events

It was hard not to notice an emerging theme among this year’s NYCC toy offerings. No, not ‘living with your parents’, or ‘never touched a girl’, but SPACE. More than a few booths were showing off wares that dealt, in one way or another, with things from space.

I’ve been watching the Space Vixens line for years. What began as a 12” action figure line from Product Enterprise has finally found a solid home with company Sixteen 12 as a series of high-end statues. While I would have loved a poseable spacegirl in such an awesome, ridiculous costume, a 12” statue still kinda fits in with the whole display, and the fact that the original pieces from the figure were cannibalized for use in the statue means that not even the original prototype figure remains. Alas.

I’m a big fan of the science fictional woman, and the whole anatomically-correct spacesuit makes for a very interesting, over-the-top display piece. After years of waiting, Captain Felicity Bliss has finally been released in an edition of 500. The fully-costumed Space Vixen at the show certainly didn’t hurt promotion.

Also on display, for the first time, was a fully-painted model of the next Space Vixens statue, Tatiana Rockettov. Instead of pulling on space imagery, Rockettov plays from a Soviet / rocketmen / art nouveau aesthetic, and it’s another exciting, awesome piece. In a strange way, she goes perfectly with GoHero’s upcoming 12” figures of Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon and Commando Cody. Sixteen 12 also has a really neat raygun on display, and as a collector of fantasy guns, I’m impressed.

Another booth that had a few space-things was Executive Replicas – most notably, a 12” figure of Kier Dullea as Dave Bowman from 2001, which included a gigantic, light-up scaled spacepod for him to ride around in. ER also had all kinds of great non-space 12” figures, including a Boris Karloff as… well, himself, a Bettie Page, and a couple of Frankenstein and Space Monster figures from the titular Frankenstein Vs. The Space Monster – which are, of course, from space. After seeing ER’s stuff in person, and in the middle of this sudden boom in 12” toys, I’m a fan. They have to compete with Hot Toys, Sideshow Collectibles, Triad Toys and a bunch of other formidable companies, but they hold their own.

I was most surprised that I’d never heard of The Outer Space Men – a line of toys that was produced by Colorforms back in 1968. With bendy arms and alien appearances, the series of nine alien figures represented aliens from all nine planets (you know, back when Pluto was still a planet). Their presence at NYCC was mostly to promote an upcoming comic book featuring their likenesses, though the owner of the world’s largest collection of Space Men was also present, and selling off a few extras. The rarity and collectibility of the line fetches some unusually high prices, but there’s an interest in re-releasing the original line to coincide with the comic. The details are still sketchy, and I personally suggested that they team up with one of the many kaiju-friendly designer toys manufacturers, but I really hope to see these awesome designs find life again somehow.

Before the end of the show, I purchased a vinyl Astronaut Jesus ($20) and a Bob Conge Skulloctopus From Outer Space ($120), so I think I’m finding a new theme to actively collect. Especially with this many amazing things to collect on display at NYCC, I think I’m officially a space man.

By the time you’re reading this, New York Comic Con 2009 has started. A few million billion socially askew nerds have converged upon the Javits Center on the west side of Manhattan, altering the shoreline and elevation of the island itself with their sheer geekpowers, and I will be among them.

I’ve been doing the Con thing for years upon years, and it’s afforded me some perspective on what Cons mean to a collector, as a fan of entertainment, and as a sane human being.

As a collector, NYCC has begun to offer an amazing range of exclusive collectibles that were previously only available at conventions like Wizard World and San Diego Comic Con. This year, there are countless exclusive items being made available by the urban vinyl toy vendors and artists that will be available nowhere else, from Brent Nolasco’s hand-painted customs, to production pieces painted up in colors that have never been released previously. Because of the nature of these artist toys, the likelihood is that even at their high prices, their editions are so severely limited that they’ll sell out very quickly. This isn’t to say that the high prices aren’t justifiable – just think of it as buying original art, because that’s what many of them are,

Mattel will be offering their exclusive Masters of the Universe Classics ‘Faker’ figure – essentially, a He-Man painted blue, and an actual character from the classic cartoon. He’ll be the fifth released figure in the series, which began at last year’s San Diego Con with a limited ‘King Grayskull’ figure (with light & sound packaging), and has recently bee accompanied by figures of He-Man, Beast Man and Skeletor, respectively. At $20 – $25 per figure, available only at cons and via mail order from MattyCollector.com, it’s a slow, but attractive, collection.

And though the NYCC website would have you believe otherwise, Hasbro’s ‘Extreme Conditions’ GI Joe sets, featuring the Joes in both desert and snow gear, are NOT this year’s exclusive. NYCC needs to get on updating their info, as they’ve created a large mix of exclusives from all previous years without distinguishing which is which. I’m not a Joe collector (except for the silly looking ones), and it’s no SDCC Fin Fang Foom, but they’re neat sets.

Last year, I purchased a Con-only Iron Man glass from PopFun, which I’m still a little in love with and have big plans for. This year’s glass from PopFun features a classic Wolverine, no doubt to coincide with the new Wolverine movie and cartoon coming out.

Tonner will also be at NYCC, offering an exclusive Lara Croft : Tomb Raider figure in a coat and brandishing a sword. Twilight fans will also be able to pick up 1 of 100 Twilight sets of the film’s two main characters. regular readers will know that despite my undeniable manliness, I loves me some Tonner.

And of course, there will be comics abound. More than can be sensibly counted. The real merit of going to a Con and enduring the best and worst of humanity all at once is meeting the creators. I’ve yet to match up the list of guests with the list of creators in comics I might want signed, but there’s no eBaying that experience.

And speaking of eBay – there’ll be plenty of people there who are buying up these exclusives to resell them for a profit on eBay, so unfortunately, a bit of speed in getting to the things that you really want first is usually required, so map and prioritize.

