My brother and I still remember playing Crossbows and Catapults Christmas morning o so many years ago! Hours and hours of fun! Wow! Thanks for the memories!      

The MM2 cover looks different.

Traveller wrote:Oh, and the MM2 cover looks normal, comparing it to my copy.

Is there a prototype version out there?  As that's definitely not the cover I'm familiar with.

I noticed that the page counts don't match either.  They say 100 pages for MMII, while the TSR Archive says 160.

Speaking of differences: anyone care to pull out their copies of the core books (pre-orange spine) and check the spines for me?  (I'd do so myself, but I'm not at home at the moment.)  There are yellow diagonal banners visible on the books stacked under their MMII, but I don't recall any of them having a red spine.

The other spines also look greenish to me, but I'm going to assume that's just the age of the catalog that's causing some colour shift.

g026r wrote:
Is there a prototype version out there?  As that's definitely not the cover I'm familiar with. :?

You're right; those covers do look funny.  The MMII cover looks close to the published version, like maybe it's a proposal/mock-up for the final cover painting.

My understanding is there's a pretty long lead time on catalog photos. As  this is the 1983 Wish Book, it's entirely possible those photos are from early in the year, before MMII was published.

Frank's always known a lot about TSR licensing.  Maye he has some insight into how TSR dealt with department store catalogs?

Boy, do I feel silly. I accidentally found something that was more interesting than I realized.

That's definitely some sort of mock-up cover on the MMII:

The halberd head is to the bottom right, whereas in the final version it is to the bottom left;

The giant has a different helmet and a different pose;

There is no human target.

I remember seeing this mock-up cover somewhere before; it might even be from this catalog, though I recall it being more face-on.

And the coloration of those spines is very intriguing...

Contrarian wrote:maybe it's a proposal/mock-up for the final cover painting

Mock-ups were pretty common for toys, like the infamous Lando Calrissian made from a Hardy Boys doll in blackface.

No worries  

DungeonDelver wrote: Who got to keep them?  Where are they now?

I know not, but with this link maybe you can find them.:
http://theswca.com/index.php?action=dis ... m_id=48837

DungeonDelver wrote:
No no, I'm sorry...I meant the minis in the catalog.  But thanks for the link!

"Hey Billy Dee, this guy from the toy company wants to show you the new doll for your Star Wars guy."

"Hmm...there's something not quite right here."

Last time I saw Billy Dee Williams anywhere was at GenCon in 2001.  He sat at a signing table about 8-10 feet from our booth and I watched him sign things for hours.  That was the most bored man I have ever seen.  I wonder if they could have caught that expression of boredom in an action figure's face!