John J. Lomasney movie art poster for A French Scandal

A hand-painted film poster by John J. Lomasney for A French Scandal (1948) is up for auction as part of the LIFEbeat Summer Vacation Movie Poster Auction, which runs through September 10th at CharityBuzz.

This poster is part of what is called The Lomasney Collection, more than 800 hand-painted movie posters by John J. Lomasney spaning over 50 years of film history, called a “treasure trove of art” by the New York Post.

Lomasney worked briefly at the dawn of the golden age of cinema as a set painter for Warner Brothers and Paramount. But in 1936 he moved to Hawaii with his mother Mary and found work as a staff artist at the Royal Hawaiian Theater (not to be confused with the Kuhio Theaters — see comments).

The old Royal Hawaiian theater

It was common practice at the time for theaters to attract customers with studio “one sheets” displayed in glass cases at the front of the theater, but Royal Hawaiian eschewed the studio’s posters and hired Lomasney to hand-paint originals.

Using film stills as inspiration (& incorporating them into the creation), Lomaseny slowly & meticulously painted in gouache on 28 by 44 inch art board to produce one-of-a-kind movie posters. Rarely making more then four posters per film, he used his talent to paint “huge luminescent portraits” of film stars and integrated the billing requirements to sell movies to theater passersby.

Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow poster by Lomasney

His hand-made one-sheets varied greatly from one another, as shown in the multiple variations of Sophia Loren’s Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow — which also greatly varied from the studio produced sheets for the film.

A quiet man said to be obsessed with painting and films (he rarely talked about anything but movies and is said to have shushed others for talking while he painted), Lomasney, with his specific dress (always wearing a sport coat, shirt and his trademark bow tie) and signature-smoke (White Owl cigars), would likely be called Autistic today. Little else is really known about this studio-schooled painter taught to be anonymous and only two of his original signatures are known to exist.

Lomasney’s sad fade-out scene took place when, after 40 years of service, he left Royal Hawaiian taking not a single one of his paintings — just a paintbrush.

But the quiet anonymous man’s unique posters live on, speaking his love of movies.

The Lomasney Collection remained with the theater, eventually purchased by tennis legend John McEnroe and featured in his short-lived SoHo gallery. (The John McEnroe Gallery lasted just five years, showcasing young, unknown artists. In a June 25, 2008 interview with The Sidney Morning Herald on the subject of his love of art, McEnroe said this about his art gallery experience: “I thought I had been a champion at tennis so I could be a champion of the arts. But it was more difficult than I thought. I realised I was more of a collector at heart.”)

Vintage Charlie Chan movie art poster by Lomasney

McEnroe donated The Lomasney Collection to LIFEbeat - The Music Industry Fights AIDS, which has placed ten summer travel-themed posters from the collection up for auction at CharityBuzz.com.

Now the rare one-of-a-kind pop art works by Lomasney are not only available to art collectors and film fans, but they have another purpose: To help raise funds for HIV/AIDS prevention programs targeted at America’s youth.

As long as the hand-painted movie art posters — and the movies themselves — are loved, I think Lomasney would be pleased.

You can view The Lomasney Collection anytime at LomasneyMovieArt.com.

Hopefully, you’ve been reading along as I’ve detailed what we saw during Toy Fair in the Javits Center, and the earlier presentation by Hasbro. Allow this segment of this series of Toy Fair entries to detail some of the lovely companies that produce ‘high end’ collectibles - those things that are designed for a more mature audience that understands the delicacy of certain objects. Those adults whose love of collectibles and pop culture are quietly addressed, without any hint of incredulity, and with an actual modicum of respect. These items, which all appeared at Toy Fair this year, are made with this adult collector in mind - even if some of them are wearing tight spandex or have flashing lights and sounds.

First on this list is Tonner Dolls, a company that only came into my sphere of awareness when they started making collectible DC Comics superhero and superheroine dolls. Their doll products are roughly 18 inches tall, so they defy any commonly used miniaturization scale, and are designed for display over play. While these are articulated dolls, and usually run around $150 each, the focus of these is on fashion and carefully constructed clothing - one thing that bridges the awkward and often-misspoken gap between ‘dolls’ and ‘action figures’. It’s a very difficult line to explain.

