Jairus

Good morning! Only 6 more shopping days until Christmas… Today’s cover is from 1970 CARtoons and was painted by Bruce Steffenhagen. Note that the date is February ’70 which makes this more a “winter†cover that a Holiday or Christmas cover but it’s fun anyway. Note the sale price has not changed since Cartoons started in ’59. However, a year later the price jumped to fifty cents and that marked the beginning of the upward creep in cover price from 1971 till 1991 when the plug was finally pulled at $1.95! One explanation for the steady increases was the cost of paper and printing. Also circulation costs increased as well after the Arab oil embargo and the subsequent increase in oil. I have always wondered how much Petersen paid the artists for their contributions to the magazine. Some of those guys worked on these mags steady for twenty years! Merry Christmas!

Welcome Frank!

Good morning dudes! Only 7 more shopping days until Christmas… Today’s cover is from Winter 1978 CARtoons. (Remember, ’78 was quarterly.) Cover drawn and painted by none other than George Trosley. Krass and Bernie are the main characters on the cover and featured in the lead story from this the “NEW†CARtoons magazine. Reformatted and with a new editor starting mid 1975, each issue contained the extra value of Iron-On T-shirt designs. K & B appeared in that first 1975 issue and their automotive adventures are still being penned to this very day by George Trosley, published in Car Craft magazine. Merry Christmas!

Welcome Albert!

Yeah, it's Monday.... seize the day! Only 8 more shopping days until Christmas. Todays cover comes from November 1973, and indeed the only seasonal cover to be found on a Hot Rod Cartoons magazine. The cover was penned by George Lemmons and painted by Jake Thompson. Hot Rod Cartoons ran from Nov '64 to Nov '74. Editor was George "Pappy" Lemmons and the characters featured on the cover are Pappy'hiself, Rod (the tall guy) and Giz' the little guy. George joined the Cartoons team in '62 after being discharged from the Navy. He contributed for a number of years before eventually becoming the editor of Cartoons and then Hot Rod Cartoons for it's entire 10 year run. George also created a number of great reoccurring characters who were so popular with readers that other artists would pen stories of them taking up where Pappy left off such as Rod'n Giz, Granny McGo and of course Pappy too! Personally, I liked HRC the best of all the Petersen comics due to the better quality of artwork usually found within and the seeming higher intelligence readership was geared for. At times it seemed more like a graphic novel due to the able talents of Errol McCarthy, Bob Burnett, George Trosley and Nelson Dewey. Merry Christmas

Very convincing!

Good morning! Only 9 more shopping days until Christmas… Today’s cover is from December 1965 CARtoons. Cover drawn by Mike Arens and painted by Jim Collender. In this illustration, The Varmints are playing “Santa†and trying to stuff a Slingshot Dragster down Unk’s chimney. Note the reoccurring theme of the decorated “Christmas Treeâ€. “George Lemmons†who very shortly went on to edit “HOT ROD Cartoons†magazine leaving CARtoons in the able hands of funny man Jack Bonestell, edited this issue. I have often wondered about the lack of snowy covers found on other comic magazines. While CARtoons had many Christmas themed covers, very few of the other Petersen comic publications featured them for some reason. In fact, if it were not for the date on the cover, one would be hard pressed to know what season each issue was published having green grass and bright skies depicted in each and every cover. My thoughts are that since they are all sister publications, basically coming out of the same “houseâ€, that cooler minds left the “Winter season†humor to the pages of CARtoons. Also consider that these magazines (and most magazines even today for that matter) were printed and distributed one month previous to the date on the cover. Because of this the artist needs to get his work into the layout department so the layout staff can do the paste-up, which could take a couple of weeks at least… Then the Artist needs time to work… so most December issues were being inked most likely in July. Reminds me of a cartoon I saw of a cartoonist sitting on a block of ice and his friend says… “You trying to get in the mood for the December issue?†Merry Christmas!

91% rubbing alcohol and a "Q" tip. If that doesn't do it... then emerge the whole bloody thing in the alcohol and wait.... but not too long!

This question was already answered in issue #108, with picture.

