By Anthony Taylor, author of the newly released Aurora Plastic Models Catalogs Volumes 1 and 2… I’m a sucker for many things and one of them is old-school catalogues for old-school products that don’t exist anymore. Pop-culture historian Anthony Taylor — author of the upcoming, long-awaited illustrated bio of artist George Wilson — clearly feels the same way. His Aurora Plastic Models Catalogs Volumes 1 and 2 — which were just released — collect the full-color sales pubs the defunct company put out from 1960 through 1977. We asked Anthony to highlight 13 of the grooviest Aurora model kits from the ’60s and ’70s, and here we are. Right on. — Dan — By ANTHONY TAYLOR Since childhood I have owned, assembled, painted, and spectacularly destroyed model kits manufactured by the Aurora Model Plastics company of 44 Cherry Valley Way, West Hempstead, N.Y. The venerable company lasted from 1950 to 1977 before closing their doors, and they released the most wonderful kits in the history of the plastic model hobby. Figures of the Universal monsters, DC and Marvel Superheroes, TV and movie cars and vehicles, knights, Musketeers, dinosaurs and cave people… if it was an Aurora, it was guaranteed exciting. My admiration for the company also includes kudos for their packaging, with box art created by illustrators like James Bama and Mort Künstler, some of the most talented artists in the field. Though the kits inside the box may have been less than accurate to the depictions on the outside, they were always a ball to build, admire, and ultimately destroy with firecrackers in a blaze of glory. What then? Build another — wash, rinse, repeat. My new books Aurora Plastic Models Catalogs Volumes 1 and 2 aggregate the full-color sales pamphlets the company released from 1960 through 1977, the years they released the models that fans and collectors enjoyed the most. Here’s a rundown on 13 amazing Aurora models you probably remember, or that you need to know about. — Frankenstein. The Monster that started it all! In 1961, Aurora’s advertising and promotional manager Bill Silverstein witnessed a line of kids wrapped around a city block in New York waiting to see a double feature of Universal’s original Dracula and Frankenstein films. An idea occurred to him; why not make model kits of the monsters? Silverstein tried to...