That’s not relevant to anything
I’m about to say, but we are ‘enjoying’ an August heatwave and I do want it end,
please.
I went to Collector-Fest 2019 this
morning. We don’t really have a lot of smaller, local collector’s fairs ‘round
here (we rely on the big ‘uns in London) so this was a nice change. Just a
small number of nerds selling things in a church hall for fair prices, some
refreshments and a Street Fighter II cabinet. It’s was what I always want church
fairs to be like – although I didn’t see any Rice Crispy or Cornflakes cakes, what
as that about? I thought as soon as you put anything in a church hall they just
sprung up like magic. I bumped into many people I knew, it was just a nice, pleasant
experience AND I didn’t have to get on a train in this heat, bonus.
Also, all of this:
More proof that something
doesn’t have to be big to be successful and proof that I don’t have to buy a
lot to get an Examples’ post out of it.
So are you sitting
comfortably? Then I’ll… oh, I bought Garth because someone gave me Wayne already
as a late birthday gift, I didn’t just buy Garth, I’m not that weird.
Movie Maniacs Chuckie!
£23 ($28.13)
This is my first Chucky. I first
saw Child’s Play when I was about 9, I am now 33 and despite this I have never owned
a figure, plush, doll, replica or fucking Halloween decoration of Billy
Bibbs The Lakeshore Strangler. I don’t know why I’m admitting this on the internet
because I’m sure it’s going to ruin my credibility with every living thing on
the planet, even the plants will judge me AS WELL THEY SHOULD because we all knows
plants are never offline, the ones in my garden are just attached to their
phones.
I have no idea why this is (the
Chucky figure not owning thing, the plants just really like Pokémon Go), I have
all kindsa Jason Vorhees and Michael Myers shit in my house. Anyway it’s
fitting then that my first Chuckie should be the first Chuckie figure I was
ever aware of, from Spawn-creating-Neil-Gaiman-upsetting Todd McFaralne’s
excellent Movie Maniacs line, which is basically the precursor to everything
Neca makes money from (didn’t some of Neca actually work on the line?). it’s
not the most screen-accurate Chucky but it’s the figure I think of when I think
‘Chucky figure’ which of course I do with some regularity because I’m a sexy
human who has a life. Also, I bought this off the organiser of the fair, whom I’m
a regular customer of in his shop just down the road from the hall where Collector-Fest
was, nice bloke.
Also I hope you enjoyed the
really unflattering angle I took this from, Chuckie’s gonna post it on Instagram
when we’re done #nofilter.
TMNT Colouring Book!
£3 ($3.67)
Children are bastards -
they colour in colouring books. The just scribble all over the buggers almost like
it’s the very point of the book and why not? They cost the same price as a Twix
and every shop in town has Turtles colouring books in ‘em, it’s not like that’ll
ever change and surely even if it did there’s so many of these things that they
won’t ever become rare or hard to find, how can something be hard to find when
even the newsagents and 7-11 has them?
Ha. Ha. Ha.
I am still looking for various
cheap TMNT stuff that I wrecked as a five-year-old. I haven’t SEEN one of these
in the wild since I was about 12 and certainly not one that’s as untouched as
this, it even has its cut-outs still:
I wonder if Ryan Brown and
Steve Lavigne ever got any residuals from all the people who just traced over
their drawings for various cheap (but officially licenced as far as I know) Ninja
Turtle crap? They didn’t did they?
Monster Force Creach!
£15 ($18.32)
Another carded figure
dwitefry? And another monster? You’re repeating yourself.
Shut it, its my blog and if
I want to talk about little plastic murderous things all day on it I damn well
will plus looook a it! it’s a super-buff Creature From the Black Lagoon painted
like a hot-rod/marble/swimming pool/Ariel’s ass. It’s so worth spotlighting. Anyway,
way too many people missed out on Monster Force, an extreme 1990s OFFICIAL
reimagining of the Universal Monsters that only ran for 13 episodes in 1994. I wish
I could find a more flattering way of describing it than James Bond Jr
meets Filmation’s Ghostbusters but I can’t. It was much darker than both of those things
of course, with an animation style comparable to the 90’s Marvel ‘toons and
whoever made it clearly knew the old movies but…yeah… Episode 9’s the one to
watch, where they make the Bride of Frankenstein into this force to be reckoned
with; they treat her like the fucking Hulk with a security force with helicopter
and tanks shitting themselves when she breaks out and the writers not caving in
and actually having her reject the heroic Frankenstein’s Monster again. Sorry was
I talking about a toy? Meh, I’ll be honest with ya, I only included this here as
convenient excuse to talk about the cartoon, I knew I could sum up all my thoughts
on the figure with just ‘looook at it’, surely that’s better than me talking about
two carded monster toys in one post after all, right? Right? Where are you going…?
Essential X-Men issues!
£3 ($3.67) for the lot
Always look in 50p bins, they’re
not just Dazzler and Team Youngblood, sometimes they are treasured
memories of sad, lonely days wiling away the hours reading X-Men. These books were
(actually they still are, but they’re on different volumes now) put out by what
us old timers used to call Marvel UK and generally speaking reprinted 2-3
issues of a series a couple of years old (though Wolverine Unleashed jumped all
over the show). These were my gateway drug into American comic collecting so
they’re got a shitload to answer for, especially issue 21 on top there. That
was the first issue of the series I bought (I was 10), well I say ‘I’: my mum
bought it for me from a newsagents on Tottenham Highroad as the equivalent of hush
money because instead of doing something a 10 year old thought was fun we were spending
the Saturday with my great grandmother (who was already close to 100 then and
would well exceed that before God finally gave in and allowed her to come ‘round,
I like to imagine him popping in for tea and her nagging him while my great
grandad sits in the corner smoking and just repeating ‘I told you not to, God’
until one of the angels phones him on ‘important business’ so he can get away).
