IS IT YOU? :: Who Shall Wield The Power Cosmic?
Remember the cool-looking life-sized Silver Surfer standee that we had in front of our booth at this past HeroesCon? Sure you do! It was a promotional item given to us to help promote the Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer movie, and the subject of many many photographs, usually with a smiling fan attendee, taken at the show. Well, we had a couple of different ideas about what to do with it after the show, but we’re just too busy to make any of those a reality in the near future–so we decided we would give it away! That’s right, absolutely free! It’s been sitting in our warehouse, usually scaring the bejeezus out of me when I’m turning the lights on, and notice a crouching naked person in the shadows. Fill in your own “and then I see the Surfer” joke. Anyway, Shelton needs to clear some room for some different projects he wants to get underway. We thought about trying to sell it, but we decided that we like you so much that we just want you to have it.
But which one of you? We like all of you equally; don’t ask us to choose! But if you want to have this life-sized Surfer collectible for your very own, post a comment detailing why you deserve it. Did you sacrifice yourself and your love for a hot space-chic in order to save your planet from being eaten? That’s a good reason, but yours is probably different. All that we ask is that you a) keep it clean; b) be creative; and c) make sure you can actually come to our store and pick it up. We’re not interested in shipping this big thing anywhere. Also: the cardboard background is gone, but the Surfer himself is mounted on a surprisingly sturdy metal framework. It’s not just a bunch of chipboard or something.
So tell me: Why do you deserve to wield the, er, Power Cosmic?
MAN! I want that! It’d make a heck ofa hood ornament! But I guess staff isn’t eligible, huh? I guess I’ll have to find someother way to look uuber-geeky!
I think that I’m deserving of it because I intend to use it to frighten people that enter my home or place it on my coffee table so as to start conversations.
No offense, Dan, but you might be misremembering the size of this badboy. Unless your coffee table is 10 feet long, this fella is too big. I guess you could set him on a couple of cinder blocks and set your magazines around his feet.
Rusty, I don’t think I’d disqualify an employee, or a former employee (Dan). However, you’d have to come up with a MUCH better reason/story/fiction than Dan did. Weak, Dan.
I think the fiction is that Dan actually has a coffee table, or, for that matter furniture, or, for that matter, a house.
FACE!
Wheatley deserves it for bieng late to work because he was helping us dismantle it.
When is the deadline?
I work for an aluminum extrusions distributor…how cool would that look in my office next to all the shiny samples?!
That or put him in my wedding! He could be the out of town relative that I haven’t seen in years…just don’t tell Jaimee!
I might have to submit a formal plea. That would make a pretty cool Christmas present for my dad. Surfer would look great next to his suit of armor.
Can I have it so I can make the world’s most ostentatious bowling trophy?
Nooooo! Mount that sucker in the store!!
If I win it I could contribute a guest column to your blog. “At Home with Norrin” Have a write up & pics of him & me watching Panthers games, playing poker, guitar jams with the fellas. I even have an extra Panthers jersey that should fit him! Nothing like watching the Panthers and “look up and then I see the Surfer!” …good times!
I’m about 10-15 minutes from the store so I could bring him back for events and chaperoned visits so Dusty won’t miss him too bad.
When I was 5 years old, my uncle Paul gave me a box of his old comics. In the box, among other things, were beat-up-but-definitely-readable copies of the first three issues of Silver Surfer. I was drawn to them instantly– the image of the shiny man set against the endless cosmos captured my imagination. From the moment I saw the pictures (I could read it, but much of Stan Lee’s prose was over my head at that point) I knew that comics were unique. I began reading comics voraciously, and later my love for comic books led me to try other kinds of books– which I loved so much that I majored in English Literature in college. The point is that the Surfer started my 20+ year love affair with comic books, and I feel I could provide an opportunity for him to inspire others the way he inspired me. If you give him to me, I will put him in my office where all my customers (and their children) can enjoy him. Perhaps by doing so I’ll help to create more avid fans like myself to support the comics industry for years to come.
Thanks.
My 4 year old is a HUUUUGGGGEEEE Silver Surfer fan. We took him to see the movie and he loves the character. It would look great in his playroom at the house. This post may get put in the “lame bin” but I wanted to be truthful. (OK, I like the character alot too and would share in the joy of having it. Exploitive? No. Opportunistic? YES.)
I need it the most.
Ya see, I’ve got a big problem here and this can help.
Here’s the deal, Galactus is showing up at my house, drunk, every other night about 3am.
He just sits down, crushing my car, then he starts whining about how he’s so lonely, and “when’s the 50ft. love of my life going to come along?”
