Dear Diary :

Yes, it was only over one month ago that I began to chronicle my nascent love affair with piles of interlocking plastic bricks, but it’s been a wild month. Things just started moving so fast, and before I knew it… well, let me explain.

It all started when I found some boxed Lego sets in my closet during a spring clean. In a moment of much-needed toy therapy, I tore them open, ruined their inherent mint-in-box collectability, and began to assemble. Sometimes, play just outweighs pay.

After that day of building, I never stopped. As soon as my existing sets had been assembled, I found myself needing more, and I needed it fast. A collection of 100 bricks wasn’t even enough to make a small, rainbow-colored shanty out of. It was late, and the stores were closed, so I tore into a small Mega Bloks lobster that I’d also found in the recesses of the closet, but it wasn’t the same. It kept on falling apart, and it bore only a passing resemblance to a lobster. It was like heading out to a club to find a hot chick and then coming home with one that didn’t have all of her own teeth. And didn’t even bother to replace the ones that had escaped.

When you collect to a degree that you forget about half of what you have, your own residence is a constant wonderful surprise, if it doesn’t kill you first.

I was so dissatisfied with the non-Lego lobster that I decided to create my own. When I see a creative problem, I will inevitably throw all sensibility away and throw my whole life into engineering a near-perfect solution, while I still remain indifferent about balancing my bank account. In this case, a new and improved lobster cost me a few hours of sleep, as I learned my way around the free Lego Digital Designer (which works on both Mac and Windows, and can be downloaded from free from the Lego website). By the time I was finished, I had created a wonderful Lego lobster that was all mine - and best of all, it didn’t take up any physical space! Within the LDD, you have the ability to click on a ‘how much will this cost me?’ button, and the program will calculate your total price based on which bricks you’ve used. While my Mega Blocks lobster was about 7 inches long and $2, my Lego lobster was a far more intricate, detailed, and large $35. My creation, however, was articulated with a curling tail, pinching claws, and 8 moveable legs. Such points of movement are important to an action figure geek like myself. Ol’ Blok lobster didn’t even have any legs.

I contented myself by going out into the real world and picking up a variety of under-$20 Lego sets from the store. I’d put the ‘correct’ items together, look at them for a moment, and break them apart to make them other things. I went on eBay about bought mysterious lots of thousands of mixed, used Legos. I didn’t know where they’d been, but at this point, I didn’t even care. Our love affair was getting dark and kinky, but we both knew what it was.

I lost three days’ worth of free time after I saw a picture of Iron Monger from the new Iron Man movie. With a toy magazine propped up next to my monitor, I dove into the LDD again and built a semi-accurate effigy of the Iron Monger robot, complete with moving parts (including moveable fingers), and space on the inside for an AA battery and a small light, so that he might emit a glow. I estimate that he’s about a foot tall, and has over 500 pieces. The price, after three days of intense e-labor that overtook all of my thoughts and gave me a fun project to look forward to? $95.

It was like giving intellectual birth, and it turned out really nicely. When it was done, I felt empty and directionless. Sure, I had more Lego ideas, but I was still no Nathan Sawaya. Still, visions of being employed by Legoland filled my head, as I skimmed the application process and job openings for possibilities. Unless I wanted to move to Sweden, the options were pretty limited - and the Legoland Master Builder interview process required that the applicant build a both a spontaneous model and a rollable ball of Legos on the spot, under the watchful eyes of Lego Masters. This was a situation that I felt very unprepared for, after my recent three day excursion into Legoblivion. I could traverse the Legobstacle course, but it was at my own speed.

The emptiness persisted, and my local toy store shelves were empty or only filled high-end sets and Bionicles, which are largely incompatible with your standard Lego brick. On a trip to Marshalls with my mother, I wandered over to the toy section while she browsed the pottery and spices, banking on a tip that I heard over in the Lego Facebook group. It was there that I came across my Lego holy grail, and marked at 50% off. I’d always wanted the Lego Ultimate Collectors’ Edition Batmobile, both because it was Lego and it was a batmobile, but the original $60 price tag was too steep. There were three on sale, and I bought them all. I remained awake until 2 AM, being accosted by the horribleness of the Transformers Movie, and assembling the Batmobile.

