After filling this site’s stocking to the brim with posts over the last twenty-four days, I’m going to take a little break and just wish everyone a very merry Christmas and happy holidays.
PoA will be back tomorrow with more interviews, photos, and other fun stuff. Until then, enjoy the day!
Codename: Santa Claus
Specialty: Philanthropist
Base of Operations: The North Pole
History: The origins of the magical being known as Santa Claus are shrouded in mystery. Despite popular depictions in hundreds of books, television shows, and movies, the real Santa Claus remains as much an enigma as ever.
OK, I’m officially as giddy as a schoolboy. Today I have a real treat for everyone–an interview with none other than the jolly ol’ elf himself, Kris Kringle, Ol’ Saint Nick, the man known best as Santa Claus. Don’t ask how he managed to fit me into his busy schedule–I just shot him an email and he wrote me back.
PG: Thank you for taking the time for this. I realize you’re a busy man, particularly today. Let’s get right to the important questions: what’s your distribution plan for the DC Universe Classics line this Christmas?
Well, the deals I make with the toy manufacturers require that I not make or distribute anything that they haven’t gotten to the stores. And I don’t think those are out yet, are they? Honestly I can’t keep up with such things.
PG: While we’re on the topic, how do the toy manufacturers feel about the way you manufacture and distribute their items for free, which technically amounts to industrial espionage, plagiarism and copyright infringement, to name just a few?
I work closely with the toy companies to ensure that all my products are built to the same standards as their own. As for recompense, the contracts my account elves make with these companies guarantees satisfaction for all parties.
PG: What are your thoughts on the sculpting vs. articulation debate?
Until about a century or two ago, all toys had only a few points of articulation–especially figures. Personally, I’ve always thought of toys as something to be played with, but I understand where the collectors are coming from, too.
PG: What’s the hardest part of your job?
These days, it’s the videogames. And I thought board games were hard to make when they first came out! The videogames are so complicated…I’ve had to send thousands of elves to training seminars at Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, and so forth. Endless headaches. Sometimes I long for the days when a child was enchanted by a little wooden horse.
PG: Ha ha, yeah. Moving on…what’s the strangest present you’ve ever been asked for?
Oh, my…where to begin? A boy once asked me for fifteen yards of dolphin intestines–I don’t know what for. There was an excitable American lad who wrote me for years asking for weapons of mass destruction–flame throwers, mustard gas, atomic bombs, you name it. Young Howie Lovecraft wanted an ancient Mesopotamian scroll. And I won’t even tell you what little Donatien de Sade asked for back in 1753.
I’d like to thank Santa again for his time. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!
Codename: Mumma Ghostal
Base of operations: The Great White North (Boston, MA)
History: A Navy brat and the second child in a family of seven kids, Mumma Ghostal grew up here, there and everywhere, causing havoc with her siblings and generally raising hell. Then one day she met my father, Popo Ghostal, and soon, instead of raising hell, they were raising me.
No one has nurtured (or spoiled) my love of action figures more than my parents. In honor of their lifelong support of my hobby–particularly over the holidays–I’ve decided to interview both of them, braving the risk of lifelong embarrassment.
PG: How early on did it become clear I was a child who loved toys?
Mumma Ghostal: When you were about three-and-a-half, you cried uncontrollably because I had put a shirt on you that didn’t “have a guy” on it. Once I had gotten that information out of you, I assumed you wanted one of your superhero shirts! From about that age, you were always carrying around “a guy,” whether it be a dinosaur, superhero, some random little pocket-sized guy, or Space Dragon perched on your hand like a pet parrot!
We were probably guilty of feeding the monster [pun intended? –PG] since we found Godzillas when you were watching Creature Double Feature at the age of four, Star Wars guys after you saw the movie for the first time, and I gave up the hard-saved $25 Dad had for my Mother’s Day present so that we could get you the aforementioned Space Dragon at Mr. Big’s Toyland in Waltham, Mass. when you were five–because you loved the cartoon.
I will say that you never really abandoned a toy, and most of your toys were action figures and you kept them because you needed them. It was also kind of fun to be able to surprise you with that elusive Boba Fett or Admiral Ackbar, because you were so appreciative and not really demanding. Maybe you just assumed that you would COLLECT ALL EIGHT…then twelve….then twenty…and so on!
PG: Which of my toy fads did you like best: He-Man, Transformers, or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?
While it was fun to watch you transform the Transformers (we used it as a party trick!), I liked He-Man the best. It was really your first collection group, and we would sit and watch the show together. I tried so hard to get all the guys for you, then they added more…and more…and so on!
PG: What’s your favorite story regarding the search for a hard-to-find toy?
