figure: generally refers to a small human-made statue that represents a human (or deity or animal). They are typically smaller than life-size, and may be realistic or iconic depending on the skill and intention of the creator.
With this definitions anglophone indicate their “toys”. Yes, that kind of toys we used when we were kids, charaters taken from a cartoon show or comic books.
(Un)fortunately some aspects of these toys aren’t “kid’s stuff” only …
Let’s see what i mean.
In the United States the market of comic-books readers is built on pre-teenager kids and then 25-up grown up people.
Kids – the majority of them, at least – when puberty comes to their doors just run away from this medium, they hide that passion from their friends, following a prejudice where comics = “nerd, goofy stuff”. Then they grow up, get a life, get a kid or two, and then something happens and the ancient love just cames back in them.This time they have pig pockets, with enough money, and they can, and like to, spend more money on their passion.
A big portion of american teenagers in facts, feel a kind of shame in standing for their love for comics. If we watch the dvd extra of our favourite comics books inspired movie (Spiderman, X-Men, Batman and so on), we can witness the general discovery of that medium after the actor has begun documenting himself on the character he has to play.
So a strong market in comics and related material has born. And the collectionistic aspect of it takes a central role, as usual in a nation so hungry of hystory. The Action Figure has become to be a real masterwork, a little realistic statue that mimics the character we has grown to love. The War Machine toy up here is a perfect example of it.
Today on the action figure market there is a number of firms, producing a huge number of “toys”, renewing their collection at least two times per year. This figures are getting more and more detailed, and to my knowledge the zenit has been a 66 points of articulation Spiderman, which enables it to assume every spidey pose that comes to our mind
If you’re interested, of all the firms out there, i suggest you to have a look at McFarlane Toys site, founded by the ex enfant prodige canadian artist Todd McFarlane, now owner & CEO of a multimedia empire (maybe someone remebers his Spawn movie – a sequel of which is in the works for some years now – which rappresented one of the starting point in the actual comic book inspired movie trend).
So, as i was saying there is a lifely collection market out there, where collectors buys entire sets of toys, religiously keeping them in their original blister, keeping them safe for collector’s sake. Then they go hunting for limited series models, variants, “errors” that had come to sale and so on ….
Knowing that i was litelary astonished when, flickering around I’ve discovered an entire new, active and willing community of photographers dedicated to picture out the “life” of their toys… Out of the box !!!
The images in this post are the first that ‘ve liked during this lazy moments dedicated in writing this post … a post that has been in draft mode since one month ago.
So, if this post has interested or enternained you i can suggest to go on Flickr and search for the tag toys or begin a search from the groups Life in Plastic“, “the secret life of toys” and the ones related.
PS #1 = i am consuming Flickr bandwidth searching for the Spideman / FON-router combo but i can’t manage to get it …. sigh!!!
PS #2 = the post’s 3rd image is dedicated to Samuele and Fullo “marketing proposals
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