He gets my dog barking, and it really pisses off my neighbors.
You can’t imaggine the mess I have to clean up when he pukes in my yard.
If I only had your Silver Surfer, I could set him in the living room window to scare him away.
Let’s face it, I’m just too nice to tell him to get lost and the Watcher has yet to return any of my calls or e-mails.
I think I deserve the Silver Surfer statue because I would like to open my own comic book store, and the Surfer would make a great welcome sign for all my customers. In order to preserve this industry, we need more comic shops throughout the country. The Surfer would draw in people just wanting to have their picture taken with it, and hopefully they would leave with some new comics in their hands. This isn’t something that should be displayed in one man’s house; it’s an icon that needs to be shared by everyone, and what better place to display this icon than in a store where people can purchase comics to learn more about this man. Besides, you guys have freakin’ SPIDER-MAN FIGHTING DOC OCK in your store!!! Let someone else have a shop as cool as yours! Thanks!
I am a big Fantastic Four Fan. I have a bare wall in my office with an overhead light. Perfect size. My wife says that she will allow me to have it in the house if I will stop making her watch these movies again and again. She is very thankful that you are not giving away a life sized Jessica Alba. Can I please have the Silver Surfer display. There, see? Who else said please?
Casey, I think your right. It’d look FANTABULOUS if we mounted him above the sign outside me thinks. But how much trouble would THAT be?!?! And besides, what a cool conversation piece, walking into someone’s house and Mr. Radd’s all up in ya grill!
I think i deserve this because actually i am origionally from a distant planet, and i need to get back home to my parents. and the only way to do so is to weild the power cosmic. plus i would be able to kill some awesome badguys…o and me and my dad have been going together to heroes con for 6 years. it is my favorite part of the whole year because i get to spend good quality time with my father. (i love that its usually fathers day weekend)…plus my dad wrote a book about ledgendary George Tuska (The Art of George Tuska by Dewey Cassell) and i think we need to have this in our house to fully express our love of comic books!
When I was the age of five, I didn’t know who the Silver Surfer was. But at the age of ten, I still did not know who the Surfer was. It wasn’t until the age of ten and three fourths, just two months shy of my eleventh birthday that I discovered the mightyness that is SS supreme. Shortly thereafter, I became a Herald of Galactus. This of course made my Uncle upset, as he always considered himself the main Herald of the family. I can see his arguement, as such had been his name at birth. With my parents disapproval I immediately quit middle school and went on an eight year journey, known only as “The Great White”. Upon my travels I became sidetracked in a little town on the outskirts of Melreff, Nebraska. At the county line truck stop I befriended the one we all know as Silver Surfer. A short fight ensued and I became the victor with a firm headlock. SS Supreme I would call him from that day on. We oft would offer to cook Galactus breakfast, but purposly burn it, setting off his smoke alarm. Then we’d bail out of his place which made him more furious, because he did not know that all you had to do was push the little button to make the beeping stop. I’ve not seen SS Supreme since the glory days of ’04 and this life size replica of my breakfast friend is truely the moment I need to store in my physical memory bank.
Well, here we go again.
Galactus is out there pounding on my roof, drunk again.
I guess it wouldn’t be a Saturday night without him.
He’s got this paranoid notion that if John Byrne finishes that “Last Galactus Story” he’s going to die.
Please select me to win the Silver Surfer….I can’t take another night of this.
You should be here when he gets sloshed with the Watcher and they start wrestling in the yard.
My landscaping has paid quite a price.
“There’s going to be hell to pay” when I lined up to pay for the Michael Golden/Silver Surfer litho at the Heroes auction. Yes, it’s a great litho, but…my wife was shocked at the cost and sent me packing to the backyard tent. It’s getting cold, the sleeping bag is moldy…even the Watcher feels the pain. How do I get out of the doghouse? My wife loves decorating the house for Halloween…if I could offer her a creepy Surfer statue, perhaps I can come in from the cold???
The best reason for me to receive the Surfer is ….. loyalty!
As a loyal customer of Heroes from the earliest days of my wayward youth (translate as halcyon days of Shelton’s mini-cons), all the way to greying hair AND after suffering through the abandonment of the former Greenville, SC location [with respect to Stan at Borderlands], a bit of chrome Surfer action would certainly fill the “Heroes” void left in the upstate area of South Carolina.
And there’s the yearly treks to Heroescon.
How about pretty-please-with-sugar-on-top!
I would like to have the Silver Surfer so that I could recreate his classic meeting with Spider-Man from Silver Surfer issue 14. I already have the Spide-Man statue now I just need the Surfer.
