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HELLO AND WELCOME TO VHS WASTELAND, YOUR HOME FOR HIGH RESOLUTION SCANS OF RARE, STRANGE, AND FORGOTTEN VHS COVERS. EACH OF THESE BIZARRE GEMS IS SCANNED AT 200 DPI. SIMPLY CLICK ON THE THUMBNAIL OF ANY VHS COVER TO DOWNLOAD THE FULL HIGH RES FORMAT. WE WILL BE ADDING A NEW COVER DAILY, SO BOOKMARK THIS SITE AND CHECK BACK OFTEN. WE'D ALSO LOVE SUBMISSIONS FROM YOU. IF YOU HAVE A VHS THAT IS WEIRD OR RARE, JUST EMAIL US AT MADHATTERDESIGN@GMAIL.COM. REMEMBER TO SCAN THE FRONT, BACK AND SIDES OF THE VHS AT 300 DPI. WE WON'T ACCEPT LOW RESOLUTION FILES. WHILE YOU'RE HERE, GRABBING OUR AWESOME FREE VHS COVERS, FEEL FREE TO CLICK THE "DONATE" BUTTON ON THE LEFT. IF ENOUGH PEOPLE SEND US SOME CASH, WE MIGHT BE TEMPTED TO KEEP BRINGING YOU THE COOLEST, HIGH RES VHS COVERS ON THE NET. BUT IF YOU GREEDY, COVER GRABBING... I MEAN... YOU WONDERFUL VISITORS TO OUR SITE, DON'T COUGH UP A DONATION, MAYBE WE'LL JUST FIND SOMETHING BETTER TO DO WITH OUR TIME. LIKE GO MAKE NACHOS. MMMMM... NACHOS. SO HELP A BROTHA OUT AND DONATE A LITTLE DOUGH TO THE CAUSE.
LASTLY, WHY NOT VISIT OUR PARENT SITE (SERIALKILLERCALENDAR.COM). IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH VHS COVERS BUT I THINK YOU MIGHT BE PLEASANTLY SURPRISED BY WHAT YOU FIND. OR NOT. I DON'T KNOW YOU. MAYBE YOUR NOT SURPRISED BY ANYTHING. MAYBE YOUR THE KIND OF GUY THAT SEES A COW FALL OUT OF THE SKY AND EXPLODE LIKE A PIÑATA AND YOUR ALL LIKE "HUH, THAT WAS WEIRD." MAN. WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU ANYWAY? JEEZ. SOME PEOPLE.
BUT NO. SERIOUSLY. GO BUY SOME CRAZY AWESOME TRUE CRIME MERCHANDISE AT SERIALKILLERCALENDAR.COM. INCLUDING THE SERIAL KILLER MAGAZINE, THE SERIAL KILLER TRADING CARDS AND MUCH MUCH MORE! DO IT. DO IT NOW. CLICK THE LINK. |
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HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN DVD COVERS FROM THESE VHS COVERS
OVER THE YEARS I HAVE TRADED HARD TO FIND DVDS WITH COUNTLESS COLLECTORS AND I HAVE HEARD THE SAME COMPLAINT A MILLION TIMES. "GEE GOLLY, I HAVE SO MANY HARD TO FIND DVDS IN MY COLLECTION BUT MOST OF THEM DONT HAVE DVD COVERS. I WOULD LOVE TO BE ABLE TO PUT THEM ON DISPLAY IN A DVD SHELF BUT DANG IT, I HAVE NO IDEA HOW TO MAKE COVERS FOR THEM." I'M PARAPHRASING OF COURSE. HARD CORE DVD COLLECTORS TEND TO HAVE A MORE COLORFUL VOCABULARY. WELL, YOUR IN LUCK. ON THIS PAGE, I WILL OUTLINE A STEP BY STEP METHOD TO TURN THE OBSCURE VHS COVERS ON THIS SITE IN TO HIGH QUALITY DVD COVERS. FOR SOME OF YOU, THIS MAY BE OBVIOUS. IF SO, WHY THE HECK ARE YOU STILL READING THIS? FOR THE REST OF YOU, READ ON.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE DVD COVER TEMPLATE FILE
STEP ONE: GET PHOTOSHOP
PHOTOSHOP IS AN AMAZING PROGRAM. IT IS ESSENTIAL FOR THE SERIOUS DVD COLLECTOR WHO WANTS TO CREATE HIS OWN CUSTOM COVERS. YOU COULD GET BY WITH A NUMBER OF OTHER LESSER PROGRAMS, BUT IN MY OPINION, NOTHING BEATS PHOTOSHOP.
