Freeze frame, my poster collection, part 13…

In the previous entries I highlighted a couple of my favorite artists. Today I’m going to look at some posters / prints from Marvel studios. One of the biggest posters I have that hung on my wall featured the Fantastic Four. The family was one of my little brother’s favorites, and the art was by the absurdly detailed Geoff Darrow. In the poster you can see the Richard’s family taking on the Mole Man, and his minions. If you are a fan of intricate art I would advise you to pick up the books that Darrow illustrated for The Dark Horse books written by Frank Miller; Hard Boiled, and Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot.

This Guardians of the Galaxy print was actually a surprise. I was at the San Diego Comic Con, and my wife and I happened to be at the Marvel booth when a new Guardians book was being launched. We got the autograph from writer Dean White, and artist Ron Lim. I mentioned that my little brother clued me in to the work of Mr. Lim thanks to his work on the Silver Surfer, and the Infinity Gauntlet.

One of the boldest posters in my collection is a close up of Sabertooth, and Wolverine yelling at each other. The Hildebrandt brothers are amazing artists (RIP Greg) and worked on a card series for Marvel as well. You might want to track it down if you like this style of art.

Some artists were born to draw certain characters. In previous blogs I talked about how Dale Keown was born to draw the Hulk. I have the same regard for Mike Zeck. He could draw on any book, however his Punisher was unrivaled. I believe he used an airbrush on his covers, or in this case his posters.

The autographed Marvel Mania poster was sheer luck. My brothers were visiting Universal City Walk in LA. They just so happened to be there when they were celebrating the grand opening of the Marvel Mania restaurant. Stan Lee was signing, and all they needed to do was wait in line. Talk about a lucky break!

I actually had another, more colorful Punisher poster hanging in the room that my brothers, and I grew up on. Sadly it didn’t survive the flood in our old family garage. The same thing happened with a Todd McFarlane Hulk poster. I loved that poster because it showed that the “weaker” Gray Hulk was still strong enough to break out of the Vault, one of the most secure super villain prisons in the Marvel U.

Do you have any favorite Marvel prints, or posters in your collection? Do you have a favorite Marvel comic, or film? I’d like to read about it in the comments section. As always if you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!

Remix Culture, how Asian designers changed the game, part 10

In the previous entry of the series I talked about getting my hands on some urban vinyl basketball players in the vein of Michael Lau. The Super-X figures by Dragon Models were not licensed by the players, nor did they have anything to do with the NBA. That was okay with me. Whenever a stylized, and official 12" figure showed up in the press it was often for a gallery exhibition. Michael Lau had collaborated with Nike on exhibits, and release events. Lau put his gardeners in the new Nike outfits for the show. Of course these figures would never be available to the public. The South Korean figure artist CoolRain also did a number of Nike, Adidas, and Vans exhibits as well. He would create stylized figures, such as the "Dream Team" featuring a trio of Nike sponsored athletes in their USA team uniforms, and casual wear. Sadly these were also only created for a show, and never meant for limited-release. Knowing that these figures would never be sold, even in small runs drove me crazy. 

Some of the best vinyl figures ever released came from Hong Kong, and they were rarely licensed by an individual, or organization. To skirt copyright law they often wouldn’t name a figure after an actual person, mascot, character, or athlete. One of the ways they would get away with it was by using keywords, phrases, slogans that might be associated with an existing person, but that couldn’t be trademarked. For example; let’s say a figure artist wanted to cater to Disney fans, they might release a vinyl figure of a stylized cartoon mouse wearing red shorts with white buttons, and yellow shoes. The artist would call this figure “Oh boy!” After one of the slogans used by Mickey Mouse. This was the same trick used on the "Three Kings" statues. Fools Paradise (FP) created some of the most desirable statues for the high-end collector market. If I were a huge NBA fan with tons of disposable income, and lots of room to display a collection then I’d buy their statues without a second thought. They looked authentic from a distance, and even up close if you realized that these weren’t licensed figures they still looked great.

