Back in  the year 2000, you couldn’t sneeze in a comic store without spraying all over a ‘block figure’ and/or a guy who liked his mom a bit too much. Tiny-Generic-Figure-mania had gripped the toy world, and everyone was selling their own version of the easy-to-produce, infinitely variable ‘block figure’, usually defined by a standard, simple body that was often composed of geometric shapes, fair articulation, and a height that rarely reached over 3 inches. This shape was used and reused repeatedly, each iteration having a new paint deco and maybe some new accessories.

Contenders included the Japanese Kubricks, which were arguably the first form to kick off the popularity of the toy genre, and LEGO minifigures, which almost definitely inspired Kubrick and predated them by decades. These were followed (in no particular order) by Minimates in the US, Cuboids, Shockinis, I-Men, Palz, GeOms, Stikfas, Bloxx and finally, Mez-Itz. While each had their own different features, Mezco’s Mez-Itz were one of the few lines that built upon their original body form with new sculpting for almost every new figure.

This was one of Mezco’s very first products, and despite the popularity of their original lines of pirates, ninjas, samurai, aliens and monsters, as well as line for Hellboy, Army of Darkness and Austin Powers, the blank, silver Mez-Itz that came with the now-defunct Mezco Collectors Club package remained the most accessible and popular.

Fast forward to today. The block figure has all but faded from the minds of toy collectors (with the exception of the tragic cancellation of Diamond’s DC Minimates line, linked above), and the urban vinyl, designer toy trend has completely taken over. The diversity of Mezco’s products also happens to extend way back into the very beginnings of the urban vinyl scene, before it was even hip and Hasbro started strangling the concept with their non-vinyl ‘urban vinyl’ Mighty Muggs. Check the toy archives and you’ll find some of the earliest examples of US-made urban styled toys have come from Mezco, with their Run DMC, Public Enemy and Notorious BIG figures, as well as that little loud dude from the Sprite commercials.

This is when the old 3” Mez-Itz get much larger and repurpose themselves. I had the pleasure of playing with one of the first handful of new, 6” scaled, vinyl Mez-Itz, which will hit retail shelves very soon. While mine was blank and ripe for me to destroy with my sculpting and scribbling, the official products will start with a pair of Toys ‘R’ Us exclusive Hellboy figures, specific to ‘The Golden Army’ (pictured above), while San Diego Comic Con will soonafter get an exclusive Hellboy Mez-Itz based more closely on Mike Mignola’s HB artwork (pictured at left). And man, as a pretty serious Hellboy collector, I’m jealous. And by ‘pretty serious’, I’d also like to remind you that I own Agent Manning’s pants. And that I tried them on.

Mezco’s Mike Drake stated that when these Hellboy toys hit mass retail across the US, they will very likely be the first time that ‘urban vinyl’ will have extended beyond the usual brick & mortar market, which is extremely limited to NYC and California. And he’s right, because there’s nothing like the touch of toy vinyl. It’s addictive, and it’s never been accurately represented on the shelf of a large retailer, who are usually too busy rolling around in massive vats of Bakugan to get an accurate gauge of the full toy market.

SDCC will also play host to an amazing collection of artists who have laid their own designs onto this new 6” Mez-Itz figure also – many of whom have been culled from outside of the usual art toy crowd. While I’m not bragging, I feel particularly honored to have been included among these folks. Brevity is not my strong suit, obviously, so I’m just going to drop a full list of the featured artists here.

Voltaire, notable musician & goth icon
Trevor Zammit
Tony Carrol
Tish & Snooky from Manic Panic
Tim Gore
Suckadelic, the originator of the ‘bootleg’ custom
Steven Walden aka Swass
Stephen Blickenstaff
Rich Young
Raymond Choy
Nelson Kong aka Kreechur
Miss Monster
Mike Drake
May Sy
Matt Connelly
Matt Cauley aka Iron Cow, known toy customizer
Lee Gajda aka Leecifer, amazing toy artist
Kyle Thye
Kyle Robinson
Kim Dylla
Ken Usanami
Josh Izzo
Joranthalus
John Mallamas aka Jin Saotome
Jeremy Sung
Jean St. Jean
Jason Jerde
Jason Geyer aka ToyOtter
Irene Mendonis
Guy Davis
George Gaspar of October Toys
Ed Wires – David Healy
Dave Cortes
Danny Bushey aka Rustedhalo
Daniel Brodzik of Front Line Studios
Collin David, myself
Chris Houghton
Carrie Conger
Brandy Anderson
Billy Chasen
Barry Anderson & John Graziano from Ripley’s Belive It Or Not!
Angus Oblong, creator of ‘The Oblongs’
Amos Hemsley
Joe Dunn of ‘Joe Loves Crappy Movies’

It’s a super impressive list, and Mezco has given CQ the first shot at a whole bunch of professional shots of many of these artists, so check out our gallery for a full view of some great, artistic examples. A form like this is really begging for some officially produced, specialty market figures featuring artistic designs, rather than just licensed characters. It’s almost a given that it has to happen eventually.

So, keep an eye out for a potentially awesome, new collection. Oh, and did I mention Freddy & Jason in series two?

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This entry was posted on Saturday, July 11th, 2009 at 2:00 am and is filed under collecting fyi, events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.