STEP TWO: DOWNLOAD THE DVD COVER TEMPLATE FILE ABOVE.
YOU WILL FIND THE LINK TO THIS FILE ABOVE. THIS IS A PHOTOSHOP PSD FILE. AFTER YOU INSTALL PHOTOSHOP, DOWNLOAD THIS FILE AND OPEN IT. I HAEV SET THIS FILE TO THE WIDTH AND HEIGHT OF A DVD FILE (AT 200 DPI). I HAVE ALSO INSERTED HELPFUL GUIDELINES AROUND THE OUTSIDE EDGES AND SEPERATED THE FRONT COVER, THE DVD SPINE AND THE BACK COVER.
STEP THREE: FIND THE VHS COVER YOU WANT
HUNT THROUGH THE SITE AND TRACK DOWN THE COVER YOU WANT. EVERY PAGE OF THIS SITE IS CHOCK FULL OF HARD TO FIND VHS COVERS (FROM HORROR TO FAMILY TO EXPLOITATION). YOU ARE SURE TO FIND SOMETHING THAT YOU CAN USE. ONCE YOU FIND THE COVER YOU WANT, SAVE THE HIGH RES VERSION OF IT TO YOUR COMPUTER AND OPEN IT IN PHOTOSHOP.
STEP FOUR: MAKING IT FIT YOUR DVD TEMPLATE
COPY THE VHS IMAGE IN TO YOUR NEW DVD COVER TEMPLATE. THE FIRST THING YOU WILL NOTICE IS THAT THE VHS COVER IS NOT QUITE THE SAME SIZE AS YOUR DVD COVER. THE QUICK AND EASY SOLUTION IS TO PRESS CTRL T TO TRANSFORM THE IMAGES SIZE. BY PULLING THE CORNERS OF YOUR IMAGE, THE VHS COVER SHOULD SNAP EASILY TO THE GUIDELINES AROUND THE FILE. AND POOF, YOU NOW HAVE A DVD COVER FOR THAT HARD TO FIND DVD IN YOUR COLLECTION. IF YOU DECIDE YOU DONT SIMPLY WANT TO STRETCH THE VHS IMAGE A LITTLE TO MAKE IT FIT (MAN YOUR PICKY) THEN MESS AROUND A BIT WITH THE MARQUEE TOOL. USE IT TO SELECT THE FRONT COVER, BACK COVER OR SPINE SEPARATELY. YOU CAN THEN SIMPLY CUT AND PASTE THE THREE SECTIONS, TRANSFORM THEM USING CTRL T AND BOBS YOUR UNCLE... A DVD COVER MASTERPIECE.
STEP FIVE: PRINTING
WHEN YOUR WONDERFUL NEW DVD COVER IS FINISHED, YOU COULD SIMPLY PRINT IT AT HOME. OR, IF YOU ARE A TRULY SERIOUS COLLECTOR WHO WANTS NOTHING BUT THE BEST FOR HIS DVD SHELF, YOU MIGHT WANT TO CHECK AROUND IN YOUR TOWN AND FIND A LOCAL PRINTING COMPANY. MOST PRINTING COMPANIES WOULD BE MORE THAN HAPPY TO PRINT THESE COVERS FOR YOU AT A DIRT LOW PRICE (ON MUCH NICER PAPER). IN THE LONG RUN, THIS OPTION IS FAR CHEAPER THAN PAYING FOR PRINTER PAPER OR INK AND THE FINAL RESULT IS USUALLY MUCH NICER.