Why I should have the surfer statue. When I was younger all I cared about was G.I. Joe, One day I discovered G.I. Joe comics at a 7-11 in Virginia. Collected them for years. and somtimes when I finished reading I noticed this silver guy on a board in the subscription ads. at first I thought why a surf board. But the more I kept seeing him, the more I wanted to know about him. Then a comic store opened in my town(greatest thing ever for a kid) and went to look for the surfer. didn’t find him but thats when I really discovered the marvel universe, picked up x-factor #10 and went crazy over these characters. Went on to Captain America, Ironman, West Coast Avengers, and Spider-Man. after a few years Surfer came out with his own comic, seeing surfer, fantastic and Galactus on the cover, I went nuts collected for years learning all i could about him. eventually I took a long break form comics, and got back into them about three years ago. And I dont care what anybody say FF2 was awsome, saw it three times in the theater. What it comes down to is the love I have for the marvel universe comes from a character I seen in a subscription ad,
I think you should give it to Chris, he has a pretty practical reason for needing the Surfer. I mean I know I wouldn’t want Galactus on my front lawn!
Chris wins. Hands down.
Man, I tell ya, things just keep getting worse.
I thought I’d get a little rest last night but it just wasn’t in the cards for me.
I woke up around 3am to some pretty strange sounds in my yard.
I thought it was the old “cosmic booze bag” stumbling around again but it was Terrax having a tree cutting contest with some weirdo with a chainsaw for an arm.
Needless to say, the neighbors are still pretty pissed, especially now that they have no trees and someone ate Mrs. Jackson’s cat.
Yep, the neighborhood sure is going to hell around here.
Sure wish we had some kind of hero to protect us.
There are other practical reasons to have the Silver Surfer at My house:
1. No more catching crap for not cleaning the gutters.
2. No more sitting in morning traffic.
3. I can finally get even with that bird that aims for my car after it’s washed.
4. I always wanted to learn to surf.
5. Maybe Sue Richards will want to stop by and chat.
6. Winning the Surfer will show the world that even born losers get lucky sometimes.
Wow–I’m pretty amazed at the number of posts this has gotten! Okay, I’m narrowing it down, and we’ll make our decision tomorrow before I send out the Heroes Hotline. So if you’ve got an iron in the fire–and your name isn’t Chris, for Pete’s sake–feel free to strengthen your claim with another post. Or, if you haven’t posted yet, now is the time. Let us know why you should have our life-size Silver Surfer statue in your home or office, and if we pick you you can HAVE it!
I would like to be considered for the Silver Surfer display. You see, there is an unintentional mistake in this Heroes’ blog entree. While the write up says that the backdrop is long gone, this is simply not the case.
I have the majority of the backdrop that belongs to this Silver Surfer.
Checkout a photo of the backdrop and me here: http://www.christophergiles.com/SilverSurfer/SilverSurfer01.jpg
So how did I come to possess the backdrop of the mighty Surfer? Well, it all goes back to the very end of HerosCon 2007. As my friend and I were leaving the show, preparing for our 4 and a half hour drive back to Tennessee, we passed two guys standing in a sea of flat cardboard taking apart the Surfer display. The Surfer was already gone at this point. As I walked past, I couldn’t help but think “wow, that background would look cool in my house.” So like the good comicbook packrat I am, I ran over to them and asked if they were planning to throw away the background. They looked a little surprised that someone was talking to them, so I told them that I would like to have it if they were just going to throw it away. They said sure, that they preferred it be recycled instead of going to a landfill. So they took the bolts out of the bottom and handed me the top piece of the display. The bottom had apparently already been destroyed, because I did not see it there. I believe it was part of the cardboard that littered the floor.
So once I got the backdrop in hand, I made the trip back to my vehicle…in the parking garage of the Westin! That was a trip to behold. First, let me say that it is incredibly difficult to balance on an escalator leaving the convention hall with a giant piece of cardboard in your hands. Once on the street, I thought that I was home free…until the wind picked up as I was crossing the street. I managed to hold on to the background, but imagined it flying from my hands and into someone’s car stopped at the redlight. On the way down the sidewalk a guy asked me what I was carrying and I told him it was the backdrop to a movie display from the convention. He said “Sweet, did you get the Surfer also?”