As the pieces came together, I got a sinking feeling. See, once I’d put together a handful of base plates to serve as the undercarriage of the car, I thought that would be the size of things - but no, the two thick instructional manuals that came with the Batmobile kept on adding more and more baseplates, until the size of the thing completely overtook my who designated assembly table. Bags upon bags of bricks were gently cut open at their corners, to avoid spillage onto the floor. Gears were added, sleek and curvy black bricks were stacked in ziggurat patterns, and 5 hours later (including 2 hours past my bedtime), I had a massive, solid, awesome Batmobile - and no plans on how to safely keep anything this huge. It’s too large for a Lego-sized figure or a 3 3/4 scale figure, and too small for your average 6” figure. Not only is is a masterpiece of smart construction and a testament to the power of Brick, but a handful of Lego Technic pieces cause fiery blasts and visible turbines to spin while the car’s wheels roll, and a turn of the steering wheel causes a bat-symbol on the front of the car to pop up. I’d be happy if it just sat there looking pretty. I don’t require fancy action features for my Legos.

I guess that brings us up to date, Diary. That was Sunday, and I don’t know what’s going to happen next, but I think we’ve decided to spend a little time apart so that I can get other parts of my life back in order. You know, eating and sleeping, some painting. The Digital Designer keeps on beckoning to me, though - promising me other buildable sea creatures and cthulhus, and making a mini-model of my dream house. Do I really have $100 to buy a Lego-bot of my own devising? Looks like I’m gonna hafta pull an extra shift at work. Lego, you’re worth it, and I can always rationalize it as a ‘creative expense’, which I set no spending limit on. I know, once you start making excuses for Legos, you know you’re in trouble. But it’s awesome trouble.

Before my recent exploration of Hot Wheels cars, I had little interest in them. Sure, when I was younger I’d build racetracks that would span from the upstairs to the down and careen vintage racecars into the baseboards like there was no tomorrow, but they were just things with wheels. And given my state of nervousness as a child, it was likely that I believed that there was, in fact, no tomorrow, so I had better get all my Hot Wheelin’ in TODAY.

I recently went in search of a 1/64th scale 1980s era Crown Victoria to use as reference for a comic I’ve been drawing. Seeing as how it’s a profoundly ugly model of the car, all angles and elbows, they weren’t present on the pegs of cars I found. What I did discover, however, was that 1/64th scale cars did not stop at Hot Wheels, and in fact were significantly augmented by the Matchbox Cars section around the corner. Hot Wheels, by comparison, were the Kate to the fine, sweet Bianca of Matchbox. Whereas Hot Wheels seem to focus on the occasional realistic car and quickly descend into cartoonish representations of novelty cars, Matchbox keeps it real. Realistic representations of real cars, from the VW van to the Minicooper, which was exactly what I needed for reference. Sure, they have their Snow Monster Mission Adventure Sets and kid-oriented lines of cars, but as far as my $1 goes, Matchbox is where it’s at. You can’t get ANYTHING cool for a buck anymore, unless it’s 4 bouncy balls from the egg machines in the supermarket or 1/10th of a movie. Give me the 1/10th with the nudity, please.

As it turns out, I already have a fairly significant resource of model cars that has remained untapped in the back of one of my closets. During a KB Toys clearance sale, I’d scooped up a whole mess of superhero branded cars, mostly because they had superheroes on them, they were cheap, and they were patently ridiculous. The basic premise of these cars (still being produced today by Maisto) is to take a car, slap some superhero designs onto it, and present it as a car that said hero (or villain) might drive around in, or maybe just someone who REALLY LIKES the Silver Surfer would drive around in. Clearly, the very definition of babe magnetism. Nothing says ‘I live in a basement and breathe like Darth Vader but not on purpose’ like Mr. Fantastic painted on your car.

Maisto has over 75 different vehicles with super-people slapped on ‘em. While the Batmobile is a unique example of a certain vehicle being synonymous with a hero as a regular ride, other heroes aren’t usually associated with what they drive. Green Arrow kinda had an Arrowcar back when such every hero had a themed car and a teenage ward, and Ghost Rider needs his flame-wheeled motorcycle, but to imply that Wolverine drives a tank is beautiful ridiculousness. I’m not sure what kind of synaptic lapses have to occur to decide that The Mighty Thor, warrior of Asgard and wielder of the mighty Mjolnir, would drive a Cadillac Vizon anyhow. He’d clearly drive a chariot hewn from Yggdrasil and powered by the souls of dishonored warriors and fairies.

My personal favorite item from this collection, and the one that made me purchase any of these abominations at all, is the Dr. Doom Ambulance. With ‘I make house calls!’ scrawled on the side of it, there could be no more threatening vehicle, inherently good but ever-so-evil inside, like a bunny rabbit stuffed with hornets. What kind of medical malpractice happens within? Would a supergenius REALLY write ‘DR. DOOM 2 U’ in bad text-messaging slang on the hood of his own nefarious transport? This is prime evidence that a good portion of my collecting sensibilities are dominated by the ‘so bad it HAS to be good’ philosophy.