WELL, THATS IT FOLKS. OBVIOUSLY A LITTLE EXPERIMENTING IN PHOTOSHOP WILL BRING YOU FAR NICER RESULTS BUT I HAVE NEITHER THE TIME OR THE PATIENTS TO DESCRIBE ALL OF THAT IN DETAIL. IF YOU HAVE ANY VHS COVERS OR DVD COVERS YOU WOULD LIKE TO SUGGEST FOR THE SITE, PLEASE FEEL FREE TO CONTACT ME AT MADHATTERDESIGN@GMAIL.COM. LATER GATORS. |
OUR WISH LIST OF MOST WANTED VHS COVERS/VHS TAPES
1. Anything From Something Weird Video: Campy Classroom Scare Films, weird old exploitation, anything at all. We love the strange covers on the old Something Weird Video VHS tapes. The problem is, for such a famous company, their crazy covers are almost impossible to find on the internet. If anyone has some they want to scan and submit to the site, we would be very very happy to get them.
2. Crazy 80s PSAs: The 80s was notorious for pumping out one crazy public safety VHS after another. Anti-Drugs, Anti-sex, Anti-rock music. If kids wanted to do it, there was a weird PSA VHS telling them not to. We love these things and if you have any in your collection, we would love to get scans of them. As always, the stranger the better.
3. "Dancing Grannies" and Other Weird Exorcize VHS: This is exactly what it sounds like. A workout video where old women are breaking it down with their sweet dance moves. I have been trying to find this cover for a while. If you have this or any other crazy exorcize VHS, we would love to add it to the site.
4. Strange Cartoons: If you have any unusual cartoon VHS (the stranger the better) we would love to add it to the site.
5. "The Devil And Max Devlin" and Other Old Live Action Disney VHS: It's not that rare and its not that weird but I love this movie and I have always wanted to add the cover to my collection. This odd little Disney movie features Bill Crosby as the devil (or at least, a devil). We are also looking for covers to "Mr Boogedy" and any other rare, strange or old Disney VHS (the kind that Disney seems to pretend they never made).
6. "Back Side to The Future" and other Rare Porn Spoofs: I love the fact that these strange oddities of porn ever existed. Edward Penis Hands, Backside To The Future, The Beavis and Butthead Porno, Beetlejism, Super Hornio Brothers, Jurassic Pork, Flintbones, Alice In Wonderland : An X-Rated Musical Comedy, Aventures érotiques de Pinocchio, Justice League XXX, The Maddams Family, Nightmare on Dyke Street, Nightmare on Porn Street, Penetrator, The Poonies, The Sex Files : le Portrait de Crystal, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Souperman, Splatman, Super Sexgirl, The Texas Dildo Masquerade, The Adult Version of Jekyll and Hyde, the rare German ET The Porno or it's strange Brazilian cousin, Keep Up The Lust ET. These rare porn rip offs are entertaining just in the fact that they where ever made and we would love to get scans (or copies) of any of them.
7. "Deception of A Generation" and Other Weird Religious Stuff: I love these things. They are so strange that it boggles the mind just to think about them. Time traveling Jesus and bizarre muppets telling kids not to touch themselves. Crazy Mormon claymation and preachers ranting about how Scooby Doo is a tool of Satan. We are always looking for things like this and the stranger, the better. Just when I think I have seen it all, I find one of these and think "wow... that's insane." And before people start sending me nasty emails for bashing religion (which oddly almost never happens) let me confess that I myself am Christian (something that most of my customers would never expect and my friends and family often give me a hard time about). But even a good Christian has to be amused by the some of the off the wall, pure insanity that comes form a lot of these wonderfully odd VHS treasures.
8. "How To Score More Points on Nintendo Games" and Other Old Video Game VHS tapes: Back in the stone age of video games, companies created a ton of these how to style VHS tapes for various game systems. Some other titles we are looking for include: Anything from the "Game Player's GameTape for Nintendo" series and anythign video game related. The older and stranger, the better!
9. "Why Charlie Brown Why?" and Other Cartoons That Should Never Have Been Made: This is the very rare vhs where Charlie Browns friend gets cancer. The description on the case says "a classmate's serious illness becomes a lesson in life for the Peanuts kids". It is very very sad and the whole time you are watching it, all you can think is, why did they make this? If you haev this or any other cartoon/TV show that makes you say "what is wrong with these people?" we would love to add them to the site.