Checkout a photo of the backdrop and me pretending to be the Silver Surfer here: http://www.christophergiles.com/SilverSurfer/SilverSurfer02.jpg
I decided that I was never going to be able to get the backdrop into the Westin Elevator to get into the parking garage, so I left the backdrop and my friend, who had been limping the entire weekend on a fractured ankle, on a bench outside of the Westin Ballrooms. I made my way to my Ford Explorer and exited the garage and pulled up to the door where my friend was waiting (you guys know the one, it’s beside the entrance to the parking garage). My friend told me tales of several people nearly stepping on the display (it was laying in the floor) and how everyone kept asking “Did you get the Surfer, also?”
I suddenly had a horrible realization…a cardboard backdrop for a Silver Surfer is slightly larger than the back of a Ford Explorer. I laid the back seats down, but it did no good. I unpacked all of my luggage and repacked, but it did no good. I tried pushing it in, but it did no good. I turned it around, but it did no good. At some point during all of this, artist extraordinary Mark Brooks came walking through and kind of looked my direction. I waved and said “check out the great backdrop I got.” He said “Cool! Did you get the Surfer?” I said no. He walked way.
The final solution to the ordeal involved slightly bowing the backdrop to make it less wide. I then pushed the front seats as far forward as they would possibly go (my friend wasn’t too keen on the idea of his lame ankle being crammed up under the dash. I consoled him with the thought that he could get his picture taken in front of the background someday. He said it would have been better if I had gotten the Surfer also. I got the back gate of the Explored closed by making sure that the background rested comfortably in it’s back window. It was a completely tight fit and there was no fear of it moving…at all.
On the trip home, I wanted a snack from the back, but decided against it, since I couldn’t get to my luggage.
Once we made it to my friend’s house, we pulled the backdrop out and unloaded his stuff, then reloaded my stuff, and then did the delicate dance of getting the backdrop back into the vehicle. A lady came jogging past us on the sidewalk and nearly ran into a fire hydrant as she watched too grown men at around 11 at night standing in a driveway holding a gigantic picture of an exploding building. She probably wondered if I got the Surfer too.
Once I got home, I realized I had no place to put the backdrop that night, so I placed it behind my bed.
Checkout a photo of the backdrop behind my bed here: http://www.christophergiles.com/SilverSurfer/SilverSurfer03.jpg
So that’s my story. I have a large portion of the original backdrop that goes with this particular Silver Surfer statue. All it needs to be complete is…well, the Silver Surfer himself. Much like poor Norrin Radd (the Surfer) has been separated from his love, Shalla-Bal, so has this backdrop been separated from its Silver Surfer statue. Please put these two back together where they belong. If I am chosen, I will gladly drive from Tennessee to North Carolina in a large enough vehicle to pick up the Surfer and then see that he is reunited with his missing backdrop.
As often as Galactus seems to be stopping by to give Chris trouble I don’t think the Surfer will have any left over time for protecting the galaxy if he goes there. On the other hand, if his home base were here in Greenville SC with me he doesn’t have those issues and we will all sleep better knowing that the galaxy is okay.
I left out something. The magic words that my mom taught me to always use and it has been my experience that they possess the same strength as the Power Cosmic in some situations. “Please” and “Thank you”. Please allow me the opportunity to show you that I am worth to wield the Power Cosmic. Thank you for considering my request.
Okay, after much deliberation, I think we have a clear winner, ALTHOUGH I’d like to formally tip my hat to “Chris”, he of the drunken Galactus–although we’d prefer to keep some of those quasi-swears off the blog, please thank you–which was a great attempt and the front runner for most of the time, and Bobby Cassell for tugging on our heartstrings with his story of fatherly convention attendance.
BUT “Dazzler_Fan”, he of the rather unmanly Internet appellation, has won. His story of adversity and snacktime-skipping has cinched it. Drop me an e-mail, Dazzler_Fan, and let us know when you can pick this big shiny fella up, and it’s yours! Congratulations, and thanks most of all for your loyal patronage of HeroesCon. Now you’ve got a great story, and an even better conversation piece. Depending, of course, on the type of conversation you’re looking to get started.
Congrats Chris!
Good choice guys! I don’t mind missing out to someone who alreday has part of the display! Congratulations Chris!
Wow! I just got home tonight and read the email newsletter! I’m thrilled to hear that I’m the winner of the Silver Surfer. Never in my wildest dreams did I think back in June that I would be able to get the matching Surfer to go with that background.
Dustin – I just sent an email to you.
Royce – always good to hear from you, my friend!
If people are reading this blog, I’m sure that they are already big supporters of Heroes Aren’t Hard To Find and HeroesCon. I just want to thank them for putting on a fantastic, family-friendly show each year that puts the entire focus on comics and comics art. Shows like this are getting so hard to find. I’m glad that this shop puts on this show each year. Here’s to many, many more years to come!