Latest Purchases #57

I celebrate the Year of Luigi not just by picking up games with Mr. Green Stache but by picking up a pen sized 3DS Baby Luigi bobble head stylus. I think playing Art Academy with this thing may feel more natural than with a regular sized stylus. 

I use to own The Sims on PS2 but I traded it in years ago. fye got in a used copy and although there have been a copious amount of The Sims games since the original, I remember really liking this one, even if it was more involved than say, Animal Crossing.

Still one of the best shows on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim lineup, Robot Chicken has been consistently good from the very beginning. I picked up seasons three and four on DVD over a year ago. I started on season four but only got about four episodes in before other things took my attention. Considering the original $30 asking price that fye had, I'd say $12.95 was chump change. Season six comes out in early October so I really should resume season four so I can move on to season five and be ready for season six.

Show me someone that hates the original Looney Tunes and I'll show you a big, fat liar. Like so many others, I grew up watching these theatrical shorts on TV. So it was a pleasant surprise to see this new arrival at Barns & Nobles. The Looney Tunes Treasury is a 121 page hardcover that features tons of goodies from the famous Warner Bros. icons like concept art, original scripts, short comics, pages dedicated to numerous theatrical posters and a whole lot more. A lot of the things contained in this book are things I've never even laid eyes on before and I always get a kick out of seeing this sort of stuff. The original price for this book was $45, but Barns & Nobles was selling it for $9.95. Talk about a steal.

The world would be a much poorer place without Charles Schultz Peanuts comic strip and the dozes of TV specials. Similar to the Looney Tunes Treasury, The Peanuts Collection has a plethora of Peanuts goodies like comic strips scattered about the book (including the very first Peanuts comic), animation cells, letters from Peanuts fans and the art evolution of the Peanuts gang. There's also tons of interesting stories and factoids. I never knew that Charlie Brown's love interest, the little red-haired girl was inspired by a real woman in Schultz's own life, who turned down a marriage proposal from him. The Peanuts Collection is only 62 pages, but this sweet hardcover comes in a nice hardbound slip case. The original price was $35, but Barns & Nobles was practically giving it away for $9.95. This was also one of their new arrivals and it must have been one of the more popular ones because they were down to two copies when I saw it. 

Yoshitakta Amano is known in anime circles for his beyond exceptional artwork on the Vampire Hunter D series, but when he signed on as the artist for the original 1987 Final Fantasy, he ensured that his name would be forever linked to Square Enix's flagship franchise. I cannot say how much I love Amano's gorgeous hand draw art. It is simply beautiful to look at. The Sky: The Art of Final Fantasy contains hardcover books bound in a lovely thick slipcase. The page count for the all three combined books is 576 with. Book 1 contains art from Final Fantasy I-III, book 2 has the art from Final Fantasy IV-VI and is the thickest of the three, and book 3 has art from Final Fantasy VII-X. You can see a lot of this art on the internet, but this three book set is easily one of the best things I've ever spent money on. At $56 on Amazon, it was costly, but compared to the original price, which is close to $100, I feel this is a very good bargain. This is actually the Slipcase Edition and not the Limited Edition set that came with extra stuff and will set you back almost $600.