After seeing Star Wars (am I compelled to add “A New Hope”?) for the first time at the old Braintree drive-in (wearing your Superman pajamas AND matching robe) you wanted an R2D2 more than anything. How were we to know that it was damn near a collectible THEN! We looked every time we went to the Hanover Mall, where Child World was located, no luck.
Finally MONTHS later (I know, because you saw the movie in the summer and I distinctly remember you wearing your winter coat and earmuff hat!), we stopped at a Child World in downtown Quincy after visiting my grandfather one Sunday. Nothing on the shelves, but at the bottom of a returns cart, there he was! We pulled him out and you LEAPED around the aisle saying “We found him! We found him!” And I think the Poe Ghostal we know and love was born right there in the store!
PG: What’s your favorite toy-related Christmas memory? (Your own toys or otherwise.)
My favorite childhood childhood memory was when I was eight and living on the water in Key West. I am the second child of seven, and have an older brother whom I idolized as a child. The next in line is a sister I am very close to, but I had absolutely NO INTEREST in dolls or girly playthings. Santa apparently thought she and I should always get matching dolls and dresses and stuff. I hated it.
But that Christmas, my brother Rick and I got matching Zebco spinning reel and rod sets! I was in heaven!! I can still see the plastic packaging and cardboard back. I loved to fish with Rick and he taught me a lot the years we were in Key West. He also would play wiffle ball with me, but I loved to fish. Santa also brought him a rowboat, and I’ve been meaning to talk to the Man in Red about that, but I suppose I should get over it by now.
One of my favorite memories of your Christmases was when you got “Caskill of the Grayskull.” It was expensive for us back then, but I really liked the playhouse-for-boys idea! Also, once we bought a King Kong board game at a bargain store , it had been stepped on and the box was clearly damaged. We left a note that Rudolph had put his hoof through it. You bought it, and it was one of your favorite toys. (Not the game, just the King Kong figure!) And Sister Ghostal [my younger sister –PG] as a child brought out the sweet little girl I never was and I loved seeing her with little dolls and girly things! I just wasn’t any good at playing with them.
PG: What was your favorite toy as a kid?
I didn’t have a lot of toys of my own as a kid. But I was the reader in the family and can still vividly recall the books I got at Christmas. I do remember a little pink metal play oven with little tiny plastic pots and pans that I had as a toddler. When I was about five, the Navy lost the boxes that had all of our toys in them during a move and we had to start over. When I was about ten, the family got a big set of Legos, I really liked building stuff with those. I had some dolls and Barbies, but I would torture them to make my sister cry. And I loved that spinning reel. About a year later, Rick took it and used it for parts to fix his broken one.
Codename: Popo Ghostal
Not to be confused with: Topo Gigio
History: Born and raised in New England, Popo Ghostal has pulled off some of the most amazing toy coups over the years, successfully tracking down rare imported Godzilla toys, the original Godzilla Nintendo game, and a Ninja Turtle figure named Ray Fillet.
PG: Did you own any action figures as a kid? G.I. Joe, Major Matt Mason, Mego superheroes?
Didn’t have much in the way of action figures in the 50’s and 60’s. I did have a lot of army men, both American Civil War and World War II. I spent many ours playing with them.
PG: What was your favorite toy growing up?
To the story above, my favorite toy was a boxed Civil War play set, which included plastic union and confederate soldiers molded in various action poses, cannons, earthworks, bridges, etc. I could re-enact entire Civil War battles in my sand box, and did just that with great regularity through the age of at least 7.
PG: What are your fondest Christmas memories? (Your own childhood or otherwise.)
Going to get the Christmas tree with my Dad a week or two before Christmas. Because the trees had been cut down weeks before we got to the tree lot at Hearthstones in Weymouth, Mass., the smell of the oozing sap was incredibly strong. To this day, passing a tree lot or getting a whiff of balsam tree sap transports me to being a young boy again..I am actually AT Hearthstones with my Dad.
The Morman Tabernacle Choir and Vienna Boys Choir Christmas albums my Dad played also holds special memories for me, along with, yes, my Mother’s Christmas cookies…the best.
My first Christmas with my wife after we met, and every one since have all been special.
The looks of surprise on my children’s faces upon seeing the presents under the tree, as well as the look on their faces while they waited impatiently for their Mother and I to get our coffee before they could go into the room and open their presents. I STILL get a kick out of that one…we make them wait to this day!
PG: Whose idea was the Great Turtle Hunt of 1990? (In October of that year, Popo Ghostal and I went on a quest to find as many Ninja Turtles figures as we could find, to get them before the Christmas rush. They were then hidden away until the big day.)