The Three Kings looked amazing. The company called them kings, and not players, or athletes. If you knew anything about pro basketball then you would say the trio were Scottie Pippen, Michael Jordan, and Dennis Rodman. They were the key members of the dominant ‘90s-era Chicago Bulls. The statues looked like stylized reproductions of the actual athletes. Even the numbers on their jerseys were correct. Upon further inspection you’d notice that Fools Paradise used all of the tricks that a counterfeit fashion designer would use to get away with when assembling knockoffs. The sneakers looked just like classic Nike designs, but they changed just enough to skirt the law. The swoosh was different, as were the lines, and colors as to help avoid a cease-and-desist letter. Then there was the NBA brand on the uniforms. At least that’s what it looked like until you got closer, and realized the red, white, and blue symbol was actually the Fools Paradise logo. Then in the middle of the jersey were the words LEGENDS, instead of BULLS. They were able to charge almost $500 for an unlicensed figure based on Kobe Bryant, wearing what looked like his Lakers uniform. The logo on his chest was a similar font, but it said Legends, and the statues were referred to by one of his team numbers. Numbers couldn’t be trademarked after all.

The FP statues was a master class in how to create a counterfeit art that could still demand top dollar. Audiences got an impressionist take on their basketball hero in a new format. It was fresh enough to command an absurd price. Even if Fools Paradise were contacted by the Lakers organization, or Kobe’s lawyers they had already built in their own indemnity clause. By going with small limited-edition runs they guaranteed this would fly under the radar. Similarly a small run of prints, or toys by an indy artist often go overlooked by corporate lawyers during fan conventions. Fools Paradise were not being malicious with the use of the NBA star likenesses, they were filling a demand that nobody else considered. Not only that, but they would sell out of everything they had, insuring there would be no collector bubble, or shelves stocked with products that nobody wanted. This was what I meant when I said that the best artists from China were remixing culture in real-time. Thankfully I never had enough space, or money to even consider buying those statues. I wondered what would happen if actual highly-stylized, reasonably priced, licensed figures ever came out.

It turned out that I wouldn’t have to wait very long. The trading card company Upper Deck wanted to get into the urban vinyl market in 2006. Their goal was to get Michael Jordan’s heir apparent, LeBron James, his own figure before the end of the year. It seemed impossible to me. Giant businesses usually had to plan a season or two in advance, especially since they needed to coordinate with the league, sponsors, and settle on a design to get to the manufacturers in China. Somebody working at the company must have had the ear of management, as they were moving a million times faster than any corporation ever could. I found out about their plans in Francine’s article about creating a Lebron James vinyl figure at Vinyl Pulse. I was certainly interested based on the concept art alone. The proportions were similar to Lau’s art, my own work, with a hint of Kadir Nelson as well.

Chris Brunner was the lead designer on the All Star Vinyl line for Upper Deck, with art direction from Mark Irwin. For LeBron he was able to make a powerful, and intimidating design on the powerful, and intimidating star athlete. The amount of detail with the figure was astonishing. The thing that popped out to me were the accurate, but still cartoonish Nike sneakers. Funny enough Upper-Deck would switch the basketball while coming up with future designs. In 2006 the NBA announced a new microfiber composite basketball, which was met with the ire of the players. This basketball was used, and the classic basketball would appear in latter releases. The ways in which Upper Deck was able to get the figure to market with a short turnaround started making sense. They were doing double-duty with the release of LeBron. Mr. Brunner designed LeBron wearing a neutral red, and white jersey, and shorts. This was to avoid lengthy contract negotiations with the NBA, and the Cleveland Cavaliers, who LeBron was playing with at the time. The outfit was Nike performance wear, and the sneakers that he was wearing were the all new LeBron III’s. Nike was using this release as part of a bigger marketing campaign.

Upper Deck announced in short order that not only were they working on LeBron, but they were also creating sculpts out of the characters in his new ad campaign. This would coincide with the release of his new signature shoes, and the alternate colorways were a nod to his “family” which were essentially his alter egos. Athlete was the basketball player that most people were already familiar with. Business wore a suit, and represented his market savvy. Kid represented his youthful, playful side. LeBron had come right out of high school into the NBA, so his perspective was still young at heart. Wise was his basketball IQ. He was a young master of the game because of the insight he picked up from the legends that came before him. Ever the marketing geniuses LeBron, and Nike would also produce a series of cartoons featuring the family. Nike, LeBron, and Upper Deck were covering their bases. Fans of the trading cards, and collectables would have something new to pick up. Fans of the sneakers would love the exclusivity of this set. Urban vinyl fans eager to see how the art form would translate to licensed figures would be lining up to collect them as well.