Among their DC Comics offerings are dolls of Batman, Batgirl, The Joker, Harley Quinn, Aquaman, Poison Ivy, Supergirl, and a few different versions of Wonder Woman. Aquaman’s looking especially doll-like, with his graceful swoosh of handsome, rooted hair and a mesh shirt that covers a second shirt which reflects the whole spectrum. Us figure collectors don’t usually get any rainbow-hued heroes in our collections. Also notable is The Joker, whose scary, inhuman appearance is a very strong nod to the original appearance of The Joker within Batman issue #1 - something that I couldn’t really identify until seeing it in person. Other pop properties that Tonner has made (or is making) dolls for are Pirates of the Caribbean, Harry Potter, The Wizard of Oz, Spider-Man 2, and Dick Tracy. Hints were given (and please note that this is my own interpretation of things said) that Tonner might soon start announcing more Marvel Comics characters, and a second visit to the Batman doll as a summer convention exclusive, this time with handy Bat-accesories.

The Tonner homebase in Kingston, NY, coincidentally, is pretty nearby to my hometown.

Corgi and Master Replicas are also two related companies that have a strong focus on the adult, disposable-incomed collector. In the past, they’ve shown up on my nerd-radar by making die cast Marvel superheroes statues, as well as a great series of 1/24 scaled Batmobiles (and a few villain vehicles) that drew directly from every era of Batman comics. They’re also responsible for small and large Star Trek starships from every incarnation of the series, but this upcoming year promises to be a very exciting one.

With the highly-desired 007 license, they promise to make three series of 7” action figures from the property, including a line of different Bonds, different Bond girls, and of course, the awesome bad guys. The enthusiasm expressed by the gents at the display was infectious, and while there were no Bond toys on display, it’s a perfect opportunity to get figures of different Bond characters, especially since Sideshow Collectibles’ 12” offerings dried up long ago. In terms of other Bond items, the 1:1 scale replica Golden Gun stole my heart - not only because it’s radiant and unseemly, but because I have fond memories of playing Goldeneye on the Nintendo 64 for hours in my college dorms. The Golden Gun was the single item that could invariably smoke your opponent in a single, quiet shot - and while my opponents favored grenades and proximity mines, I preferred the stealth of the Golden Gun. To own a realistic one is the definition of sexy.

The companies have also ventured into the smaller-scale action figure realm by creating 3.75” scale action figures for both The Golden Compass and Harry Potter movies, including playsets and vehicles for both. They’ll be making figures from an upcoming animated film called ‘Igor’, but I’m most excited about seeing the Super Mario Brothers figures that they’re importing from Japan. As a gashapon series that’s been going on for many years within Japan, hundreds upon hundreds of Nintendo characters have already been made in this solid-plastic 2” size, addressing all manner of Goombas, Koopa Troopas, Podobos, Bob-ombs, Birdos, Princesses and Bullet Bills. What remains unaddressed, however, is my sad ability to name just about every one of these from my twisted, useless memory. Larger, articulated figures of Mario, Donkey Kong, Yoshi and more are also on the way and should be arriving any day now at specialty retailers and game stores. There’s nothing better to decorate a classic gaming entertainment center with.

I’ll wrap this up with Kaiyodo’s Revoltech, a Japanese company which produces action figures of above-average quality and, as a result, slightly-above-average but-still-reasonable prices. Your typical American action figure in a 6” - 7” scale might cost around $10 to $15 dollars, but Revoltech’s quality demands a price of roughly $20 to $25 per figure, packaged beautifully in window boxes, painted flawlessly, and with a ridiculous amount of articulation. These things can bend every which way, like nothing you’ve ever seen (unless you’ve really plumbed the depths of the internet, you sickos), and the combination of this ability with great sculpting is the holy grail of the action figure collector. Hell, I bought a handful of these recently without even knowing who the characters were - just because they’re that beautiful.

Since Japan toy culture is partially focused on customization and creating new things out of existing things, a fine art with entire magazines dedicated to it, Kaiyodo’s Revoltech figure joints can easily pop in and out of their sockets, all while being held firmly when need to be. These joints can also, apparently, be purchased separately. The name ‘Revoltech’ seems to be a reference to these unique joints, and the idea of figural parts being completely capable of ‘revolving’, or moving. Almost all of the booth’s catalogues and explanations were written in Japanese, so my information is limited - besides the fact that there are truly awesome.

What all of this spells out is that as a collector, my resistance to the products of this upcoming year is being seriously tested like never before. It’s one thing to sit at home and view product shots of these beautiful things, but it’s another thing entirely to walk around them and see them in person - an activity that’s always dangerously alluring. Unfortunately, Sideshow Collectibles, my favorite producers of things that I can’t afford but buy anyway, opted out of Toy Fair this year and relegated their ‘presence’ to a few new items on their website.

Next time, we’ll take a look at some more DC Comics items made by DC Direct and Mattel - things that truly short out my nerdometer.

While many folks went about trying to predict what to collect now as investments, I thought I’d ponder not what to buy in case prices soar or guess trends (even if based on big ticket items sold), but rather focus on what 2006 looked like.

