the pointless weblog

These editions of these three books were published in 199o and 1991 by Fontana. The cover illustrations are uncredited, but might well be by Clive Barker as well.

The best things in these books are the photos of Clive Barker inside the back covers, where he gets slightly more groomed with every passing year.

I also like this illustration in the inside cover of The Great And Secret Show

And I don’t really know what to make of the terrifying cover to Nightbreed that’s advertised in there at all.

This pack of Top Trumps were released in 1992 by Waddingtons. There are 30 cards in the set. It is the third pack in a loosely linked set along with Dragons and Magic Beasts and Aliens and Space Warriors.

If you really wanted to, you could combine all three packs into one really massive top trumps pack (as long as you didn’t mind equating Intelligence with Magical Power). I assume if you did this the game would never ever end at any point.

This board game was printed in the back of The Thirteenth Blue Peter Book, published in 1976 by the BBC.

It’s not an especially good board  game, I just really love the abominable snowman. It’s the best monster I’ve seen since that beardfaced monk creature in one of the articles in The Unexplained.

I wonder if they’re related.

This pack of Top Trumps were released in 1992 by Waddingtons. There are 30 cards in the set.

This pack was part of the same series as the Aliens and Space Monsters set. There was also a third set in the series, Goblins and Faeriefolk, which is probably the best of the lot, due to having a witch in it. 

I think the best card in this set is probably Barad the incredibly smug Minotaur.

Also in this pack (and in most of the other packs from the early 90s), there is a card that’s just an advert for subbuteo.

There’s also a card that allows you to claim a free pack if you have enough of them, but I don’t think we ever did. Or, at least, if we did we never sent them off.

Also I’ve only just noticed that by the 90s they weren’t even Top Trumps anymore but Super Top Trumps.

 This set of Top Trumps were made by Waddingtons, and are from the early 80s. The set contained 32 cards.

I always liked the packs of top trumps that had a pack specific design on the back, like this pack, and the horror ones. I really hated the standard blue back with the boats and the cars and everything. It always made me feel slightly depressed.

Anyway, out of these dinosaurs and mammals and whatever, Eryops was always my favourite. Lovely Eryops.