That was mine…Young Poe was a good student, so I knew playing a little hooky wouldn’t hurt him, and the absolute joy those turtles brought him as action figures to play with led me to think it would be fun to go on a turtle hunt. They were so popular, you had to catch them right when the new shipments arrived at the stores. I made a few phone calls to see when different stores got their deliveries, and we were off. If memory serves me correctly, it was a successful hunt and we bagged a number of rare turtles!
PG: Which particular Christmas gift was the toughest to track down for young Poe?
I would have to say it is a toss up between an Evil Dead Movie that had been out of print for a while, and a Pearl Jam CD made in Canada. Both took numerous phone calls and research, but ultimately, successful results in both cases.
I had originally intended to ask Mrs. Ghostal-to-Be to wrap up the figures from my case of DC Universe Classics before I looked at them, so I could open them under the Christmas tree. But after realizing that this would be profoundly anticlimactic and possibly also overshadow the real gifts I receive Tuesday morning…I tossed a coin and it told me to open them.
And they’re fantastic. In terms of design and quality, this is my ideal action figure line. I’ll be reviewing some or all of the figures for OAFE fairly soon, and you can expect a good number of photos to pop up on my photostream.
By the way, now that ToyFare Week is over, be sure to peruse the entries I posted in-between–they would have showed up below the TF Week sticky-posts, but now that TF Week is over, I’ve removed the sticky-ness so they’re interspersed among the interviews (you can also click on the “Blog” link to list them separately from the interviews).
Codename: Dylan Brucie
Specialty: Photographer
Base of Operations: ToyFare Magazine
History: Dylan Brucie was born in the early 1980s, like many great toylines. He wasted a lot of time growing up in upstate New York playing with toys and reading comics. After going to college for journalism, he got an internship at Wizard Entertainment writing short articles and sidebars, which eventually led to a full time position with the company. The rest is TBD.
PG: Please describe what you do at ToyFare. Is this the culmination of a lifelong desire to work with toys or the inevitable result of a misspent youth?
Officially, I photograph everything for ToyFare magazine we need shot in-house, including Twisted ToyFare Theater, all the visual price guides and pretty much any other toy, statue or knick-knack we care to show. Unofficially, I play with toys all day long and occasionally photograph what I’m doing.
I used to spend HOURS setting up battle scenes with toys, from G.I. Joes to Dino Riders, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and DC Superheroes. I had no idea at the time it was essentially job training for the future, but fortunately it more than prepared me for my current profession.
PG: Please list the toys in your work area.
I have a small army of black-costumed (or should I say “best-costumed”?) Spider-Man figures patrolling my desk, interspersed with a few Venoms and a couple Wolverines. I also have a black and white Kevin figure from the Sin City movie figure line (who I dressed up as for Halloween a couple years ago), an Onslaught figure from the ’90s ToyBiz line (because I’m one of the comic readers who actually really dug that story) and lastly a Guts figure, from my personal favorite anime/manga of all time, Berserk.
PG: What’s the most interesting thing going on in the toy industry today?
I think the diversity of toys we have now is the best thing going on. We have old school Mego figures making a comeback while super-detailed figures like Hasbro’s Marvel Legends continue to blow our minds. And we have Anniversary G.I. Joes for the classic fans while the Sigma Six figures are fostering a whole new generation of fans. Every toy fan, new or old, is a winner right now.
PG: What’s the best thing about working at ToyFare?
Oh man, there are a ton of great advantages to working at a place like ToyFare. I can dress in jeans and a t-shirt every day (sometimes the same ones for weeks at a time); I work with some of the funniest people in the industry; I get to see each new Twisted ToyFare Theater before almost anyone else; and I have to say it- working with toys is a blast. It’s hard to think of a better job in the world. And I’ve been a cart-pusher.
PG: What’s your fondest toy-related holiday memory?
The word “obsessed” isn’t quite strong enough when describing how I felt about the 1989 Batman movie. Let me also stress that the word “rich” falls a little short of where my family’s economic status fell. Not that we were poor by any means, but toys were a privilege, not a right. So it was probably one of the best holidays ever when I not only got both the movie Batmobile and Batwing vehicles, but also a bunch of figures, including Batman (sans Keaton-face), Joker and even Bob the Goon! I still feel bad for guy who only ever had one shot at having an action figure made of himself and it was called Bob the Goon, but I hope he can take heart in the fact that he made my Christmas one of the best ever that year.
Back in college, I used my then-awesome digital camera to create a “figuretoon” inspired by the show Space Ghost: Coast to Coast. Now, thanks to the magic of Flickr, you too can enjoy it! Featuring interviews with Pee-Wee Herman, Randy “The Macho Man” Savage, and the inevitable brawl, complete with chair-bashing.
