

Muppet Beach Party download

Dynamite Monsters

Music To Watch Ghouls By download

Imagineering Tribute

American Society For the Occult Sciences download

The Black and Orange Album download

Turkey Stuffing Mix 2.0 download

Meeting Joanna Wilson, Author of The Christmas TV Companion

A Cosmic Christmas

Interview With Janice Gable Bashman and Jonathan Maberry - Authors of WANTED UNDEAD OR ALIVE

Christmas In TV Land download

Merry Mutant Melodies

Christmas With Perry download

Halloween Help!

I could use some help. I'm not sure if I have 31 days of stuff to post for The Countdown To Halloween. If any of my faithful readers have any old Halloween photos or stories they'd like to share, I'd greatly appreciate it. Send anything you have to my email address. Thanks!

Promo Card Winners!

15 people entered the giveaway and I've picked three winners. I used Random.org to choose the winners. The winning comments were 10, 9 and 8. Congratulations to --

wolfie
iZombie
Robert

All winners have been emailed. Thanks to everyone who entered.

Ziggy Creator Tom Wilson Sr., R.I.P.

From The Associated Press --

Tom Wilson Sr., the creator of the hard-luck comic strip character Ziggy, has died, his family said Monday. He was 80.

Tom Wilson Jr., who took over the comic in 1987, said his father died Friday of pneumonia at a Cincinnati hospital. The elder Wilson had moved from Cleveland to a Cincinnati nursing home about eight years ago to be near his family, his son said.

Wilson was an artist at American Greetings card company in Cleveland for more than 35 years and first published Ziggy in a 1969 cartoon collection, "When You're Not Around."

Ziggy was launched in 15 newspapers in 1971 and now appears in more than 500 daily and Sunday newspapers. It also has appeared in books, calendars and greeting cards.

Tom Wilson Jr. said the name Ziggy derived from his father's school experience of being the last alphabetically. When a new classmate arrived with a last name beginning with "Z," the idea took root with the friendly sounding "y'' ending, such as Billy or Tommy.

"Ziggy is a last-in-line character," the son said in a phone interview. "The last picked for everything and kind of a lovable kind of loser character."

"I had a 'y' at the end and 'z' at the beginning, so the word Ziggy just fell into place. That became his name," was the way Tom Wilson Sr. described it, according to his son.

Tom Wilson Jr. said his father was always optimistic.

"He was a passionate and charismatic man, it came out in everything he did," he said. "He loved ideas and he loved creating — that was really what drove him. He wasn't a loser in that sense because his passion just came out and inspired everyone around him."

Wilson was "a visionary cartoonist," said John McMeel, chairman and president of Andrews McMeel Universal, which owns Universal Uclick, formerly known as Universal Press Syndicate.

"Tom leaves behind a wonderful legacy in Ziggy, a hard-luck comics page hero who serves as a reflection of Tom's endearing wit and optimism in the face of adversity," he said in a statement.

Ziggy also starred in the ABC Christmas special, "Ziggy's Gift," which won a 1983 Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Animated Program and was re-released on DVD in 2005.

Universal Uclick, which syndicated the Ziggy column, said Wilson also was head of a creative team that developed the Strawberry Shortcake and Care Bears character licensing.

"Tom Wilson had a unique gift for producing creations that stirred imaginations and touched people's lives," said Hugh Andrews, chief executive officer and president of Andrews McMeel Publishing.

Besides his son, Wilson is survived by his wife, Carol, and daughters Ava and Julie.

Funeral services will be private.

Bubble Funnies: Spider-Woman

This is the last of the Bubble Funnies that I have copies of. Enjoy.

Bubble Funnies No. 4 Spider-Woman from 1981 by Amurol Products.

See more Bubble Funnies here.

Interview With ME at The Non-Sport Update Blog and a Giveaway

Yay! Harris over at the Non-Sport Update blog did an interview with me. Read it here (go ahead, I'll wait) --

http://www.nsu-magazine.com/wonderful-wonderblog/

Pretty cool, huh?

I've been buying Non-Sport Update (NSU) magazine since it was first published in 1990. I love this magazine! Here's a description from their Facebook page --

Non-Sport Update magazine offers features, departments, pricing, and more for collectors of non-sport and entertainment trading cards (cards such as Star Wars, Stargate, Twilight, LOST, Elvis, Bench Warmer, and more). In addition to the articles, each issue includes our "Take Along" Price Guide (with pricing for cards from the late 1800s to today) and sample promotional trading cards. Our articles are written by collectors and hobby experts.

You can find NSU magazine at your local comic book store or subscribe through the NSU website.

NSU Website
NSU Blog
NSU on Facebook

And now for the giveaway!

I'm giving away three stacks of random non-sport promo cards. All you have to do to enter is leave a comment on this post and make sure I have a way to contact you. Three winners will be drawn on Sept. 20. Good luck!

This is a sample of some of the cards you might receive.



Giveaway Winner!

Well, it seems that there aren't a lot of scrapbooking fans that read Wonderful Wonderblog. Only two people entered the giveaway.

Anyhoo. The winner of the My Memories Suite Digital Scrapbooking software is --

BETSY

Congratulations Betsy. I'll get the promo code for the software to you soon.

And even if you didn't win, My Memories has provided a coupon code that provides a $10 discount off the purchase of the My Memories Suite Scrapbook software and a $10 coupon for the MyMemories.com store - $20 value! Here is the code (you may want to copy and paste the code to avoid typos when using it.) --

STMMMS98575

10 Years Ago...

I posted this photo last year and I'm posting it again this year. I took this photo on August 14, 1990 when me and some friends visited New York. We only walked through the bottom floor of the Twin Towers, but I'm glad I took this picture.

I clearly remember where I was when the terrorists attacked. I was at a former job in the back of the store doing some shipping and receiving. I always listened to the radio while I worked. They were talking about a plane that just hit the Twin Towers and what a terrible accident it was. Then all of a sudden they yelled "another plane just hit the towers!" That's when we knew it wasn't an accident. I told my fellow co-workers what had happened and they brought out a small television to watch the news. We were all in shock. When the big bosses came in they closed the store and told us to go home. Nobody felt like working. My wife and I went home and sat in front of the TV all day. It was one of the saddest days in my life.

Cliff Robertson, R.I.P.

From EW.com --

Cliff Robertson, who portrayed John F. Kennedy in P.T. 109 and later won an Academy Award for his role as a mentally disabled man in Charly, died Saturday of natural causes. He had turned 88 one day earlier.

The film, television, and theater veteran enjoyed a career that spanned more than five decades, making his big-screen debut in the 1955 romantic drama Picnic opposite William Holden and Kim Novak. He would appear in dozens of films, including The Girl Most Likely, Gidget, Sunday in New York, The Naked and The Dead, The Devil’s Brigade, Three Days of the Condor, and more recently, the Spider-Man movies as Uncle Ben Parker.

A popular leading man in the ’60s, he played a sitting President — John F. Kennedy — in the 1963 World War II drama P.T. 109, after Kennedy gave his casting approval. Five years later, he scored an Oscar for his touching portrayal of mentally challenged bakery employee Charlie Gordon in Charly, which was based on the novel Flowers for Algernon. Robertson — who won an Emmy in 1966 for his performance in an episode of Bob Hope Presents The Chrysler Theatre – also popped up in such TV series as The Twilight Zone, Batman, and Falcon Crest, and in commercials for AT&T. He also earned attention for blowing the whistle on a film studio president who had victimized him in a check forgery scheme in 1977.