I totally picked it because of the following equation ‘X-Men + Boobs + Possibility
of Impending Tentacle Porn = Win’ (I was 10!). I didn’t know much about
Psylocke at the time because she was wasn’t on the main roster for the animated
series, now I know lots about her and that’s a good point actually, I know we’re
not supposed to speak of Asian Psylocke, especially in a positive light,
without hearing a long diatribe about cultural appropriation and unfortunate implications
and I’m not necessarily disagreeing with every point in that hypothetical diatribe
but here are some things you should know about Asian Psylocke before waffling
on like you know you’re on about:
·
The impetus for
the change came about because Jim Lee asked Chris Claremont to give him ‘a sexy
ninja to draw’
·
Chris Claremont
chose to make a pre-existing character Asian rather than introduce a new character
because he has a body modification fetish (poor Storm, and Jean Grey, and
Callisto, and…)
·
Chris Claremont
and Jim Lee did not swap Psylocke’s brain with anything, in the original story The
Hand just modified Psylocke’s body to look Asian so that The Mandarin wouldn’t
get shit from the other Asian gang lords for having a white enforcer, in fact
as she was made for the Mandarin, Psylocke is supposed to look Chinese, not Japanese.
·
Jim Lee is Asian
(he’s Korean-American)
·
So to conclude – a
white man turned a white woman into a literally generic Asian character designed
by an Asian artist because it gave them both boners
·
Psylocke’s costume
IS the same as Elektra’s (just in different colours) and it’s intentional both
in-and-out-of-universe, Betsy was modified by The Hand, whom Elektra had worked
for (and was resurrected by), though (I believe) not originally the case that is
just The Hand’s sexy lady ninja outfit.
·
Psylocke did adopt
what would at the time be called ‘Oriental Fashions’ immediately.
·
Revanche (Kwannon)
– who is Japanese - and the body swap idea was introduced by Fabian Nicieza. This
isn’t just a case of Fabian thinking all Asian women look alike though, The
Hand are a Japanese clan and the man who modified swapped Psylocke’s brain,
Revanche’s old lover Matsu'o Tsurayaba, is
Japanese so her being Japanese makes sense.
·
Revanche was only
around for 11 issues of X-Men before dying (less than a year real time)
·
Betsy’s brain was
now inhabiting a legit Asian woman’s body and had always been, so she was instead
literally half Asian.
·
Psylocke is now
back in her white body, and Revanche in in her Asian body, the man responsible for
this is Jim Zub.
Got all that? Now you can
properly assign blame and judge when doing your Psylocke is X rant regardless
of where on the political spectrum you fall. Back to the comics, this was from the best
time of Essential X-Men and Wolverine Unleashed, not just because it was when I
was buying it but because it was when they had really cool original covers, I’m
so happy to have that sweet Juggernaut cover back in my life. I recommend Essential
X-Men 15 through to 38 by the way, they all (but one) had cool original covers
and that spans the debut of the Phalanx through the Age of Apocalypse and up to
Sabretooth: In the Red Zone which for me is one of the best post-Claremont
periods of the book, and not just because I read it when I was a kid, honest.
Cat Nappin’ Garfield!
£2 ($2.44)
I’m so excited!
And I just can’t hide it!
I’m about to lose control
and…yeah ok, let’s stop that. No one needs to hear me sing the Pointer Sisters, not
even through the silent medium of text, but I am genuinely delighted to find
this, yes this, a Garfield laying on a TV. This is the last of four pull-backs
in a short line called Go Go Garfield, part of a multi-line Garfield roll-out from
Playmates that had such an impact on children that I’m pretty sure this is the
only picture of this online, it certainly feels that way. But I adore this
little nothing of a line, back in 1991 when these came out mum got me three of
the four for Christmas and I’m not exaggerating, one of the first things I will
recall if you ask me to tell you something about by childhood Christmases is
me – having got back from my dad’s and sitting in the dark hallway of my mum’s
house by all the shoes and bags and the bag of stuff I’d brought back from dads
- illuminated only by Christmas lights my grandad moaned about the whole time he
took to put them up, with the sounds and lights of the family in the front room
– merrily racing Garfield and Odie up and down our very long, very thin kitchen
and hall. That is Christmas to me – darkness, Christmas lights and Playmates
pull backs. Funnily enough Boxing Day to me I sitting in a secluded spot away from
everyone building Zoids 2 models. I think you can perfectly judge my whole personality
on those two facts – and that I didn’t buy a Chucky toy for 24 years. I’ve been
waiting a long time to race all four of these side by side, I’m gonna go get the
Christmas lights!
This Thing!
£3 (3.67)
You just needed to see this
pile of shit in crisp focus in a large, high definition jpg image. Look at it!
look at it’s Vegeta parts! Look at its paint spread like butter during the
Blitz! Look at its complete lack of testicles! look at those big fucking holes
from the mould right there in its fucking chest! Look at all the fucks the people
who made this didn’t give! Ok don’t look too long, you might get lead poisoning.
Haha you won’t get lead
poisoning, there’s not enough paint on it.
I love bootleg toys so much.
Right, got shit to do and Christmas
lights to untangle and Wayne’s World to watch, so I’m off, thanks for reading what
amounted to a series of nostalgic waffles and jokes about actual real horrible
things like lead poisoning, The Blitz and ARSEHOLE PLANTS THAT WON’T PUT THEIR PHONES
DOWN DURING DINNER. I’m limiting their screen time – ta, all.
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