Jeff, Thanks and I learned a lot about drawing from these pages as well. Your reminiscing about art class sounds just like my experience too!!! Only 10 more shopping days until Christmas… Today’s cover is an old one, issue #9 from January 1963 CARtoons. Pete Miller painted the cover as he did most of the early covers. Pete is also credited with founding this publication and due to a falling out, started “DRAGcartoons†among other cartoon publications. Note: If you check out the topography of the US below you will notice that it is fairly accurate! Yes, this is an old magazine cover. To put it all in perspective, when this magazine was printed Kennedy was president and Lee Harvey Oswald nothing but a husband. School kids dove under desks because of the Cuban Missile Crisis while our president sent “advisors†to a little country in Southeast Asia. Popular movies were “Dr No†and “Lawrence of Arabia†while at home, people zoned out to “The Beverly Hillbillies†on TV. Beachboys made waves with their debut album, Surfin’ Safari and Tony Bennett had what would be his biggest hit, “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.†Starting with this January issue, CARtoons magazine started its long run as a 6 issue per year publication. (1959 and ‘60 only one issue per year, with two issues in ’61 and four issues in ’62) They didn’t go back to a quarterly schedule until 1978 and that for only a year called “The Best of CARtoonsâ€. 1979 marked a return to bi-monthly publication but printing an issue # on the inside ceased in March of ’79 and continued through the last issue Aug. ’91. (Waaayyy more than most of you wanted to know) Merry Christmas!

Excellent tip! Especially the use of a magnet to keep the hood open... Great idea!!! I have played with magnets holding the drivers/passenger door in the closed position but found that you cannot bury them in or behind plastic and expect any strength. Of course I never used "rare earth", just ceramic. Very good, maybe you could show us some close-up's of the one holding the trunk OPEN sometime.

Good morning Model Cars Bloggers! Only 11 more shopping days until Christmas. Todays cover is from December 1970 CARtoons. Bruce Steffenhagen painted the cover where Unk has been dressed up as a reindeer pulling his ’23 T bucket. He doesn’t look too happy about it but, note that they spelled Sleigh correctly this time…. I was born in ’59. Picked up my first Cartoons magazine June ’69. My family and I moved from Eugene Oregon to Salem during the following year so I missed quite a few issues until I could find a newsstand that carried them. This issue was one of the one’s I missed. Finally got it off eBay for cheap 35 years later! Merry Christmas!

Good morning! Only 12 more shopping days until Christmas. Todays cover is very special as it comes from a quite rare issue #15 of Surftoons circa January 1969. Indeed the very last issue published! On the cover dressed, as Santa is none other than Sandab McSkeg surfing down the chimney. Sandab, created by Nelson Dewey, became a regular character in Surftoons. Sandab’s search for the perfect wave continued on in the pages of Cartoon’s magazine long after Surftoons ceased publication. The cover was drawn by Nelson Dewey and painted by Bill Hughes. Sandab was someone who would never give up on surfing and indeed surfed when and where others couldn’t or wouldn’t. On issue #6 Sandab is shown surfing a lawnmower just so he could surf through a Kelp field ‘cause the waves were better! Weird huh? Surftoons was published from August 1965 to January 1969 for a total of 15 issues. It was never a regular thing and they didn’t offer subscriptions. Cartoonists who wrote/illustrated for this publication, were also contributors to Cartoons, Cycletoons and Hot Rod Cartoons so the look and feel was pretty much the same. The famed cartoonist and illustrators Rick Griffin and Alex Toth were also contributors in some of the first few issues back in ’65 and ’66. Merry Christmas!

You think I don't know that a '53 Vette is a fiberglass car? Is that what you are inferring? I just didn't want to use something I actually WANTED TO KEEP having a weld across the body just for a "How-to".... it's that simple. Busted? Okay, I'm busted... take me away....

Mike, my collection is nearly complete from 1960 to the very early 80's After that... sporadic at best since I got married about then. If you want to post the 83, 88 and 90 then be my guest. But I will continue posting my last 13 issues, one per day, including one on Christmas day! To answer your question, yes, the very last issue is Aug '91! Only 13 more shopping days until Christmas. Todays cover goes way back to 1966... The cover for today shows "Unk and them Varmints" from Cartoons Dec 1966. Cover drawn by Mike Arens and painted by Jim Collender. Notice the decorated "Christmas tree" in the upper left while Munch’in Melvin eats the paintbrush at the bottom. Actually, only two Varmints were ever named, Munch’in Melvin and Clever Kevin the leader of the bunch. I have read back to their beginning, and unless I missed something, the rest of them have not been named. Many of the cover drawings (64-73) featured a reoccurring theme and had something to do with the Varmints rebuilding or destroying Unk's '23 T bucket street rod. This time they have created some sort of slingshot dragster painted up to look like Santa’s Sled. Merry Christmas!