10. "Winnie The Pooh, To Smart For Strangers" and Other Examples of Kids Icons Talking About Inappropriate Things: This is crazy. It is a feature length film/tv show where the cast of Winnie the Pooh talk and sing about child molesters. Wikipedia says this is "a 1985 TV special (which was also released to home video), where Pooh and his friends explain to people about strangers and molestation and what to do." Again, why would they make this? It is just creepy. I would love to get a cover scan of this or, if someone wanted to really make my day and get promoted on the website for years to come, I would very much love to be sent a copy of the vhs itself to add to my collection. Other examples of this catagory include the rare Sonic The Hedgehog episode where he talks about child molesters or the Captain Planet Episode Where the team talks about Aids. I know these are important subjects to talk about with your kids but... seriously!? Who thought any of that was a good idea?
Well, that's about it for now. We will be adding a ton more to this list as time goes on so check back often. Now... if anyone is interested in joining our team and contributing something from this list (or any rare or strange VHS cover to our site) read on for more details. Thanks for taking the time to read my mad rants and enjoy the site.
PS: Wouldn't you enjoy the site a lot more if you where part of it? Sure you would. Contact James at madhatterdesign@gmail.com to join our ever growing team!
PEOPLE WHO SENT US SCANS FROM OUR WISH LIST
JONATHAN PLOMBON: GAME PLAYERS GAMETAPE NUMBER 12
JONATHAN PLOMBON: SHATTER DEAD : SOMETHING WEIRD VIDEO
RICHARD BRISTOW: BAMBI MEETS GODZILLA AND OTHER WEIRD CARTOONS
ABOUT OUR WISH LIST OF VHS COVERS
I have been collecting hard to find VHS tapes for most of my life. My collection has gotten... a little out of control. The misses says I am not permitted to bring home any more bags (or boxes) of VHS tapes so most of the time I sneak them in when shes not home. Crap, she might actually read this. "I mean I... um... found those five truck loads of tapes". Er... "I'm just holding them for a friend?" Yeah, lets go with that one. Thankfully here in Bangor, Maine (home of Stephen King, SerialKillerCalendar.com and not much else) we live in the land that time forgot. While DVDs are quickly going the way of the dodo, here in the backwoods of America, VHS tapes are still extremely easy to come by. We have several pawn shops, Salvation Armies, Goodwills and other various thrift stores which normally carry a nice selection of discarded VHS treasures. We are also lucky enough to have an Edge Video and a Bullmouse (local video stores that sell their random VHS tapes for as low as 30 cents each. 30 cents EACH! How can any sane minded collector pass up a deal like that? I mean, you could easily turn around and sell most of the tapes they practically give away on ebay for 10 to 20 times that low low price.
Still, despite the abundance of VHS gold in my home town, there are many unusual masterpieces of VHS lore that I have not been able to find here in the quaint, creepy, secluded town of Bangor. Below you will find an ever growing list of the VHS covers that I would most like to add to VHS WASTELAND. Many of these can be purchased on ebay, Amazon, ioffer or other online stores. If anyone out there wants to contribute one or more of these rare gems to us, we would give you full credit on the site (on our links page, our thank you page, our staff page, any page that displays the cover(s) you submit, on this page and on many other pages of this website). You can submit one of these treasures by scanning the cover and sending it to James at madhatterdesign@gmail.com (click here to find out how) or if you really want to be our very best friend and get promoted like crazy all over the site like frikin royalty, you can contact James and find out where to mail the actual VHS tape to add to our dangerously large collection. If it was not obvious, this is the option we are really hoping you will pick.