Twenty or thirty years from now collectors will be looking for the iconic items which remind them of days gone by. What might you have lying about your house now that you might want to box up for future auction sales?

For starters, check out the Top 10 2006 lists.

For news stories, remember newspapers, including local coverage of events. (Don’t forget digital formats, such as podcasts and webshots.)

When it comes to entertainment, I wouldn’t recommend the books, DVDs, CDs, video games etc themselves — with so many sold, they may not be the gems. Go for the more rare items and promotional tie-ins, like the toys your kids had to have but don’t treat with much care? Like those Star Wars toys, I bet Harry Potter figurines fare no better… Don’t overlook items from reality TV — be they one-hit recording wonders or the winners of some island survival they are more than trivia fodder, they are the ‘where are they now?’ folks people will be looking for later. Never overlook the more likely to be tossed, lost, or destroyed items made of paper.

The latest tech gadgets, hot now, may be as antiquated and charming as the record player and the typewriter are to us today. So maybe you don’t want to toss all your out-dated toys when you upgrade. And keep an eye out for the oddest tech toys released this year which may not be around at the end of 2007.

But some of the real gems, the stuff that collector’s dreams are often made of, are the silliest stuff yet. It’s the stuff that makes up our pop culture. It’s the stuff you may not pay much attention to now, but years from now will have 2006 ‘written all over it’ later on. Whatever you feel is over-rated, annoying, and even not interesting to you personally now, may be the holy grail in 20 years.

A good place to look for ideas are shows and blogs which mock our current culture, like VH1’s Best Week Ever (and best of 2006). These shows illustrate how news stories became part of our pop culture through products and media. For example, killer bees in the 70’s. Sure, there are those who track the devils now, but who wouldn’t want part of the hysteria including memorabilia from the SNL Killer Bee sketches?

In 2006 Saddam Hussein and Miss Nevada haven’t been free from the exploitation, however tacky & temporary, which will likely bring great profits in the future.

Sure, these shows and blogs are filled with more celebrity ‘news’ than most of us care to live through viewing (or admitting to, as the case may be), but if they’re gossiped about now, these are the icons we’ll remember.

Who is on the cover of People Magazine? I’m sure folks in the 50’s were sick-to-death of that stupid Marilyn Monroe woman… Who knows, Paris Hilton could be the next Marilyn as far as fans of the future go — so won’t all those tabloids be worth something!

So go ahead, make a time capsule for 2006; but don’t bury it where it may get damaged.

Put it some place safe and even if no one wants to buy it, you’ll have a great time explaining all this stuff (and the personalities) to your kids and grandkids. *wink*

This week, UK avant-garde artist Banksy took Paris Hilton’s new CD home with him, redesigned it, and put it back on retail shelves for unsuspecting customers to buy. Overall, his alteration was derogatory toward Hilton, challenged pop culture’s meaning to the public, and caught the attention of his fans. And, of course, those 500-or-so works of subversive art turned up on eBay, ranging from a few hundred to a thousand dollars each.

The actual Paris Hilton CD, however, sells for significantly less on eBay.

Neither work was designed specifically as a collectible, but one is, and one isn’t. In this case, the altered version is the collectible one. Viewing Antiques Roadshow is a bit enlightening when it comes to in-authentic pieces. Reproductions (as opposed to fakes) are still worth quite a bit of money once they become antiques, even if they aren’t really as old as they look. A bootleg collectible can sometimes be rarer than the original.

Witness The Phantom Edit. In 2000, amid the noisy disappointment of legions of Star Wars fans in Star Wars Episode I, a talented video editor re-cut the film and released his own version. Many agreed that this new version was stronger than George Lucas’ own, and began to spread the word. The Phantom Edit became an overnight success, a bootleg of sorts, being downloaded and re-copied by fans all over. Copies are very difficult to come by today.

There is a rather important reason the Phantom Edit and Banksy’s CD are hard to get your hands on. The problem with altered, amended, or reproduced collectibles is, without permission, they are illegal. eBay has strict rules about copyright infringement and deletes auctions as soon as infringement comes to their attention. Bootleg collectibles are the bane of genuine manufacturers, as they dilute the market for their wares. Lawsuits are a regular occurance, forcing even immovable giants like Wal-Mart to give in, as in the case of the Teletubby rip-off “Bubbly Chubbies.” Even many fan-recorded bootlegs of live performances, long a staple of die-hard collectors, cross the line into copyright infringement.

With permission, however, collectors have enormous opportunity to have rare items in their collection. Many bands do allow bootlegs, with restriction, and the cult classic Mystery Science Theatre 3000 enjoys redistribution by fans long after their contracts to reproduce the bad films have expired. Breyer, a giant in collectible horse figurines, encourages collectors to alter and modify their horses, creating an even larger environment for collectors than appears in catalogs and price guides. Squished pennies (which, despite schoolyard threats, are not illegal in the US) are appreciated by collectors and children alike.

