February 18, 2010: A Toy Geek At Toy Fair

With one last run through the exhibit hall, the New York Toy Fair is now officially over. I've packed my bags and will soon head back home to Austin as Randy sets off on the second leg of his great adventure. The show was hugely useful for work, but my secret life as a hardcore toy geek was also enriched by spending my off-hours wandering the hall and chatting with toy designers and manufacturers. You may not know it, but when I'm not deep in games I unwind by working on my toy site -- www.battlegrip.com -- where i write about toys, art, and anything else that interests me. I've been posting a few toy-related updates over at the site, but I thought I'd steal some space here to point out the really cool non-SJGames stuff that I saw at the show.

• While visiting with the team at Shocker Toys I ran into Chris and Alan Hebert, a pair of creative madmen who were busy pushing the upcoming action figure for their comic, Lazerman. It's always fun to talk with comic creators, but when you find out that the characters and situations in the comic were inspired by too many sessions of GURPS Supers the conversation takes a turn for the weird. We had a blast discussing comics, toys, and games, and I hope the guys succeed with their new action figure.
• At the Triad Toys booth I drooled on the fantastic 12-inch scale action figures and action figure displays. Drew and Louie were friendly, happy to chat about toys and manufacturing, and even made sure that I ended up with their Grave Danger display. This huge polystone action figure display is going to look great if I can manage to get it home without breaking it.
• Tiny action figures are always fun, and when the figure is a wacky platform toy it gets even better. That's why I was immediately drawn to the Idolz Toys booth. These are stackable figures with interchangeable parts, which means that I'm going to want way more than the one figure that was given to me. And I really want some blanks so that I can customize them.

I took many, many photos at the show and I'm slowly posting them to my personal Flickr account. If you're a toy geek you may want to jump over and take a look at shots of upcoming Iron Man 2, Marvel Universe, and Star Wars toys. There's a lot of great toys hitting shelves this year and I know that I'm excited about a few of the bigger releases (like the 19-inch Galactus action figure).

Toy Fair. The only place my toy geekness is appreciated and welcome.

-- Phil Reed

Randy's Road Trip Update

Tonight, Randy will be gaming at Jester's Playhouse in Northfield, NJ from 3-7pm. For Randy's complete itinerary, check out our Where's Randy? page.