WHAT YOU GET IF YOU SUBMIT ONE OR MORE OF THESE COVERS
That was a lot of text above, wasn't it? I understand if you decided not to read all that. So, to recap the important bits... If you submit a scan of one of the VHS covers below we will give you full credit on the site (on our links page, our thank you page, our staff page, any page that displays the cover(s) you submit, on this page and on many other pages of this website). If you are the best person in the world and decide you want to mail the actual VHS tape to add to our crazy huge collection of strange and wonderful VHS tapes, you will be treated like a god on this site. We will find many ways to promote you (And any site of your choice) and build new pages just to sing your praise. We will also show you ways to download all our covers at once, give you access to future posts (sometimes months in advance) before anyone else can see them, show you how to get almost all the videos that go with the covers on our site (we have ways) and shower you with praise all over the internet. Obviously, this is the option we hope you go with. Wither way, we hope you will decide to be part of the team and we really hope you can track down some of the amazingly strange items on our "please-send-these-to-us-and-we-will-be-your-best-friend list." Happy hunting.
WHERE TO FIND THE ITEMS ON OUR WISH LIST
If you are lucky, you may already have some of these in your collection. It may have been an impulse by at your local video store that has been gathering dust in the back of your collection for years. In which case, why not send it to us? We will gladly dust it every day. If you don't see anything below that you own, many of these strange gems can be purchased on sites like ebay, Amazon, ioffer and other auction sites or online stores. If they are not, try a google search. You never know what you might find.
WHAT WE DO NOT WANT
As much as we would love to get have you send us these VHS tapes, we really do not want them if they are missing the covers. After all, that's what this site is all about. We would still really appreciate the gesture and we would love to get any VHS tape in the mail (not just the ones below) but please make sure that the tape comes with it's cover. It does not need to be in perfect shape. Even if a big part of it is torn, splurred (made up word to describe when your kids spill grape juice on a $75 big box copy of Zombithon) or partially missing, we would still love to get it. But please do not send VHS tapes with no cover at all. That just makes us sad.
HOW TO SUBMIT COVERS
If you are interested in sending us a scan of one something from our wish list (or any other rare or weird VHS tape in your collection), click HERE to download a Photoshop template that shows the exact size and dimensions that your submission should be. PLEASE do not cut or take apart the VHS cover to scan it. That is a horrible horrible crime against nature and we would never condone someone destroying a VHS cover simply for the sake of posting it on this site. Scan the front, back and side of the VHS separately and then use a program like Photoshop to combine the three scans in to one file. Again, you can find step by step instructions on how to do this and a PSD template (that includes guidelines to separate the front and back covers from the spine, by clicking HERE. After submitting one or more scans, we will add you to our staff section (and give you a nifty VHS cover icon) and add you to our links page (if you have a website you want to promote). You (and, if you like, your website, ebay store, facebook/myspace account or other online location) will be given full credit for you contribution anywhere you VHS cover appears on the site. Note to ebay store owners: this is a really great way to send lots of traffic to your store (especially if you sell anything VHS related) since our many MANY daily visitors are the target demographic that would be most interested in what you have for sale.
If you are interested in being one of our favorite people and want to be promoted all over this site (and treated like the King of all VHS land), you can mail us your VHS tapes to add to our collection.
Regardless of how you want to submit (cover scans or mailing us your tapes) you can contact our fearless leader, James at madhatterdesign@gmail.com for more information.
A SPECIAL NOTE TO EBAY STORE OWNERS (AND OTHER ONLINE STORES)
Do you own an ebay store or ioffer store that specializes in VHS tapes or VHS related items? Do you sell rare tapes, dvds, movie posters or other interesting goodies that our visitors would like? If so, a great way to drum of traffic to your ebay store is to send us VHS cover scans (either ones on this wish list or other rare/weird gems). You would give full credit for your contribution anywhere that your covers appear on the site. We would also include a link that says something like "CLICK HERE TO VISIT HIS EBAY STORE OF STRANGE AND WONDERFUL THINGS" anywhere your contributions appear on VHS WASTELAND. The more covers you submit, the more exposure your store gets. And, of course, if you sell anything VHS related on your store, this would drastically increase the price your auctions sell for since our many MANY daily visitors are the target demographic that would be most interested in what you have for sale. There is no limit to how many covers you can contribute and for every link we put up, traffic to your store will increase. Not to mention the fact that having a ton of links from our site will greatly increase your search engine ranking on search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo. It's a win win for both of us!
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