Rick’s Chachkas Contest Results

Originally published July 16, 1993, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1026

Well, here we are at last. The results of the legendary Rick’s Chachkas contest.

1) In answer to those people who wanted to know what “Chachkas” are: It’s a Yiddish word that basically means “stuff.” Knickknacks, assorted belongings. There are variant spellings, of course, but this is the one I chose.

2) The scoring was done as follows: Every single entry (all three hundred of them) was gone through and put in order of the number of items named. Consequently, we didn’t have to score every entry once we got below a number where it was mathematically possible for an entry to win. Nobody got every single item.

3) I went strictly by George Perez’s list. If it’s not on George’s list, it didn’t count. (For example, on one shelf George tossed in some random squiggly lines which were variously identified as Rom’s Neutralizer, Klaw’s Sonic Blasters, and other stuff. It was an interesting little Rorschach test, but that’s all.) If an item was misidentified, it didn’t count. (For example, that was not Wonder Woman’s lasso. That was Wonder Girl’s (Troia’s) lasso, distinguishable since it wasn’t glowing. So if you said it was Diana’s lariat, too bad. And no, I didn’t give half points. This isn’t grade school.) Nor did you get extra points for doing more work than was necessary. Although I appreciated the efforts of those folks who listed exactly when and where Iron Man wore each particular helmet or chest plate, it wasn’t necessary. On George’s list it simply appeared as “Iron Man Chest Plates” and “Iron Man Helmets.”

4) At least one person tried to cheat, but we caught him fairly early on. First off, in scoring all the entries, certain patterns emerged. For example, most of them started with “Thor’s Helmet,” since that was the dominant image on the left hand side of the double-paged spread. A couple of people alphabetized them. But one Colorado resident’s entry was all over the place, in no order whatsoever. This immediately put me in mind of Hannibal the Cannibal in Silence of the Lambs, looking over a killer’s pattern and commenting to Clarice Starling, “Doesn’t this look too aggressively random to you?” As if the entrant had an ordered list (such as George’s, which was grouped by helmets, capes, ashes, etc.) and, not wanting to appear to obvious, listed stuff haphazardly… and, consequently, was even more obvious.

But how could he cheat? Easy. There was an early draft of George’s list, which George had showed around and even gave to one or two folks before we knew we’d wind up doing a contest. However, this list had a couple of deliberate mistakes on it (just in case), such as listing the ashes of Tom Smith as being the ashes of his wife, Rita. The average comic fan doesn’t know Rita Smith from a hole in the wall, so when the Colorado entry listed “Rita Smith’s ashes” and several other subsequently-corrected items, that was enough to sink it.

So if someone shows you an “official” list which is at variance with this one, and says he got rooked or something, you now know the true story.

5) Capes weren’t always easy to attribute to specific individuals. A number of people did things such as, “Yellow cape, which could belong to,” and listed a whole bunch of people who might have worn it. What I wound up doing in those cases was crediting a right answer if one of the characters listed also appeared on George’s list, even if the other dozen possibilities did not.

6) The winner, then. First I should mention that the top runners up were Andy Mangels of Portland, OR; Michael Le Bosco of Farmingdale, New York; Adam Miner of Rumford, R.I. (who listed as helpers Messrs. Steve Ahlquist, Jon Brewster, Ed Fûqûá, Jim Blanchette, Marshall Vale, Dave Ray, and everyone who walked in the door at Atomic Comics); Brent Fishbaugh of Paulding, OH; and Nicholas Schleifer of Massapequa, New York. I may very well try to come up with some sort of consolation prize for those intrepid fellows.

But the winner was Mark Price of Fairfield, Ohio. When informed of his triumph, Mark proudly proclaimed, “Wow! I didn’t think I had little enough of A Life to win!” In addition to now trying to Get A Life, Mark is the proud owner of twelve bucks cash, and will be receiving the Marvel Age “Sachs & Violens” cover art as soon as Marvel’s through with it. By startling coincidence, Mark works as a caricature artist at Paramount’s Kings Island Amusement Park in Cincinnati, where I was sent last weekend by Paramount to do a Star Trek book signing. So Mark received his $12 personally which he then had me sign (and since defacing legal tender is a crime, so my next column may be written from prison.)

Here, then, is the official list. Although, as noted, George’s was grouped by categories, I took the liberty of retyping it into alphabetical order for scoring purposes, which simplified life immensely. And that’s how I’m presenting it to you.

