Inhumanoids - A Big Coloring Book

Ah, the 80's.  What a wonderful time to be a kid.  There were so many creative and imaginative properties during the time.  One of which was Hasbro's Inhumanoids.  Sadly I never owned any of the toys as a kid.  Guess I was too into G.I. Joe and Transformers for my parents to buy me anything else.  I wasn't able to catch many of the cartoon episodes on Saturday morning television either.  Inhumanoids as a whole was rather short lived so it passed and was mostly forgotten about.  That is until the age of the internet!

One of the good things about my current re-organizing project I'm undertaking at home right now is it's getting my hands on things that have been buried away for a long time.  When I bought the cartoon series on DVD years ago it got me all jazzed up again about Inhumanoids.  I searched the 'net to see what kind of merchandise (i.e. toys) I could find.  The toys can be found, but most of the time they are horribly incomplete or broken.  If you do find any in good condition the asking prices will usually scare you away.  During one of those searches I came across a Golden brand coloring book.  I don't remember what I paid, but I'm sure it was a deal since I don't normally buy coloring books.  I haven't seen this book in a very long time until recently so I wanted to pick out a few pages to share.

This book has a copyright of 1986.  It's rather thin, but still cool none the less.  If you've seen the cartoon and you know about the toys then you'll know there are some differences in the two.  The coloring book actually tells a story of the Inhumanoids and the Earth Corps.  Most of the art in the book seems to be modeled after the toys and not the animation models.  Bummer as the show was way cooler than the toys.  That said I still would love to get my hands on the 3 big monsters.

Metlar was the leader of the Inhumanoids and featured the ability to pull out flaming molten rocks out of his mouth.

D'Compose was the freakiest looking of the 3 as he was some sort of decomposed dinosaur mutant skeleton creature.  This art here is a prime example that it was based more on the toy as the animation model didn't have to stupid pony tail.

D'Compose was voiced by the late great Chris Latta (Cobra Commander, Starscream).  With just one touch he could mutate the living.  Check out this clip from the cartoon to see what I'm talking about.

There is no freakin' way a cartoon like this could air on today's television.  What were my parents thinking letting me watch this as a kid!  You have to track down the DVDs of the show as it is excellent.  Just watching this clip makes me want to pop the DVDs in again.

Tendril was the plant like monster.  In toy form he is the easiest to find in my opinion.

The Earth Corps. was a group of scientists that battled the Inhumanoids.  They were led by Herc Armstrong.

Auger was the hot head of the trio.  I believe he was voiced by Michael Bell (Duke, Prowl) in the cartoon.

Liquidator was the demolitions expert of the Earth Corps.

Dr. Derek Bright was for some reason not shown in his battle suit in the book.

The scientists weren't alone in their battles with Metlar and the Inhumanoids.  Granok was the leader of his race of rock creatures and often aided the Earth Corps.

Redlen was the leader of the Redwoods and often clashed with Tendril.  Do you think Wes Craven took some inspiration for his killer's mask from the look of Redlen?

Magnokor could split himself into two separate pieces.  He controls electromagnetic waves and could imprison Metlar.

As I mentioned earlier most of the artwork here is mediocre since it's based on the toy designs.  These pages here are probably the best of the bunch.  As a kid I don't think I would've cared about how good the drawings were.  Heck, I don't think most kids back in the 1986 would've even noticed or cared that the art wasn't based on the cartoon.

I hope you enjoyed taking a look at this odd ball piece of Inhumanoids merchandise.

Transformers Generation 2 "Decepticon Danger" Coloring & Activity Book

What kid didn't enjoy sitting down with a new coloring book a pack of fresh crayons? I loved it when my grandmother would buy me a new coloring book...especially as I got old and more anal about staying between the lines. I can't say I remember this particular coloring book as a kid or even when/where I acquired this book, but I recently found it again during the move of my man cave/toy room.

The book has a 1993 copyright of Honey Bear Books and is entitled Decepticon Danger. As you can see it features the Construction Scrapper on the front. It has a price of $1.29 pre-printed in the upper right corner. Have you seen what coloring books cost now? $5.00 or more!

The back features the original box art for G1 Dinobot Grimlock. Modern Publishing is listed on the back so I'm not sure who the publisher is...but who cares. What's important are the blank pages ready to be colored...right?

The illustrations are by Tony and Tony Tallarico.  Apparently he has a multiple personalities...or a brother.  Not sure.  Written by Lara Bergen.  What a minute.  Since when did coloring books have writers?!

If it wasn't for Sideswipe's name being on the spoiler and the huge 'SS' on the side of the car you might think that was Red Alert rushing to put out the fire with Inferno. Then again this is a coloring book so who says you have to color in Sideswipe in his G2 (or G1) colors. Why not color him red and white?

Look. Even a drawing of the G2 Optimus Prime toy has the cab ever so slightly angled. That large sound box that attaches to the front of his trailer makes it impossible for the Optimus to ever drive in a straight line!

G2 Starscream and Ramjet. I always wondered why they chose Ramjet for inclusion in G2. Why not Thundercracker or Dirge?  Why does Ramjet not have the traditional cone head?

When you ready the quote on this page can't you just hear Peter Cullen's iconic voice? I know I can.

Growing up my coloring books didn't really make me think. These days (and even in the early 90s) they started to mix in puzzles, mazes and word searches into coloring books. I'm not against learning or anything, but as a kid I would've skipped over these pages. At least they threw in some smaller drawings on this word search page to color.

This is about as much action as you'll get in this book.  Look at the great writing here by Lara.  Great work!

I had to include a scan of this page since it featured Constructicon Bonecrusher and one of the Skyscorcher jets.

Overall this is a pretty good coloring book. It only contains 15 total pages, but it still makes for a nice Transformers collectible. If you enjoyed this review let me know as I have another coloring book to share on down the road.