Happy St. Mikes!

As you may all be aware, my birthday is shared by JC on December 25th, thus I get short-shrifted when it comes to presents and presence (No gifts/ no one is available to celebrate.) at my birthday do. So when I was a wee lad from about age 5-10, I celebrated my birthday on September 29th which just happens to be St. Michael's Day. Alas, as I aged and joined high school, my double birthday got shafted and thus so did my annual celebration. (Let's see, I remember having a party on my 25th and 50th birthdays so the next one is due when I'm 75!)

That hasn't stopped me from celebrating all on my little lonesome. En route home, I popped into a GEO to see if there were any new Marvel kuji for me to win. Not much luck at the first one, I got a mug.

The next one I went to, which was fully stocked last week, was completely sold out. So I drove to the one near my home and, taa daa, I won a B prize...a pillow!

Completing today's Iron Man theme, I also received a pouch and a sheet of stickers.

I wasn't aware that the 29th is a holiday in Japan, but it is Meat Day! (2 9 = ni ku which translates as meat.)

So I consumed a bit of steak and hamburger for dindin. I also had a salad to ease the consumption process.

Over at the nearby Mister Donut, their Halloween special is on featuring Snoopy.

Not bad, I ate it in the car so I had no chance to put a birthday candle in it.

Finally, I thought I'd share a picture of the sunset around 5:30 today. two minutes later, this was no longer apocalyptic and was all grey.

Be sure to click on the pic to enlarge it and for previous posts on my birthday, check out the St. Mikes label.

Happy Batman Day!

Today is the 77th anniversary of Batman's debut and the day has been dubbed "Batman Day" (Click that link to find out how some fans are celebrating the day). I choose to show off some covers of the old
バットマン comics written by 桑田二郎  Jiro Kuwata which I have scammed from the wonderful book, Bat-Manga!

First up, a two page spread of Batman and Robin!

The aforementioned Batmanga book.

Now some of the covers in no particular order (except the order in which they showed up in the book.)

Not sure who the villain is in this one but obviously Japan's Batman has no compunction about using guns.

Hey, the debut of  ゴム人間  (Gomu-ningen or Rubber Human, better know as Elongated Man).

Nice cosplay cover for Robin.

The cover blurb is translated as, "Now it begins: The world popular Batman!! Suspenseful riddles and adventure! Kids from 35 different countries are reading the work of the century!! please let your friends know about it!!"

Batman changes costume as he runs for the Batmobile driven by an Alfred E. Newmanesque Robin.

The Batmobile is called the バットマンカー Batman-car here.

　　　

Parts 1 and 2 of their encounter with Clayface.

  

Lord Death Man is obviously based on Death Man. Not sure why he gets the royal treatment in Japan.

Go Go The Magician, parts 1 and 2.

Dr. Faceless Part 2. Hey, where's Part 1?

  

Another Part 2 and a Part 3, this time Batman is up against Professor Gorilla.

 

Looks to me that Batman and Elongated Man battle the Phantom General. Thanks to the GCD for helping me discover the inspiration for these comics.

Penguin makes his debut.

A couple of issues in a collage.

I'm not sure of the inspiration for the above, but it might be this issue.

 

The Man Who Quit Being Human, Parts 1-4.

  

The above appears to be two covers from his 50's SF adventures. The insignia on his chest is wacky!

Not sure who the villain is in this one, but it is a pretty cool cover!

That's it for Batman Day. See you next year...

Marvellous!

To celebrate the dvd/bluray/netflix release of Captain America Civil War, Marvel has collaborated with T-card and released its own card. Now when I buy gas at Eneos, rent a movie at Tsutaya, or buy something at Family Mart, I can gain points and have my very own cool looking card.

Oh cool, there is some kind of tie-in with Doctor Strange which unfortunately we have to wait until late January to see.

Badges!



In a further quest to suck all the money from my wallet, there is also a "Kuji" (Lucky draw). Drop 700 yen (plus tax natch) and you can win glorious prizes. I haunted 6 stores yesterday until I found a place that sold them. I bought three and landed a mug, stickers and a tote bag. I went back to the same place today and it was almost sold out! Therefore, I did the only logical thing and bought the remaining kuji.

Thanks to this, I won the "A" prize, the "C" prize and several "E and H" prizes. But because I cleared out the lot, I also landed the special "Last One" prize.

Cap vs. Iron Man! By the way, if you're keeping track, Cap is beating Iron Man in the polls by 55%-45%!

UPDATE: I forgot to add this picture of the "D" prize, a very nice tote bag with the Marvel logo on it that I won on the first day of the contest.

3/4 pouches. (One double)

1/2 Big Towels.

This really is big, it's about two metres long!

4/6 sheets of Stickers. (3 doubles)

The ones I'm missing.

 4/6 Mugs (2 doubles).

The ones I'm missing.

UPDATE: I am running low on funds, so I couldn't buy more than two more kuji. I got another rerun of stickers and 1/5 posters. I'd say that this is the best one.

A pretty good haul, I must say! I'd still like a pillow though!

The only negative thing about the purchase is that the store manager refused to give me the display poster even though I had just dropped a ton of cash. He no longer has a display since I cleared it out so why does he need the poster? All of the staff were on my side but shrugged their shoulders in assent to the manager. What a dink, probably scamming it for himself!

I now have my Christmas shopping finished. Anyone want a mug?