1. Absorbing Man’s Ball and Chain
2. Adam Warlock’s Cape
3. AIM Helmet
4. Alvin’s Harmonica
5. Ant Man’s Helmet
6. Archie Andrew’s Riverdale sweater
7. Avenger’s Mansion Bricks
8. Avenger’s Quinjet diagram
9. Barbara Eden’s ashes
10. Batman’s batarang
11. Beast Pelt
12. Beast Portrait
13. Betty’s Ashes
14. Black Knight’s Helmet
15. Black Knight’s Sword
16. Black Panther’s Mask
17. Black Widow’s Bracelets
18. Black Widow Portrait
19. Blob’s ashes
20. Bobbie Chase’s ashes
21. Captain America’s Mask
22. Captain America’s shield
23. Captain America & Rick Portrait
24. Captain Marvel’s negabands
25. Captain Marvel Portrait
26. Cerebus #300
27. Clark Kent’s ashes
28. Cloak Cape
29. Cosmic Cube
30. Crimson Dynamo’s Helmet
31. Crow T. Robot’s Head
32. Cyclop’s visor
33. Daimon Hellstrom’s trident
34. Daredevil’s billyclub
35. Daredevil’s Portrait
36. Deathlock’s Right Arm
37. Doc Doom’s Mask
38. Doc Fate Cape
39. Doc Octopus’ arms
40. Doc Strange’s amulet
41. Doc Strange Portrait
42. Doc Strange Cape
43. Dynamo’s Belt
44. Fantastic 4 Portrait
45. Fantasticar
46. Flaming Carrot’s Head
47. Flare Cape
48. Flash TV program laserdisc
49. Franklin Richard’s Ashes
50. George Perez’s Ashes
51. Ghost Rider’s Cycle
52. Green Lantern’s power battery
53. Hawkeye’s bow, quiver and arrows
54. Hawkeye Portrait
55. Herbie Popnecker’s lollipops
56. Hobgoblin Cape
57. Hobgoblin pumpkin
58. Human Torch (orig.) Portrait
59. Infinity Gauntlet
60. Inhumans Portrait
61. Iron Man Chest Pieces (2)
62. Iron Man’s Helmet (5)
63. Jack of Hearts Portrait
64. Jarvis Portrait
65. Jean Gray’s Ashes
66. Kandor
67. Kryptonite Brick
68. Leader’s Ashes
69. Machine Man’s Head
70. Magneto’s Helmet
71. Magnus’ tunic
72. Mister Monster Portrait
73. Mockingbird’s Club
74. Mole Man Cape
75. Moon Knight’s belt
76. Nexus Portrait
77. Nova’s Helmet
78. Obsidian’s Cape
79. Paladin’s Helmet
80. Peter David’s Ashes
81. Phoenix Portrait
82. Prof. X’s chair (original)
83. Prof. X’s chair (modern)
84. Prof. X Portrait
85. Quasar’s Cape
86. Raven (Orig Titans) Cape
87. Red Skull’s Skull
88. Reed Richard’s Ashes (Sue’s couldn’t be found)
89. Rick Jones’ guitar
90. Robin’s Cape
91. Rom (Boxed)
92. Romulan Bird of Prey model
93. Sandman’s (Marvel’s) ashes
94. Scarlet Witch Cape
95. Scarlet Witch’s tiara
96. Sentinel’s Head
97. Serpent Crown
98. Shang Chi’s Tunic
99. Shang-Chi (MOKF) Portrait
100. Shatterstar Portrait
101. Shatterstar’s Sword
102. She (Hash-a-Mo-Tep’s) ashes
103. Silver Surfer’s Board
104. Sons of the Tiger Amulet
105. Spawn’s Necklace
106. Spider-Man’s Mask
107. Spider-Man’s web shooter
108. Spider-Woman’s Tunic
109. Stiltman’s Legs
110. Submariner’s belt, trunk’s and bracelets
111. Sunfire’s Mask
112. Superman Cape
113. Superman Portrait
114. Taskmaster’s shield
115. Texas Twister’s Hat & mask
116. Thing Portrait
117. Thing’s Skin
118. Thor’s Hammer
119. Thor’s Helmet
120. Titanium Man’s Helmet
121. Tom Servo
122. Tom Smith’s Ashes
123. Ultron’s Head
124. USAgent’s Mask
125. USAgent’s Shield
126. Vision’s Head
127. Warlock’s Head
128. Wasp’s ashes
129. Wizard’s Helmet
130. Wolverine Portrait
131. Wolverine’s Skeleton
132. Wonder Girl’s Lariat
133. Wonder Woman’s tiara
134. Wyatt Wingfoot Water bottle
135. Yellowjacket II’s helmet

—-

Thanks again to all those who took the time and energy to participate in a fairly demanding contest.

(In the wake of the settling of the Woody Allen/Mia Farrow custody case, Peter David, writer of stuff, was amazed when the judge on the one hand said he thought Allen might indeed be a child molestor, and on the other hand chided Allen for never bathing his kids. Geez, if Allen had admitted to bathing any of the children, he’d probably be doing 2-5 in Leavenworth right now. This is not to say that Woody Allen should have been granted custody. Me, I think they should have taken the kids away from both of them and awarded custody to Connie Chung and Maury Povitch. That would have solved a multitude of problems.)