Bring water. Bring comfortable shoes. Bring a lot of patience for the family-sized guy standing in front of the creator you want to meet / action figure you want to buy / space you want to walk through. Don’t bring a huge backpack to stuff full of junk – if anything, bring a rolling case, and have some kind of off-location home base to store things in when you’re becoming overburdened, such as a car or a hotel.

And remember : it’s there for entertainment. It might be crowded and frustrating, but take a breath and remember to have fun.

Although meeting Wes Cowan and chatting with him was a blast, the ultimate purpose of the Trash or Treasure events were to get the full Antiques-Roadshow-treatment for the things we didn’t know anything about.   Finding those items turned out to be the most difficult part for us:  while D and I aren’t the most focused of collectors, there’s very little in our house that we’re missing information on.   A few pieces here and there, but if it can be researched we’ve already done the footwork.   We were both surprised and satisfied that Cowan and his peers access the same resources as the rest of us, so it meant we were down to just the ’stumpers’ when it came to the appraisal fair.

We actually had two occasions for Cowan and Farnand to view our mystery items.   First was Friday night, at the VIP dinner.  Fine foods were catered by the museum cafe’s resident chef, local media hob-nobbed, and Cowan gave a short speech before reviewing the items on the front table.

Like last year, there were a lot of nice items, but none of the “$10,000-surprise” variety.  Cowan was, as every time we heard him speak, both charming and unhesitatingly honest.   One of the first items he picked was a European painting that the owner believed was at least a century old.   They learned, however, that while the frame had the darker patina of older wood, the painting’s stretcher was quite new, maybe a few decades old, and the painting itself was most likely a souvenir reproduction of an Italian master.   Another person brought a small reproduction of Whistler’s Mother, and was pleased to find out they paid the right price for it:  three dollars.    19th century books had quality issues and were of minimal value.  A — honestly quite beautiful — carved wood Italian table suffered from being stripped and repaired without a conservator’s touch.

The next day, we spoke briefly with Sue Petry, Public Information Manager for the Plains Art Museum and the coordinator behind the Trash or Treasure event, and she said she had been quite worried over the poor valuations that came out of the V.I.P. Event, concerned that the people who brought their antiques would be disappointed or offended at being told their stuff was not worth much.  Petry was reassured Saturday morning when the woman with the not-so-antique Italian painting was back with something else to glean Cowan’s opinion about.  Much of the entertainment of the V.I.P. appraisal night was Cowan’s friendly handling of the lack of value in some of the items.   He kept the event light and cheerful, without making the owner feel small for bringing in something of minimal value.   An antique book — missing quite a few pages — was worth more than a few jokes from Cowan and kept the audience laughing, including the book’s owner who shared a table with D and myself.  Everyone who brought items in seemed to have more than enjoyed themselves, regardless of the price tag put on their collectible.

As I said, Deanna and I had some difficulty coming up with what to bring to the V.I.P. appraisal fair.  D brought a small 19th century piece of advertising ephemera that Cowan couldn’t add much to what she already knew about it.   I brought in a selection from my 1930s A.O.U.W films, which Cowan said might have a marginal financial worth, but the Library of Congress would probably be quite happy to borrow from me for archival purposes.  While we both enjoyed ourselves at the event, we wanted to bring things to the general-public appraisal fair that would be less of a stumper for Cowan.

Wes Cowan seemed to have more to say about the paintings and artwork at the V.I.P. event, so D and I picked several pieces of art to bring.   Cowan also had commented that folk art was one of his recent favorites, so that also made us adjust our selections.   We picked a silk-and-watercolor piece of Japanese art, a relatively-rare paint-by-number of a bear walking along a mountain road, and the woolie D brought to last years’ Trash or Treasure.

Sue Petrie of the Plains Art Museum also said she was surprised and pleased with the turnout for the Saturday public appraisal fair.    Last year, we arrived a little late and had no trouble getting in line, but this year we had a nearly two-hour wait to get our funky art underneath Cowan’s nose.   We occupied our time with the charity rummage sale, and chit-chatting in the museum cafe.   When our number came up, however, we were ready to take what Cowan had to say about our art.

The first thing he said was, “this is where you’re supposed to say, ‘are you tired of seeing us?’” to myself and D, turning on that wit that we’d seen the previous days.   We knew we weren’t going to hear huge prices from Cowan, but were hoping for more information than anything.     He started with the Japanese silk, and said it was not as finely done as classical Japanese silk-work, but was probably a post-WWII souvenir, and definitely worth around the seventy-five cents we paid for it, give or take a dollar.    When he came to the paint-by-number, he was impressed that we had found the manufacturer, model number, and title: “you know more about this stuff than I do,” was Cowan’s response, which, of course, D is going to get printed on a t-shirt for next time she goes rummaging.

When he got to the woolie we were a little surprised, but it resolved some thoughts we had from the year before.   The Ivey-Selkirk appraiser said the woolie probably dated from the 1930s to 1950s, which the wood stretcher would indicate, but I had thought the materials looked newer and D also thought the style wasn’t as detailed or well-done as other period woolies.  Cowan pointed out that the color and style of the burlap back was very 1960s or 1970s, and his opinion was that the art was done by an amateur as a basic art project using whatever materials they had at hand.  While it moved it to the edge of being called a “woolie,” it is still a piece of amateur folk art, and his price wasn’t too far off of the Ivey-Selkirk appraisal from the year before.

All-in-all, the Plains Art Museum did an excellent job of hosting an enjoyable series of presentations, speeches, dinners, and events, bringing a little chunk of Antiques-Roadshow-style fun or our northern part of the nation.  Everyone we met had fun seeing what an actual History Detective had to say about their show-and-tell selections.  We’re already looking forward to next year!