It was simply a donor body guys. Plastic is plastic....

Good morning MCM bloggers! Hey, I managed to dig up enough covers to have one per day until Christmas morning! Some of them are not much more than "Snow play" so I may wait and use those toward the end when we get tired of "Santa". Until then.... Here's another one: This is a copy of Cycletoons December '72 featuring cartoons about two wheeled doner-mobiles, mostly choppers! The cover painting was sketched by John Bruno and painted by Jake Thompson, one of my favorite painters! The character playing Santa is "The Ol'Poop" and the guy in the cabin is Hogg Rider. Both enjoyed adventures in nearly every issue, and featured on almost all covers from 1968 to 1973. I picked up this copy off the newsstand in November 1972 so it is a little worn having been handled by me for 35 years! But that doesn't really matter as I have no desire to own mint copies of each and every mag. Incidentally, Cycletoons and HotRod Cartoons magazines were published on the even months and came out on the same day one month previous. Cartoons was published only on the odd months so even though there were only 6 issues per year I could look forward to finding one of them on the news stand monthly. Merry Christmas!

Christmas is not really the actual date Christ was born.... nobody knows the exact date. However we celebrate the birth of our savour on December 25th each year and THIS is the real reason for the season! It is a magical time for most little kids and a shadow-memory of that magic still enhabits most of us as adults. While I was just a kid I collected Cartoons and the other Petersen Publishing cartoon magazines reveling in the beautifully painted covers and funny comics found inside. From now until the 25th I will post (Provided the moderators don't lock the thread) a cover artwork every few days with a common theme: that of Christmas in full color! Eventho it is a little secular... it's still humorous and we all know that our Lord likes humor. Jairus This first image is from December 1964. The cover caption reads: It's the night before Christmas and all around the Timing Stand them Varmints are waitin' to decorate the Chrondek Tree that one Lil' rowdy Varmint has just chopped down... to Unk's dismay. Drawn by Jim Mueller and painted by Ron Dias. Merry Christmas!

Bill, Yes, I watched every episode! The Demon was one of the cars used in that series for one episode. If I remember right some young kid wanted to buy it as a used car and the leader of the pack, older brother, whatever his name was, stated that it was an unsafe jalopy. Of course the kid bought it and crashed. The moral of the story, as there was always a moral, was always listen to your elders. There were comic books with the same characters too.... My first Hot Wheels was a Dodge Deora in Antifreeze purchased by my parents in '68. Car got lost about 15 years ago so I bought another to replace it off eBay pretty cheap w/surf boards even! J

Rick, remember the Petersen Hot Rod Museum? You had better... you and I were both there! There were three full sized built up replicas of little Hot Wheels cars.... Deora, Deora II and Twin Mill on the second floor. Not to mention Red Baron was a real car too... or maybe that was a design that came from the model... or was it a full size car first? A lot of the first batch of cars in 1968 were designed by none other than Harry Bentley Bradley, something to think about. I will add more info as I think of it.

This has been a problem since the beginning of time and you all have some great ideas! I have even cut my hand open by putting too much force on a stuck lid, when the glass broke under the strain of squeezing with pliers. (paint really stings in an open cut....) The simplest answer is to wipe the threads clean before replacing the cap when needed and always.... keep a pair of pliers handy.

Gray, Yes, the '31 Woody shares many parts with the Sedan of the same year. The kit contains all the stock pieces needed to build it up either "bone stock" or mild street machine with a two carb manifold, cam cover and OHV Ansen conversion head. Some versions of the 1931 Revell kits share the very same chrome tree but a 1930 should be a different mold. The grill and hood are slightly different eventho the wood should be the same for both kits. I have not seen this kit released lately so I am unsure of what is on the chrome tree. However, I suspect the layout of the chrome tree is just as similar as are the '29 and '31.

Mark, Don't forget T-bone Walker and John Lee Hooker.... A-how, how, how.....

Talk radio, Classic Rock, Blues and Jazz in that order. Used to love Classical music and have a huge CD and Record collection but.... have not listened to even Vivaldi in over a year.

Both of mine were molded in yellow and my Berry Mini-T is not getting done very quickly.... I am building a scale version of Pappy's Buggy having stolen the Corvair engine and rear suspension from the Roth Road Agent. Now if I can just find a Corvair front axle.......