Click on the photo below to start the slideshow.
Mrs. Ghostal-to-Be and I are often amused by the promo spots for Jon Keller, a Boston TV news personality. He’s sort of a cross between John Stossel and a daytime talk show host; every promo follows a formula whereby something seemingly positive is revealed to possibly be negative. “Doctors say regular exercise is good for you. But some people say that may not be true–find out why at 11!”
Now Keller has turned the burning focus of his scrutiny upon a true scourge of the modern world: toy packaging. In this special report, Keller argues that when it comes to toy shopping for Christmas, “the cost and the crowds are nothing compared with the agony of getting the darn things open.” He’s even created an online petition telling toy companies “Our children want to be able to play with the toys they open Christmas morning–or for Hanukkah or their birthday–without watching their parents fight, fumble, cut themselves, and curse at the packaging.”
My parents were usually able to do all that independent of any toy packaging in the vicinity (especially Mumma Ghostal–she has the vocabulary of a drunken sailor). But I have to admit, toy packaging is a big pain in the ass these days. I’ve cut myself more than once on clamshell cases.
And yet, I do think clamshells make for the best collector’s packaging. Many collectors keep their toys in the package, and plastic clamshells don’t wear the way cardboard boxes and backing cards do. I suspect the rise of clamshell packaging has much to do with the rise of toy collecting as an adult hobby. As someone who opens all of his toys, I’m not too fond of having to tear my way into clamshells, but frankly, I find the innumerable wire twist-ties far more irritating than getting the package open.
So will you sign the petition? Clamshells–yea or nay?
Michael Crawford has posted his review of the first wave of DC Universe Classics. I should be receiving my case from Cornerstorecomics.
I’ll freely admit, while I had a Batman period when the movie came out in 1989, I was never really that into the comics (until recently). I did have a pretty significant Marvel period around the same time, but DC comics were probably, on the whole, a bit too mature for me then. This is certainly not the first time a toy line has gotten me interested in a licensed property, rather than the reverse.
Over on Action Figure Insider, Toy Otter wonders whether DC Universe Classics is the true successor to Kenner’s 1980s Super Powers Line. I know what I think…but I’m curious, what are your thoughts on the line? It’s a bit under-articulated for many Marvel Legends fans, while the Horsemen’s unique style puts off some DC Direct collectors.
What are your thoughts? Could this be, as Michael Crawford suggests in his review, the best line of the year?
For reference, check out these articles:
Michael Crawford’s DC Universe Classics 1 review
(Click for larger version–poster by Christophe)
Codename: Jon Gutierrez
Specialty: Price Guide Editor
Base of Operations: ToyFare magazine
History: After getting a degree in political science/journalism from the University of Connecticut, Jon worked as a newspaper reporter until he realized that covering town meetings wasn’t going to get less boring. He then managed to land a job as ToyFare‘s first dedicated price guide editor, which he’s been ever since. In his spare time, he’s a comedy writer/performer with the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, where he’s on the house team T.R.U.C.K.S.
PG: Please describe what you do at ToyFare. Is this the culmination of a lifelong desire to work with toys or the inevitable result of a misspent youth?
I’m the price guide editor, which means in addition to writing for the magazine and Twisted ToyFare Theater, I also determine the prices of every figure in the price guide. I kind of stumbled into ToyFare after getting bored with “normal” journalism–but the obsession I had for toys during my youth makes this my dream job.
PG: Please list the toys in your work area.
Um, it’s a huge pile of different figures, with different limbs sticking out of it like a cartoon fistfight. From my sitting vantage point, I can see a Diamond ST:TNG Q figure, a 3/4 completed Legendary Comic Book Heroes Monkeyman figure and two Superhero Beakers in his (their?) Rocketeer outfits. Their probably my favorite figure overall, at least until someone can come out with a Rocketeer figure I can afford.
PG: What’s the most interesting thing going on in the toy industry today?
For me, it’s getting to buy updated (and better) versions of the figures I had as a kid. I’m grabbing all of the new G.I. Joe 25th Anniversary figures when they come out and I can’t wait for those new NECA classic-style Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to come out.
PG: What’s the best thing about working at ToyFare?
Hanging out with the rest of the staff. We’re all good friends that just happen to get together every day and put out a magazine together. It’s a wonderful environment to work in.
PG: What’s your fondest toy-related holiday memory?
It’s not quite a holiday related memory, but my favorite toy memory is my Dad coming home and giving me my first Star Wars figure. It was the classic Tatooine-outfit Luke, of course, and I remember him explaining that it was a little version of that guy in the Star Wars movie. I think it took me a while to understand–I was four or so–but I still love that he went by the store and picked one up for me just because he thought I might like it.
