[Scroll on back to Wednesday, where this whole list started!]

When Palisades Toys was still around and cranking out their incredible (and sorely missed) toys like The Muppets and Invader Zim, they’d send out holiday figures to their friends and press contacts. I was lucky enough to be on the receiving end of these a few times. Their offerings included a Holiday Kermit in a fancy tux and green-painted shirt, a Rizzo the Rat in holiday colors and a cloth Santa hat, and an Army of Darkness Ash figure in Christmas colors. None of these were available at retail, and some of them ended up catching huge prices at auction later. A second holiday version of Rizzo was released to their Collectors Club members, with slightly different colors. Additionally, a version of the Swedish Chef dressed up as Santa was released as an ‘eBay exclusive’ - sold only thought eBay by Palisades.

Palisades also released a line of miniature figures based on the Muppet Christmas Carol movie. These ran roughly 5” tall, and featured a whole array of familiar Muppets characters in their holiday guises - Statler and Waldorf as ghosts, Fozzie as Fozziwig, Kermit as Bob Cratchit and his nephew as Tiny Tim, among others. Three sets were released in total, each with multiple figures. They still run about $15 each.

Of course, you can’t forget about the long list of Nightmare Before Christmas figures, which can arguably fit in anywhere between October and December, saving you precious decorating time. If you get just one for your holiday display, there are two similar versions of Jack Skellington in his santa outfit - each accompanied by different accessories. There’s also a boxed set of Jack riding his ill-gotten snowmobile, Grinch-style, and various figures throughout the 6 waves include small Christmas presents and elves to add to any Christmas display. Plus, the Behemoth figure from wave 5 includes an Easter Bunny figure, so that’s 3 holidays covered! While the recent NECA offerings did not include a Santa (and now that production as stopped, never will), the original line of figures did - even if he’s a hollow plastic lump that sometimes finds its way to eBay as a bank (instead of the figure that it was intended to be).

Note also that Japan’s Medicom released a few sets of the NBX characters in block figure, Kubrick form. Some of these were especially hard to get, as less popular NBX figures were mixed in with generic Disney assortments as hidden or secret figures. Some smaller gashapon (also called ‘trading figures’ and ‘capsule figures’) sets also were created.

Annually, Memory Lane, Round 2 Toys and Playing Mantis release an array of figures from a variety of much-loved family TV specials. A set from the Peanuts Christmas special includes a collection of all of the basic Peanuts characters, and the variety is fairly large - box sets, alternate faces for singing, as well as individually packaged figures are all available.

In addition to these, one can also find figures from the (again, classic) Rankin-Bass Rudolph stop-motion film. The array of these is also unexpected and staggering - at least five different elves (including Hermie), Yukon Cornelius, Sam the Snowman (voiced by Burl Ives), the Abominable Snow Monster, a few different Santas, a family’s worth of reindeer (one with a light-up nose), and all of these come with accessories, lesser animals and toys that were featured prominently in the special. Of all possible Christmas displays, this is probably the warmest and most familiar, with very faithful reproductions of the memorable characters. These holiday TV special sets appear once a year, retail at about $10 per figure, and disappear once Christmas passes. Keep an eye out, because some of these figures even have sound functions and cite lines from the show - but they look pretty similar to the plain ol’ plastic ones. Santa Claus is Coming to Town, Year Without a Santa Claus, and Frosty the Snowman are other Rankin-Bass productions that have earned a large collection of figures also.

While not especially festive themselves, there’s also the full line of ‘A Christmas Story’ figures, which include Ralphie and his family, the notorious leg lamp, the eye-shooting air rifle, and a rare Ralphie in his bunny suit.

Japan also lends their unique take on things to Christmas-ify some of their bustier female heroines. Here, we see a handful of video game characters dolled up in Santa-ish garb. These are about 4” tall, and tun about 7 bucks each - when you can find them. And speaking of busty - let’s finish off the list with Adult Superstars’ Jenna Jameson Santa figure. I’ll politely avoid the incorporation of the phrase ‘happy ending’.

Curiously absent from these lists of figures are any characters from Marvel or DC Comics, who choose to remain largely non-denominational in their figural presence - with the exception of ONE Joker figure from The Long Halloween line - which is based on a story that revolves around the holidays anyhow. His Christmas junk is removable, too, so you can have the iconic Joker or a holiday Joker! Regardless, you’ve got a pretty good heads-up on where to begin if you’re into the idea of replacing your boring ol’ nativity scene with something bit more universal and charming.

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On the initial Sunday of Toy Fair 2007, we arrived in the press room to discover that the registration computers were feeling rebellious and / or ornery, leaving us at the end of a long line of attendees from the press. Unfortunately, this was not remedied until we’d missed our appointment with the lovely BanDai, but it did afford us some time to watch the swingin’ Alien Creole Band that invades the Toy Fair floor every year and wander our way off to Sideshow Collectibles, a personal favorite of mine. Check out the Sideshow mini-gallery HERE.