It seemed that the people working behind the scenes were keenly aware of how urban vinyl collectors worked. These releases wouldn’t be like printing millions of trading cards featuring star athletes, and bench players for the domestic market. They needed to focus only on the biggest stars, and their cultural relevance has as much of an impact as their scoring records. Upper Deck also needed to make sure to keep their numbers low, and also offer smaller runs of special colorways. This would appeal to die-hard collectors, and allow their manufacturers to get the All Star Vinyl line to market faster than any toy could hit the shelves.

They made sure to give the urban vinyl community a heads-up by going directly to Vinyl Pulse with the exclusive interviews. Then they would clue in their regular distributors, and press outlets with articles on what the whole vinyl movement was about. Upper Deck knew that they were headed in the right direction based on the reception to the LeBron’s. The initial drop, and the special editions sold out the minute they hit the market. In fact it crashed their website, and countless people (myself included) were furious at how they failed the collectors. When they got things sorted it looked like bots, and resellers claimed most of the initial release. There were almost as many eBay entries as there were figures produced that same day.

I wrote a very long email to their customer care department highlighting everything they got right, and wrong with the release. They were kind enough to contact me, and hold a set aside for me, and many of the other collectors that experienced issues on release day. I’m certain that they thought every release would be met with the same level of passion. Upper Deck began working with the NBA, and every major organization to bring other superstar athletes to the growing market. They designed, and released figures for the NFL, NHL, MLB, PGA, and even pro boxers. I promised myself that after the Super-X figures that I would stop buying urban vinyl figures to save some money, however I couldn’t resist.

I had no intention of buying the entire sets of any athlete, or the smaller alternate color runs. As a fan of Mr. Brunner’s art, and the other artists working on the line I was happy to get my hands on any of the basketball figures, but that was it. I didn't care about their boxer, hockey, baseball, or football lines. Despite having the best intentions Upper Deck failed to recognize that the success of the LeBron’s could not be duplicated with every release. Those figures hit because it brought together the fans of Lebron, Nike, sneakers, the NBA, collectables, and the urban vinyl community. It was essentially the perfect storm of different markets. If just a few of those people didn’t turn up with each release then the figures would end up languishing on their online store, and on the shelves of their retailers. That was exactly what happened, and one of the reasons why the line disappeared almost as quickly as it was created.

Another thing that hurt the line were the competing scales that the figures were produced in. The majority of the numbered collectable figures were roughly in the 1/7 scale, or about 9-10” on average. Each of the NBA figures was proportionally accurate. Shaquille O’Neil (7’ 1”) was the tallest of the lot, followed by Kevin Durant (6’ 11”), then Lebron James (6’ 9”), Kobe Bryant (6’ 6”), Vince Carter (6’ 6”), and Dwyane Wade (6’ 4”). The shortest of the figures was Allen Iverson (6’ even), and he was arguably the coolest figure in the lineup, just as Lightning Son from the Super-X line was the coolest figure of that lot. Unfortunately Upper Deck also released slightly smaller scale versions of Kobe, LeBron, and Kevin Garnett, roughly 1/8 - 1/9 scale. They were not proportionally consistent. The smaller figures were designed to be more affordable, as they were produced in greater numbers. I would guess that Upper Deck was hoping to catch the eye of potential collectors with less expensive, smaller, but still stylized figures. The thing was that they looked close to the same size as the more expensive releases. There was the potential that they mistakenly bought the two different sizes for their collection. They wouldn’t realize it made their shelves look inconsistent until the figures were side-by-side.

