Microcollections 1: Superhero Ephemera

(Crosspost from Speaking of Collecting...)

As I consider my collections, the ways I go about organizing them, adding to them, and appreciating them, I also realize that the large collections (primarily my comics, Bionicle, and Lovecraft) are accompanied by smaller collections, some intentional and some completely arbitrary. I thought it would be fun to have a few brief looks at some of the smaller collections in my collection of collections.

(*sigh*)

First up, superhero stuff.

 While clearing up our storage room the other day, I opened up a box I had labeled "Superhero Ephemera." Inside were these little treasures. I used to have some of them in the spaces between my comic boxes, but having rearranged those shelves to optimize space, the ephemera was relegated to a box. However, a few weeks back we visited the very strange and awesome Miracle of America Museum in Montana, a place where knick knacks and stuff were just spread over a warehouse-sized space to celebrate the innovation of the American nation. I have a few more thoughts about that, but I'll save it for another post. Inspired by this, I made a little bit of space to display some of my knick knacks, superhero style. The accumulation of this little collection is a random process. Many of the little figures, mostly fast-food toys, are things that came in bags of Bionicle that I get from thrift shops. There's toys that come from Kinder Egg-style candies, inserts from Wizard magazine, lantern rings that were given away during the "Blackest Night" event. The black Spider-Man toy in the bottom left corner has been the subject of one of my Horror from the Dollar Bin posts, a naughty little toy if ever I've seen one. There's a couple in there, the Wolverine at the front and the similar Captain America at the back, that are actually pens. And then there's the Fleischer Superman cartoons, on video cassette. There's a belt buckle, little tiny reproductions of comics, bracelets, zipper pulls, little figurines. The day after I took this picture, I got a Super Grover figure in a bag of Bionicle parts. He graces the shelf now too.

A fairly important part of my dissertation is going to be looking at exactly this sort of intrusion into the material realm of these kinds of fictional characters. Toys and knick knacks like these make up a sort of mythic background radiation. We see them at flea markets, garage sales, McDonald's, and pay them little attention. But they are important manifestations of fiction into reality, and I think that's something that's worth thinking about.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 358: Alien Agency: The Arrival, 2002

A mini-comic that came with one of the Alien Agency sets from about 10 years ago. I've always had a weird feeling about this comic. It's a Men In Black sort of situation, but there's a troubling dissection scene at the end of the story that makes this series, based on a children's toy, much darker than those movies.

In its defense, the series came with a bunch of play dough forms that one could make around plastic aliens, so you had to cut through the play dough flesh to get to the figure inside.

Which, now that I've typed it out, is really pretty disturbing in and of itself.

But I really liked the sets.

Alright. Onward.

Toy Stories

Let's call this one an irregular feature.

I used to be far more into toys than I am now. Moving across the country has taught me exactly how transportable all your stuff needs to be, and toys are not.

I do have one weakness when it comes to toys, though, and that's Lego's BIONICLE series.

I love this stuff.

I've been getting it since it debuted in 2001, hitting up garage sales and thrift shops after the line ended in 2010. The line made a return in 2015, which is wonderful.

I've only just (well, in the last year or so) taken the step of really using it creatively though. For a long while it was about collecting the official models in the series (it still is to a certain extent), or about building pieces that were basically just variations on those official models. But in the last little while I've come to see it not just as a building toy, but an artistic outlet. There are insane BIONICLE-based figures all over the Internet.

I also started trying to maintain a semi-critical look at the line at my collecting blog, but this one is taking up a lot of time lately (and, y'know, school). I'll get back to the BIONICLE blogging one of these days.

Now, when BIONICLE ended, and just as the Marvel Cinematic Universe was becoming a force to be reckoned with, Lego released a series of superheroes using simpler versions of the BIONICLE elements:

Lego released Iron Man, Captain America, and the Hulk from the Marvel U, and Batman, the Joker, and Green Lantern from the DCU (I've got pics of IM and GL here because they're the only two of the sets that I own).

I managed to snag a double of the Iron Man set, and began to wonder, with the myriad pieces I have, what kinds of Iron Men I could build. Eventually, I settled on an Iron Man with a kind of samurai aesthetic. As I've said, I'm seeing the BIONICLE elements as artistic medium now, so here's some of my superhero inspired art:

It's not immediately obvious in that last picture, but his jets at the back swing up into guns.
Here's a clearer picture of them, though the picture's less clear, if you see what I mean.

So, that's one of my other passions. I'm currently working on a Green Lantern one, and furiously searching for the other characters.

I'll do other, sporadic "Toy Stories." My supervisor, Bart, wrote a book called Comics vs. Art, and in parts of it he considers what we consider the limits of comics scholarship. Should it solely be about 2-dimensional sequential art strips, or can it be about the vast culture, material and otherwise, that has grown up around them too? What are "comics?"

Return of...The Horror from the Dollar Bin!!!

It's been a while since I did a Dollar Bin!!! post. But, honestly, that Lady Supreme comic raised the bar pretty high. And I actually have not come across anything quite so bizarre and just plain bad in any of the dollar bins I've raided in the last little while. But with my 40 Years of Comics Project up and running, I live in hope of discovering some real stinkers in the near, and far, future.

But then I thought, Hey, why does a dollar bin horror have to necessarily be a comic? If we expand our scope of comics collecting a bit, could we include toys?  Maybe little plastic Happy Meal toys, since they usually don't cost much more than a dollar, especially at thrift shops and garage sales.

So I found something just...weird.

I call it Naughty Spider-Man.

Yes, you're seeing what you think you're seeing. It's Spider-Man holding a large, white....something that appears to be protruding from his genital region.

It's not a trick of the camera angle. He really is doing that.

Naughty Spider-Man has a little button on his back. And who can resist a little button to push?

Oh. I should have resisted. Spider-Man has just shot a rope of sticky web fluid from his crotch.

Digest that for a moment.

On the bottom of his foot is a Burger King logo, so this was actually packaged in kids' meals.

Dang. I think I raised that bar again.