Sideshow has the licenses for some of the most popular & cult characters in our time, including Marvel, Star Wars, Predator, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Lord of the Rings in multiple scales, including the unique Premium Format figure, which encompasses all statues over about 18″ tall, made with both solid sculpts and overlain fabric, and large maquettes. They also create full-scale 1:1 busts of the characters they possess and 12” action figures, as well as distribute figures from Medicom and statues from Electric Tiki.

Through no fault of their own, the Sideshow sprawl had a certain emptiness left where we would have traditionally been greeted by Diane Kamahele, who suddenly passed away this year. Instead of being social, we opted to dart around and excitedly take photographs.

Sideshow revealed a large number of great items this year, simultaneously offering them up for pre-order on their website.

Of special interest to Lord of the Rings collectors is the 1:1 scale Helm of Sauron, weighing in at 18 pounds and chock full of evil. Close inspection revealed an array of intricate gold leaf-looking spirals spanning the entirety of the helmet, almost impossibly detailed.

And while on the topic of 1:1 bust items, I finally got a chance to see Sideshow’s life-sized Yoda bust. I’m usually wary of anything that includes rooted hair, as we usually get that ugly ‘planted in rows’ look, but Yoda’s rooted hair wisps are so perfectly concealed that they almost look organic. The stock numbers on this are dwindling slowly, understandably so with the $550 price tag, but this has my in-person seal of approval.

Sideshow is also exploring the upcoming Spider-Man 3 film and the recently released Ghost Rider film with their collectibles, including imported 12” figures and VCDs from Medicom, which are cartoonishly proportioned, relatively small vinyl statues. Additionally, a full sized bust of Spidey in his Secret Wars black costume was revealed to accompany the regular comic bust.

My traveling companion was excited to see the Premium Format, 2-foot-tall Lord of Darkness figure from Legend. This figure in particular has been explored by McFarlane Toys in 8” scale, and SOTA Toys, who went up to 18” with their figure. None, of course, cast theirs in polystone and tailored clothing, though. After being imposed upon in person by the $350 thing, the price seems reasonable.

Also in the Premium Format, big-ass-figure category is the new Darth Maul. While he’s from the most hated of all Star Wars films and we dare not speak its name, Maul always had a pretty neat character design to validate his presence as a figure. Sure, we’ll NEVER see a Jar-Jar Binks (and if we do, he’ll be accompanied by bonfires and angry villagers), but Maul was also an impressive figure - again cast in polystone & real fabric tailoring.

While we’re on the subject of Premium Format figures, nothing new was announced in the Marvel category, but I think the Emma Frost will be enough to hold people over for a little while. I mean seriously…. what? What the heck? This figure is based on the artwork of Adam Hughes, also responsible for the busty Women of the DC Universe busts. Emma Frost also appeared on the second X-Men vs. Sentinel diorama piece, which was enormous and beautiful in person. Also, much more reasonably attired. This diorama is meant to be displayed in tandem with the previous Colossus diorama.

Also on display was the huge $845 Predator bust (always a pleasure to see that handsome guy), a handful of Buffy figures including an alternately-attired Premium Format Buffy, the Premium Format John Wayne and Elvis figures, and some 5th Element bobbleheads, which sparked continued rumours and dreams of a much-wished-for 12” scale figure of Milla Jovovich in her thermal bandages. Those dreams will have to remain in the pants of fanboys everywhere.

Unfortunately, no new Hellboy items were on display this year, marking either a temporary lull in the license as the next film is being made, or the end of Sideshow / Hellboy products entirely. While ferocious LOTR and Star Wars fans anxiously awaited the next 12” figure announcements from both categories, none were had, marking another company whose new offerings did not fall into their most strongly supported licenses. Sure, we got news of LOTR and Star Wars diorama statues in the 1:12th scale, but nothing can replace a 12” scale Chewbacca. For now, we’re just going to have to stick our cats in out Dejarik Holochess displays and hope that nothing gets eaten.

I’ve been cleaning, and inevitably in the process of cleaning, you’ll come across some lost treasure or pet that you thought ran away or maybe some sandwich that you SWORE you finished but there it is, green as a springtime day and just as crawling with life. Well, maybe not in your room or mine, but it happens. So, I was cleaning and I came across an old box of Minimates. I was immediately re-entranced.