Sales of subsequent releases might have been lukewarm because of the highly stylized athletes. The thing that I absolutely loved about Chris Brunner’s art being turned into 3D models did not appeal to the general public. Not everyone understood the artistic intent behind the sculpts. Not everybody liked the aesthetic of three dimensional cartoonish characters. Online forums were going back, and forth with people arguing that the figures looked dumb, cartoony, and plain unrealistic. They stuck out like sore thumbs compared to their other statues, and toys. Fans of the line, myself included said they looked amazing. We wanted a bold new look for athletic collectables. We argued that if collectors wanted realistic NBA figures then they could always go to McFarlane toys, or later Enterbay. Not every collectable had to be a 1-to-1 copy of every eyelash, wrinkle, and fingerprint of the star player. Artists could capture the essence of the athlete in profound ways, just like the Fools Paradise statues that I mentioned above.

Another thing that affected the reception to the figures was that there wasn’t yet a market big enough to support them. People were not used to seeing figures with such a strong aesthetic. The proportions were jarring to people that had not been exposed to that kind of design. There was nothing similar to them in any toy store, or from any other trading card manufacturer. So people had not been conditioned to accept that these were not only collectable, but they were cool as well. Funny enough over the next decade just about every major franchise would shift to this style of character design. Movie franchises like Star Wars, and Pirates of the Caribbean, as well as cartoon mainstays from Disney, Ben 10, Spider-Man, G.I. Joe, Transformers, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles would all get the highly stylized treatment as well.

In order to change the market, and gain acceptance with the general public one studio had to be first. Upper Deck was a pioneer among the big companies in the USA. They were willing to take the creative risk while every other publisher was going through the same old motions. The popularity of the initial LeBron release demonstrated that the market was there. Sadly they couldn’t get customers to keep showing up, and grow the industry like they wanted. Unfortunately the studio paid the price, and a potentially game-changing line was cut short. They should be admired for everything they were able to accomplish in a brief amount of time. Upper Deck had their finger on the pulse of sports, and they understood the influence that street culture had on the NBA. However there was something that came just before it that had an even bigger impact on the culture. I’ll talk about it on the next blog. Until then I’d like to hear your takes on Upper Deck’s All-Star Vinyl figures. Did you collect any? Do you think a line of designer sports figures was a good idea? Tell me about it in the comments section. As always if you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!

Remix Culture, how Asian designers changed the game, part 9

In the previous blog on this series I talked about biting the bullet and ordering my first non-Michael Lau set of vinyl figures. I longed to have my own Lau-style of basketball players, seeing as he would never release a 1/6 scale version of his iconic Jordon gardener. Around 2002 I scored a set of highly stylized 12-inch basketball players called Super-X from the company Dragon Models. I also got the mini action figure set that day. I checked eBay recently and the only person selling both sets together was asking for $1600. Needless to say when I originally got the figures I didn’t even pay a fraction of that. As I said before I was at the right place, at the right time when a trend was first starting to take off.

The thing that I enjoyed about Lau’s work was that his gardeners represented a culture, rather than a specific person. Something similar could be argued for the Super-X starting five. They were inspired by the greatest to ever play the game, but whereas the actual players were at different stages of their careers this set would forever be them in their prime. I’m glad that four of the five that inspired this set were still with us. Although I wasn’t always a fan of Kobe I could not deny his work ethic, and his mastery of the game. Sadly Kobe, his daughter, and their friends died in a tragic helicopter crash in 2020.

The “Black Mamba” had changed the game, and could be one of the few to be considered a legitimate challenger to the title of G.O.A.T. (greatest of all time) against even Michael Jordan. Allen Iverson’s tribute to Kobe Bryant helped put perspective on what his rivals, and friends really thought about him. The figure based on Bryant had a vinyl sculpted afro. His Super-X figure name translated from Chinese to “Hair-to-hair ratio.” I have no context for the meaning behind this name.

As for Iverson, his figure might have been the coolest in the lot. Number 3 on the team was named Lightning Son. His sculpted cornrows oozed personality. Each of the figures not only came in a game uniform, but they all came with a change of clothes, basketball, and sticker set. As someone that longed for the street style featured on the Michael Lau gardeners this was easily the next best thing.

Number 15 was called Tyrannosaurus. This character was based on Vince Carter, who at the time was playing for the Toronto Raptors. The character had a red tyrannosaurus tattoo on his head, and a purple sweatshirt with a tag phrase “raft raft.” I’m not sure what the Chinese meaning was behind those words. The Michael Jordan character was called Fei Ren Dun, again I had no idea if that meant something special in Chinese. The nice detail about the street outfits that each had was that they were in the team colors for the players they were based on. In this case of number 23 the navy blue, and black mirrored the colors of the Washington Wizards.

