Hosive

i have a column about comic books but i also wanted one exclusively on collecting(mostly toys). so i thought of the collector…the supervillian identity of the comic book guy on the simpsons….this is a nerdy homage to him, collecting and indirectly to matt groening.

i read somewhere that we are all collectors. its part of human nature to collect. so a question to ask, that is strangely revealing, is what is it that we collect?……handbags, music, stamps, coins, shoes, clothes, memories, gadgets, junk, plastic bags to reuse, rocks…what’s your poison of choice? my father in law collects expensive liquors and figurines. i have a friend who collects lighthouses. my mom loves little trinkets and toys. my dad collects pieces of wood. no joke.

i collect all kind of things…too many things…

theresa collects a series of dolls called uglydolls….they are only mildly ugly and mostly cute. though some of them have facial hair. the irony is that while we have over a dozen of these dolls, we have not actually purchased many of them ourselves. most of them are generous gifts from friends! this is what happens when you collect stuff…people wind up helping you out. in this case….helping us out a lot. our collection has grown without buying one for years at a time.

since we started “collecting”, the dolls have taken off and are an industry. part of the scene are these uglycons/uglyconventions around the world including sf, la, tokyo and now nyc. art, chance to meet the creators to get autographs and sketches, exclusive figures and limited edition merchandise have drawn crowds at each of the cons.

the nyc con was held at the tiny giant robot storefront in the east village….here’s what is was like that day……

hanging at the top were hand made exclusive, one of a kind figures going for hundreds. there were also one of kind art pieces also for hundreds. which left us pretty much the option of buying more affordable(and reasonable) prints and limited edition dolls(as seen in the lower corner…these are variant figures in different colors and accessories like them wizard and sailor hats)….note these pictures include foreshadowing.

the con was packed…wall to wall on the inside of the store…….

and on the outside. a raffle was held to determine the order that we would enter to have a chance to buy the goodies. there was no guarantee that we would get any exclusives! or that the exclusive(s) that we want would still be available once we got to go in. it turns out that people would wait for hours…hours! as they waited for their raffle ticket to be called.

as reported elsewhere, the crowd was so big that it blocked traffic to the anger of the local residents. one unfriendly started swearing at the crowd that was comprised of mostly kids! the adults yelled him inside! but later, during the costume contest, he pour cold water on the kids from his window. it was already cold enough….and the kids were drenched. wow. ugly.

while outside, theresa and i debated what we would get. though she was in love with the plaid exclusives, they  were not figures we liked and the price was hard to justify. so we settled on perhaps a print and a few limited edition variant figures.

we were about the eighth raffle ticket to be called. i was so excited that i cried out nerdily: “we won”…we got in relatively early….15-20 minutes in…as opposed to the aforementioned hours! some of theresa’s bridemaid’s relatives told us that they waited at least an hour and a half!

here’s theresa’s prize….sailor ice bat. it is a 1 of 25 in the whole world plush! theresa also picked out a print that will be on display until early january.

and i got this…weird…um…christmas poe? on that note, merry christmas!!!!