While Banksy’s art might fetch a pretty (unflattened) penny from the ravenous collectors, illegal activities do mar the collectible markets overall. Wise collectors would stick to legally-acquired collectibles, even if they were recorded live or have a new coat of paint. For those of you on the fence, keep in mind that, in the US at least, only selling a bootleg or copyright-infringer is illegal…owning them is just over the border into lawfulness. If ever collecting walked the line between right and wrong, bootlegs, art, and reproductions are the place to find it!

Say what you will about filling your life with unique and rare and masterfully executed works of art, dusty first editions of Moby Dick, and that fine china that you bring out when your demanding older sister comes for a visit - give me hunks of mass-produced plastic any day. Especially if they’re in the shape of Momaw Nadon. Or better yet, metal bikini Princess Leia. They may not be worth anything in a tag sale, but that’s the last way that I’ll assign value to anything. I value the cultural and personal resonance of any item before I’ll value how much I could get for it from a greasy guy hanging out in my driveway, breathing all over my LPs and eyeing my cat nervously.

I have a deep appreciation for art and literature, and am a firm believer that underneath a pop culture-dominated world, these are the things that truly keep us advancing as the human race. Our dominant culture is, after all, this same art and literature made accessible to the masses through simplification and mass production and the exhortations of Oprah. The value of ‘art’ and ‘things that are mass produced’ aren’t mutually exclusive, though. I’m sure you’re familiar with Andy Warhol, but it’s worth investigating why he did what he did with the replication of his own artwork. Also, while you’re there, check out why Jackson Pollack splattered things. It’s really very interesting, and also culturally significant.

My mind has almost fully divorced the idea of a ‘figural toy’ from being only a plaything, instead replacing the definition with ‘representation of a pop culture (or subculture) icon’. We live in a society that is largely dominated by pop culture, from American Idol to Batman, so why deny these things? It’s better to accept them, but keep a careful eye on them. That’s why the nascent art movement of pop surrealism has blossomed : to incorporate pop culture into unique artworks and reveal the true value of both elements. The art might not be one hundred years old, but that doesn’t invalidate it as art.

There is art in toys. There’s sculpting, there’s engineering, and there’s coloration, but mostly I’m enamored with the sculpting. Somewhere, someone sculpted that tiny head into that 6” Skywalker, capturing the emotion and energy of the character as best they could. And then they made 10,000 copies of that so that everyone could see.

Not only that, but Star Wars in particular is a cinematic work (cinema being an art form) that redefined the genre of fantasy storytelling on-screen, and it’s important to recognize. Do you need to recognize it by buying action figures of Greedo and Yoda? Absolutely not. Hasbro, most of all, has notoriously overproduced the Star Wars line, revisiting the same figures and using the same sculpts time and time again, further preying upon our collector instincts by re-packaging figures into retro-styled black and white packages, giving us that thrill that we felt when we first saw the figures on store shelves in our youth. Hasbro CREATED the word ‘action figure’. They know how to drive it into the ground. Drive it with a ten-ton hammer in the shape of Chewbacca. I’ll be the last person to be a Star Wars completist, but I still can’t get enough Darth Vaders.

I don’t collect toys to recapture some lost vestige of my youth. For that, I play 8-bit Nintendo games and sometimes watch bootleg DVDs of Parker Lewis Can’t Lose. I never collected toys while I was growing up, and I don’t collect toys now as some way to make up for lost toy time. I went across the street to play with Ninja Turtles if I wanted to make little plastic guys flip around and kick each other in their respective faces, slide down the firepole in the Ghostbusters Firehouse playset, squeeze Superman’s legs together to make his fists flail wildly - and I had a great time doing it. When I was at home, I drew pictures and caught bugs. Now, I draw pictures and catch bugs and collect action figures. They don’t all make it onto shelves, and in fact many are still cruelly trapped in their packaging, waiting for a time when they’ll be set up in a grand display that has no value to anyone but myself. Sure, I could sell a truckload of them if I ever found myself needing a new kidney, but let’s hope that it doesn’t come to that.

Toys represent, and are deeply related to, things that are important to me. Not as ‘toys’, but as representations of greater things. The process of creation, the fact that a small idea can blossom into universally recognized cultural consciousness, and the value of a well-realized character in anything. No, one doesn’t need a little Darth Vader next to you to remind you of the power of the dark side, but you don’t need a crucifix over your bed to truly remind you of the story of Jesus either. It just helps to have something tangible and tactile to represent these things. And I don’t think it cheapens it in any way.