The largest of the crew was number 34 aka Dakou. I couldn’t find a meaning for Dakou, but I did learn that daku meant to cry loudly in Mandarin. Maybe the character inspired by Shaq was a crybaby? I certainly wouldn’t say that to his face. Each of the characters had a slightly different height, reflecting the size differences in the actual NBA players. Sadly for Dakou his body was rail thin. The designers at Dragon Models didn’t realize that he needed a much broader frame to keep him from looking strange. His massive head needed a custom body to make him proportional to the character art. But that was a minor gripe on an otherwise amazing set of figures.

The only thing that was missing with my new figures was a backboard, and hoop to display the set with. Unfortunately Enterbay wouldn’t have a 1/6 scale backboard for a few more years. When it did come out it would cost hundreds, which would be more than I paid for the entire Super-X lineup. I couldn’t justify that purchase. The other backboards featured in toy lines were either too small, or unrealistic. I never thought that I would find something to display them with. Then one day my mom got her hands on an Avon catalog from a co-worker. She said there was a doll in there that I would want to order. I didn’t know what she was talking about until I turned to that page. It was exactly what I needed.

Get Real Girls was an action sports response to Barbie. The dolls were released in toy stores in 1999, and Avon Kids had a few that they made available in their catalogs. There was Corey the surfer, Nakia the basketball player, Gabi the soccer player, Nini the hiker, Claire the scuba diver, and Skyler the snowboarder. Nakia was from Washington D.C., and was obsessed with playing basketball in New York. She was wearing a basketball jersey, and shorts. Plus her hair was braided, as an actual Black girl might have had while playing. Her figure set included a basketball, hoop, and backboard, gym bag, sports bottle, cell phone, sunglasses, necklace which doubled as a bracelet with a silver basketball charm. Needless to say that once I assembled the backboard I had something that I could proudly display my Super-X figures with.

Nakia had tons of 1/6 scale items that weren’t even included in the future Enterbay releases. The figure set also included a passport with her story, post card, and sticker stamp. I guessed that each doll in the series also share their own story as well. Barbie might have been a general role model for all women, but she didn’t capture the love for action sports like these figures. The Get Real Girls line was rebooted in 2016 as a Kickstarter project. I finally had a basketball vinyl collection that I didn’t think any creator in the US would ever top. That was until four years later when one of the largest trading card companies in the world did just that. I will talk about it on the next blog. For now I’d like to know if you followed the NBA in the early 2000’s or if you had another favorite era, or group of players? Did you collect any 12" figures? Let me know in the comments section. As always if you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!

Remix Culture, how Asian designers changed the game, part 8

In the previous entry of this series I mentioned which of Michael Lau’s 100+ gardener figures was my favorite. For those that missed it the character was Jordon, a seven-foot-tall basketball player from the gardener universe. His design hit me with the same force as seeing Lau’s original Maxx figure from a few years prior. It took me a while to understand fully why I enjoyed the figures as much as I did. The first thing I did was acknowledge that Lau had captured street culture in an entirely new art form. The gardeners looked just like my friends, and heroes in 1/6 scale. That was how I thought about it for decades.

Only recently however did I realize why my reaction went much deeper than that. Lau’s gardener figures represented an idea, and not an ideal. As I said previously they were not an unattainable beauty standard like a Barbie doll. They were imperfect figures. The gardeners had buck teeth, big ears, acne, scars, and pot bellies. They were anxious, fun loving, brooding, competitive, and loving at the same time. They were as human as any one of us. They were also icons, representatives of the culture.

To me the gardeners were a perfect snapshot of the world I grew up in. Eventually I would grow old, and die. As would my family, and friends. No matter how well my hero Tony Hawk could skate, the wheels would eventually fall off. One day he’d finally hang it up, and leave behind his name, and legacy. Maxx on the other hand would always be the young, determined skater. He would forever be youthful, forever be idyllic, forever be a brilliant skater. By extension the culture we lived in would also last forever. Certainly characters like Mickey Mouse, Pac-Man, Mario, and Bugs Bunny could also last forever, but they represented corporate mascots, and not my family, and friends. At the core this was what I enjoyed best, the symbols that the gardeners represented. If I couldn’t collect every figure that Lau released, then I’d try to focus on the ones that I vibed the best with. 