A few years back, the toy industry got a hardcore fetish going for mini block figures. You take a generic humanoid body form, usually squarish and simplified in shape, and using this simple body, make a ton of different characters by giving it different paint schemes. The sculpting cost is nullified, you get a variety of figures out of the exact same body, and you get a charming formal continuity between every figure in the line. Cost-cutting capitalization on known characters? Sure, but they’re cute enough to make us forget all of that. Medicom in Japan has been doing it for a very long time with their great Kubrick line of figures, so Art Asylum decided to jump on the minifig boat with a line of figures called Minimates, based on Marvel Comics characters. Marvel Comics, as a reminder to non-comic folks out there, include Spider-Man, the Hulk, the Fantastic Four and the X-Men, among others.

And MAN, did I collect those guys. Each wave of figures had eight characters, contained in four double-packs. Additionally, there was a variation on one of the packs in the wave, switching out a particular figure with a less common variation of that character, adding that ‘chase’ thorn in the side of collecting Minimates. And they were fun… until Art Asylum decided that we needed a dozen different Spider-Man figures in slightly different forms of undress and battle damage, packed in with figures that we actually wanted. The same thing happened with Wolverine. Classic Wolverine, New X-Men Wolverine, sleeveless shirt Wolverine, maskless Wolverine, Ultimate Wolverine, leather jacket Wolverine, and I’m sure there were others. President Wolverine, Wolverine Soufflé, You Got Wolverine in my Peanut Butter, newborn Wolverine. You get the idea. As human beings, we have a certain Wolverine tolerance, and we were now suffering from Wolverine Poisoning. Which would have also become a figure if the line were allowed to continue in this way. The full lineup is conveniently covered on my good friend, Wikipedia.

I joined the Art Asylum Collectors’ Club for roughly thirty dollars so that I wouldn’t miss any releases. Despite many promises, they actually had the audacity to send out paperclips and rubberbands as ‘membership bonuses’ and not much else. It folded under a myriad of frustration and undelivered items. The company nobly plodded on.

Art Asylum went on to create Minimates based on DC characters also, but due to licensing agreements, they could not be packaged as individual figures. Instead, they were packaged as accessories to Lego-like construction kits called C3, which immediately amplified the price of attaining the figures. The C3 sets were rife with problems - deformed building blocks, incomplete figures, missing pieces. An exchange program was formed briefly, but it was enough to solidify real doubts about continuing to collect the line. A handful of pieces that were shown at ToyFair never saw their way to production, and Art Asylum rounded out the C3 collection with a series of mini-vehicles and closed down their flawed venture into construction kits. Recently, they’ve revisited the license and have been granted the rights to sell individual figures of DC characters, which is ultimately where their strength lies anyhow. So, consider me thrilled and suitably pre-ordered. These future Minimate waves will include the members of the Justice League, as well as some of the Justice Society and a handful of tangential (but still fun) characters, and best of all, through twenty-four figures, there’s only two characters being repeated, and I can never, ever have enough Batman. DC Comics, again as a reminder, include such iconic figures as Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel.

Art Asylum also ventured into Minimates based on Lord of the Rings and Star Trek but neither venture really gained enough of a following to continue, and many presumably-rare exclusive sets couldn’t be given away. We’ve entered a new era, though, and figures that were lost to time have once again become desirable. A Nightcrawler from the ‘Giant X-Men’ box set can reach as high as 21 dollars, which is a handsome price for a 2.5” figure that was released only a few years ago, but most of the figures are still reasonably accessible for now. There’s a very real, geeky appeal to comic fans when they can get figures of their favorite heroes that are compatible with each other despite being from different universes. Too many times, the sizes or quality of the different figures just don’t match up, so this universality between the two comic labels is pretty hot stuff and is sure increase the demand all around. If there was ever a time to try to catch up, it would be now.

And it’s infinitely cool to have a tiny, posable superhero team anywhere you go. I don’t care what you say, it is.

We’ve talked plenty about mass-retail action figures, but some of us collectors have more refined tastes. A bowl of chirashi over a conversation about post-modernist painting, perhaps some Chopin before a crackling fireplace, and the episodes of Sliders before the show got really, really stupid. And Sideshow Collectibles, of course, which has been producing beautifully crafted, higher-end proprietary collectibles in force for just under a decade.

Sideshow has made a name for themselves by being the premiere creators and distributors of meticulously crafted, researched and realized 12” figures, including famous Universal Studios movie monsters, reproductions of historical figures, characters from The Outer Limits and The Twilight Zone, the James Bond films, Monty Python, and more recently, Hellboy, Lord of the Rings and Star Wars. They’ve even scaled-up a lot of these figures and doubled their sizes, offering ‘Premium Format’ figures to those collectors with room to spare. Personally, I found myself collecting every Hellboy figure that they had to offer, going out of my way to find convention-exclusive items, and eventually, purchasing actual screen-worn movie props. You don’t know ‘collecting’ until you’ve collected Jeffrey Tambor’s pants. That’s when people start to wonder.