Not all comic vehicles are as neat as the Batmobile, and please take note that writing ‘Batman’ on a Minicooper does not a Batmobile make.

To my surprise and amusement, the most recent buzz on the toy message boards has somehow crossed that very distinct line between ‘action figure collecting’ and ‘Hot Wheels collecting’. To an outsider, we’re all weirdo toy geeks who spend too much time in kids’ stores, but to us, it’s distinct. I’d compare it to that classic Trek episode ‘Let That Be Your Last Battlefield’, in which two similar aliens with subtle skin color differences deeply detest each other but seem perfectly alike to the crew of the Enterprise (one of whom was played by Frank Gorshin, TV’s ‘The Riddler’)…. but that would probably just alienate me more.
Being an action figure collector, I have my own personal bias against those Hot Wheels collectors, having heard horror stories from store-opening stampedes, fistfights over Treasure Hunt cars and often finding whole racks of Mystery Cars torn wide open. An action figure collector might push down someone’s grandmother to get to the last Mongul figure. but a Hot Wheels collector would stab her, such is their blind passion. In most cases, our two factions would never meet, but the recent release of a 2007 First Editions Batmobile Hot Wheels car has sent us warily stalking into each others’ territories.

Sure, Mattel has made a bunch of Batmobiles in the past, mostly akin to the cinematic 1989 Tim Burton version or the asinine tank-Batmobile from the recent Batman Begins film, but this Batmobile is pure 1966 nostalgia, in the form of the George Barris designed TV Batmobile. This custom car was a reworked Lincoln Futura, an unproduced production sample car made in Turin, Italy by Ford. When the producers of the Batman TV show approached Barris for a custom car, which had to be ready in a scant three weeks for filming, the Futura was the perfect answer. Nerds might also be interested to learn that Barris also had a hand in designing the Ecto-1 from Ghostbusters, among other notable TV and movie cars.

This Batmobile has seen a toy presence before, from companies as far ranging as Aurora, Ideal, Clifford, Corgi and Mego, but this is the first time that the Barris Batmobile has been presented in 1/64 scale by Hot Wheels. For fans of the campy Adam West Batman, as-yet-unsatiated by the sheer travesty that the Batman TV show has not been released on DVD, this is a little bit of heaven. Even if we have to wander into the foul-smelling depths of HotWheelslahoma.

The ‘TV Batmobile’, as the card calls it, is numbered 15/36 in the upper right hand corner of its package, along a yellow strip that runs along the right side. This is invaluable information when hunting for this car, because if you’re anything like me, every car looks exactly the same unless it’s an Ecto-1 or a Batmobile. Adding to the collectability is the fact that these Hot Wheels cars will either come packaged on a regular card, about 6” tall, or a short card, about 3.5” tall. This is not so much to create collectible variations, but provide retailers with different display options to suit their stores better. Other variations on the cars themselves include gold-colored hubcaps, instead of the usual silver.

After a few weeks of casual searching, I’d given up on finding this car, certain that some Hot Wheels scalper had already clutched it in his sweaty pork-fists and stumbled to the counter, out of my noble grasp. Fortunately, despite my attempts at taking all of my nourishment in superhero-branded foodstuff form in hopes of gaining superpowers, I still had to go out food shopping. And I don’t suggest consuming anything with the words ‘Hulkin’ Berry’ on it, ever. Not only does it not make any sense, but it probably really tastes like the Hulk’s berries. So, in Shop Rite, somewhere near the sensory abomination that is ‘herring in sour cream’ (which I think is very similar to what ‘hopelessness’ would look like, were it to take physical form), I happened upon a rack of about a dozen Hot Wheels. I still get that Wonka-bar-opening sensation anytime I see a fresh display of something, and right on top was my precious 1966 Batmobile. A few days later, I’d happen upon a short carded version on the express line at Wal-Mart and buy that also, because it’s the BATMOBILE.

It’ll be added to my growing collection of Batmobiles, and I don’t even like cars. I’ve been collecting the 1/24 scale Batmobiles by Corgi, which intelligently focus on the various appearances of the Batmobile as it appeared in the actual comic books through the decades, all the way to the 1940’s Batmobile as it appeared on the cover of Batman #20. It’s easy to forget that Batman’s origins are firmly planted in the literature of comic books, which are too often ignored with the desire to market the character itself.

Keep an eye out for 15/36. I might know little about cars or Hot Wheels, but this in a bonafide piece of TV history.