My older brother was into 1/6 scale figures well before I was, but even he agreed that Lau was working on another level. He would point me at the manufacturers like Hot Toys, and Dragon Models as they made the comic book, sci-fi, and movie figures he collected, but also the more street-influenced designs. My brother also pointed me to Enterbay. They had the NBA license, and they were releasing highly detailed 12” figures. I couldn’t deny the quality of the sculpts. They easily captured the look of the actual pros they were based on. Their uniforms, and accessories were perfect. Even the shoes were correct for the player. When I first learned that my brother was spending on average $250 per figure I was shocked. I told him that there was no way the figures he was collecting were remotely worth what he was spending. Mind you he was collecting before I even knew who Michael Lau was. 

Without saying a word he took out one of his Punisher figures, and asked me to have a close look at it. As I held the figure I commented how heavy it was, and solidly built. It could hold any pose without loosening up. It really wasn’t anything like a Barbie doll. I turned it around, and around looking for imperfections, but there were none. The head sculpt was scary realistic. I could see the veins on his neck, the eyelashes on his face, and the scars on his head. The stitching on his trench coat was flawless, his boots, armor, and costume looked as if the comic book had been brought to life. I handed the figure back to him, and said that it was impressive, but I still wasn’t sure about the price. Without saying another word he opened the trench coat, and started removing all the weapons he was carrying. One by one he showed me the knives in sheaths had actual metal blades, that the magazines could be removed from his machine guns. When he opened the revolver and shook out the individual bullets in the cylinder I never questioned him again.

I explained to him that as much as I appreciated the absurd level of detail that went into the NBA figures that they just weren’t for me. I said for starters they were just out of my price range, no matter how much I loved a particular basketball player, I couldn’t justify the purchase. It didn’t stop me from being jealous of the people that were able to collect them without a second thought. My brother taught me that some artists sculpted, and painted custom heads for figures. Others made 1/6 scale uniforms, sneakers, and various accessories. I could invest as much, or as little as I wanted building a collection. I could buy an inexpensive generic 1/6 body, and get a custom head, and uniform of my favorite players. I’m not going to lie, I did consider going down that route. When I found out that some collectors turned entire rooms into entire 1/6 scale NBA courts, with working baskets, and Jumbotrons I just about lost my mind. I didn’t have that kind of space, let alone budget. That didn’t stop me from searching online for how much I could get selling my blood. My brother was leading me down a very scary rabbit hole.

Although I had no intention of buying an Enterbay figure, I was intrigued by their NBA accessories. An NBA locker complete with hangers, body wash, deodorant, and shampoo was surprisingly cool. It would make for a good backdrop in a pro basketball diorama. Then I found out that the company also recreated the various trophies from the league. These included the MVP, scoring, All-Star, and Championship hardware. Unfortunately most of these could only be acquired if you bought one of the deluxe figures, which could sell for up to double the price. Of course the best accessory that they offered was a scale hoop, and backboard. It even had a working play clock. It was absurdly cool, and prohibitively expensive. I could never justify those purchases. Or could I? Not too long ago one of Lau’s contemporaries created a custom version of Michael Jordan. Eric So had been at the game nearly as long as Lau. He had collaborated with Sprite, Motorola, Playboy, Adidas, and other high profile clients as well. His figure was subtle, like a CoolRain design. It was nice but not half as cool as the Jordon figure by Lau.

I was convinced that I would never find an urban vinyl figure that scratched the itch. Thankfully I had already stumbled across a set of figures way back in 2002. In order to capitalize on Lau’s popularity eBay, and toy importers were tagging every vinyl release from Hong Kong as being from Michael Lau. There were a few actual figures, but a lot of clones, and bootlegs as well. The one that stood out to me was a set of 1/6 scale figures called Super-X Basketball. The box art was very much in the Lau style. There were even smaller figures that had been released called action figure minis. These were slightly taller, and more articulated than Lego figures. Thankfully the demand wasn’t too high for the set, and I was able to score all five of both the large, and small figures relatively cheaply.