Beyond these things, Sideshow also is responsible for a large number of museum-quality busts and statues, movie prop replicas and fine art pieces, as well as importing hard-to-find Medicom products from Japan, which include both anime and Marvel Comics properties. When we stopped at their Toy Fair booth, all of these items were on display, a vast myriad of high-priced low-brow glory. Check out this photogallery of their stuff that I snapped!
The Sideshow booth is always friendly and casual. At my first Toy Fair, I was uninitiated and nervous. unfamiliar with the strange customs and rituals of the toy people, but Sideshow was very welcoming of our awkward investigative reporting. We were left to our own devices as we circled the booth slowly, snapping a ton of photos. One gets the impression of being in an antiques store - you’re afraid to MOVE, lest you knock something beautiful and precious over.

Without discussing every single amazing item on display, the standout pieces this year were the Marvel Comiquettes, which are roughly 15” - 20” tall statues of some exciting Marvel characters, starting with Iron Man and Wolverine, both in the $200 range. These pieces are by far the best interpretations of these characters that I’ve seen in any 3D format, and the metallic, radiant sheen on Iron Man is beautiful enough to convince me to order him. As with many items made by Sideshow, both of these items have a limited-edition, early bird pre-order version, in addition to the regular versions. If you happen to have pre-ordered these items at Sideshow’s website soon after they were put up for order (usually around 1 PM ET on Fridays), you’ll receive a bonus piece. In the cases of Wolverine and Iron Man, you get bonus, unmasked heads in addition to the regular heads, which are easily interchangeable.

Many of Sideshow’s pre-orders run like this, and while many of their pieces sell at secondary retailers for a slightly lower price, ordering the items directly from the site is the only way to attain these bonus pieces. These pre-ordering times are massive collector events, and sometimes the exclusive versions sell out in under 30 minutes. The regular versions of these items, which are produced in much higher numbers, usually remain in quantity for a few days, so it’s a website to constantly watch if you want to keep on top of things.

The other standout items were Sideshow’s Star Wars 12” and Premium Format figures. Having recently acquired the license from Lucasfilms, Sideshow is visiting all 6 Star Wars films at once, in a variety of interesting characters. The line of Premium Format figures are about two feet tall, and feature authentic costume detailing, directly referenced from the films, and occasionally, small electronics for illumination. Included in this line are Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Obi Wan Kenobi, Darth Vader and Princess Leia, as well as General Grievous, the asthmatic robot from the newer films. I had the pleasure of winning a Premium Format Darth Vader, with a retail value of $350, during one of Sideshow’s many online events. Where I’m going to display a 2’ Vader, I don’t know, but I venture that I’ll have to sleep with him. Thankfully, that’ll be the only time I use the phrase ‘sleep with him’ in terms of what I’ll do for collecting.

The Star Wars 12” line will be the first time that we get film-accurate, stunningly detailed figures from the Star Wars films. Hasbro has put out some mass-market 12” versions of some of these characters before, but none with the high-end attention to detail that Sideshow has to offer. They’ve broken the line down into a few categories - Order of the Jedi (to include all characters who are Jedi), Heroes of the Rebellion (to include all other heroic figures), and at least one more undetermined category, likely to include villains, bounty hunters and other various aliens. None of these have been released yet, but 5 different figures have gone up for pre-order, from throughout the Star Wars timeline. I usually don’t touch anything that happened after Return of the Jedi, but I couldn’t resist a 12” figure of Kit Fisto, the Jedi with asparagus hair.

Like the Comiquettes, all of these Star Wars figures had Sideshow-exclusive items if you were among the first to order them. Princess Leia comes with an alternate blaster, Han Solo comes with a giant magnetic space-manta, Kit Fisto comes with a decapitated droid head, and so on.

Even Lord of the Rings lives on in both 12” and Premium Format figures, with Aragorn recently being put up for pre-order and Legolas displayed for the first time at Toy Fair. Lord of the Rings people are a very strange and dedicated group, sometimes bordering on ‘savant’, but I love ‘em. They can recite every township that the Fellowship passed by on their journey to Mount Doom, in Elvish, while making fictionally-accurate lembas bread, but they can’t comb their hair. I went to a meeting of The Tolkien Society once, and then I spent the next three days cowering under the blankets. Sure, I collected every LOTR action figure from Gimli to Theoden, but I’ll be damned if I know how many arrows Legolas fired at Ugluk on the 5th day of Lammastide. These people… they know.

Only these two figures have been announced so far, as the line has only just begun and they’re released at a rate of one per month, at a price of around 60 bucks each, giving us time to breathe and recoup and sell that ever-replenishing font of money that I like to call ‘plasma’.

Click around on SideshowToys.com for everything else that they have to offer. It’s something that collectors who spend all of their time in real, actual stores might not have noticed before, and it’s ridiculously good stuff.