I was hoping that an unscrupulous seller hadn’t just walked off with my money. I had to wait forever for a giant package to arrive from China. When it did my brother joined me for the unboxing. The figures were everything I expected, and more. I started with the minis. As I opened the box, and foil package containing the figures I got a laugh at the packaging, and design. As with most unlicensed toys from China there was nothing in the packaging that said NBA, or would infer these were based on real people, or real teams. Yet long time basketball fans could gather everything they needed from looking at both the style of each character, the colors of their jerseys, and numbers as well.

Each of the minis not only came with a complete figure, but they also had an alternate top, with a basketball, and backpack as well. The figures were printed with their own unique expression, and hairstyle, or bald head depending on the character. In case you couldn’t tell the designers skirted copyright laws by letting fans infer who each character was based on. The colors on the jersey, and even style of font were based on existing NBA teams, and players. For those unfamiliar with the lineup #3 was based on Allen Iverson, his uniform was based on the Philadelphia 76ers. #34 was based on Shaquille O’Neal, and his jersey was modeled after the Los Angeles Lakers. The same applied to #8 who was based on Kobe Bryant. The manic-looking #15 was based on the high flyer Vince Carter from the Toronto Raptors. Rounding out the cast was #23 who was based on Michael Jordan from the Washington Wizards.

The figures were very much a snapshot of an era. Jordan had moments of brilliance during his Washington era, but he was about to retire while Kobe was coming into his prime. Iverson was one of the most influential point guards of all time, he was also one of the players that brought street credit into the pros. Shaq of course was still a force of nature. Carter was a human highlight reel with his incredible athleticism, and crazy dunks. These players not only represented a great cross-section of the all-stars, but could arguably be considered the greatest starting five of all time. 

It would be hard to imagine coming up with a superstar team of players from the present, or past that could beat all of the Super-X ballers in their prime. This was what I really loved about the crew, and about the gray era that the Hong Kong designers were working under. They were creating the spirit of the greatest team that never existed. When I opened up the larger figures I was in for a treat. But I’ll talk about that in the next blog. Were there any toys, sports, or athletes that you felt passionate about? Did you have a favorite basketball player? Tell me about it in the comments section please. As always if you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!

Darkwing Duck Trade Paperbacks, must get items! - A 1UP classic from Nov 9, 2011

Howdy friends, this blog goes out to the comic book readers and fans of the old Disney Afternoon series. As many of you may have heard the license for Disney comics has expired and Boom Studios in the US hasn’t been handed it again. No word yet on whether or not Marvel will take over. In the meantime the talented James Silvani and Amy Mebberson are in creator limbo, not forgetting the uncredited writing talents of Aaron Sparrow. The best thing fans of the classic Darkwing Duck series could do is pick up the issues or trade paperbacks of the book and show Marvel that Disney comics can be a hit when put in the right hands.

The most recent books F.O.W.L. Disposition and Campaign Carnage keep the sharp writing and amazing art fans of the series have grown to love. Readers owe it to themselves to add these books to their collections. Fans have a chance to show James, Amy, Aaron and series creator Tad Stones that readers support their work and would like to see them keep going.

Readers of the series would also get a chance to read a story possibly influenced by me. I say possibly because there’s no way I could prove it was more than coincidence when a rare Darkwing character from the TV series returned in the Toy With Me story arch featured in the Campaign TPB. I wrote a blog about my experience at last years’ Long Beach Comic Con.

I had asked James to sketch Wiffle Boy for me and the rare character stumped both he and Tad. They had to look up the episode for the character reference. Well a few months later the character appeared in a Darkwing Duck Annual. Not only that but the game company had grown from the 8-bit inspiration from which Wiffle Boy was based to reflect the more modern world. This time he is a mascot for World of Wifflecraft.

I'm certain that longtime 1UP member, and current Blizzard Production Diva, Erin Ali might find some humor in that. Anyhow I hope that you get a chance to read the books, they really are among the best stories out now. Let me know if you've gotten a chance to read through them.

As always if you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!