Retro Con '13 Overview

This was the 2nd year for the Philadelphia area pop culture show, Retro Con. This year was bigger and better than last year. Retro Con has really done a nice job of establishing itself as an annual convention. Last year there were a handful of guests, a costume contest, and lots of toy dealers. This year Retro Con added panels and a pop culture car show as well as expanding on everything they had to offer during their first event.

The ticket table as you came into the convention. One of the show organizers, Tony is seated along with a Ghostbuster and Mike the ticket taker. (I've mentioned Tony and Mike in my posts about the Wayne Toy Show and NJCC).

 

This yarn craft Luigi was my gift for pre-ordering my ticket. I also go a Retro Con 2013 button.

I enjoyed seeing all the families sharing the joy of toy collecting and pop culture . 

Here is a father/son toy dealer that stocked mostly Transformer toys.

 

The Comic Store from Delaware had a huge booth again this year. They had the GI Joe '83 Head Quarters with its box as well as a vintage Skystriker to name a few toys.

Like last year, there were several artists selling paintings, prints, and self-published comics.

There were literally so many toys at the show that I was overwhelmmed. I couldn't figure out what to buy for the first half hour I was there. Don't worry, I got over it eventually and bought a ton of stuff. I know several of the artists, collectors, and toy resellers that were at Retro Con. We had an inside joke thoughout the day focused around the guy in the checked shirt in the picture above. He looks eerily like my buddy Paul's father. We kept talking about the guy Cos-playing as Paul's dad.

Later in the day I bought some of the toys in this picture. 

Toy Book Author, Mark Bellomo also bought some of the toys seen in this picture.

I saw a lot of people having fun playing retro games at the Too Many Games booth. I wish I has my camera on me when a little kid dressed as Mario was playing Super Mario Brothers.

I still can't believe how many amazing toys I saw for sale at Retro Con. Rose and Tony, rest up today because tomorrow it's time to start planning for Retro Con 2014!

I'll be posting about the pop culture car show, costumes, and the toys I bought in the next few days.

Retro Con Report Coming Soon...

I went. I saw. I conquered. I had a blast today at Retro Con. The show was twice as big as last year. I got to meet and talk with everybody I wanted to from authors to voice actors to toy collecting friends. I bought a ton of stuff again this year, and some of it is pretty wacky. My buddy Paul even let me take my 2nd GI Joe Air Craft Carrier to the show and stick it in the back of his video game booth. It didn't sell, but that was the old disappointments. I know it's not the kind of thing that you impulse buy anyway. I'm super tired right now so I'm not going to try to post my overview report tonight.

Just for the sake of randomness I'm going to leave you guys with a picture of me and my construction crew buddies. This pictures was taken while we were working on renovations to the upstairs of my house.

Retro Con is almost here!

Well, the big day is almost here, and I can't wait. Rose and Tony have put so much work into planning this show. I know it's going to be great. I'm looking forward to meeting Larry Hama for the second time. I'm bringing some comics to get him to sign. I super excited about meeting Neil Ross. Both  gentlemen played important but very different rolls in giving voice to some of my favorite GI Joe characters. My buddy Paul will be there selling video games again so I'll be hanging out with him a lot. I always enjoy hearing from Mark Bellomo about all his adventures with toys. I plan to take lots of pictures and buy some cool toys. I'm sure there will be a few Retro Con reports in the next week.

If I don't post anything tomorrow it means I decided to stay for the post convention screening of Back to the Future, and didn't get home in time to post.

Rocks and Bugs and Things

On a recent flea marketing trip I saw this strange transforming rock in a bag of toys at a vendor's table who I have dealt with before. Often times the guys toys are over prices and I don't buy a lot, but I figured I'd ask. He said two bucks. Yeah, I'll give two bucks for this thing. After I paid the guys asked me if it went to Masters of the Universe. I said, "No it's from Rocks and Bugs and Things by Ideal." He made a face like he had never heard of it.

 I'm not a real expert on the line, but what I know about them is R&B&T is a line of Rocks and Bugs that all have a spring-loaded attack type of feature. The rocks all turn into monstrous creatures with large mouths and all the bugs have some sort of biting action. Each Rock or Bug came with a "Thing" called a Mordle used to feed the Rock or Bug. After I came back from the New Jersey Collector's Con I posted about Mordles. A company called Toyfinity had the rights to the R&B&T toyline and is currently producing new Mordles based on the original toys. An upcoming release of Mordles will use the Glyos system and be compatable with a lot of other toylines.

 The Rock that I bought at the flea market is called Trapasaurus. It's a greenish/brown rock that can spring open to reveal a dinosaur/alligator type face. It has pivot articulation at the neck and hips This allows the neck to pop up and for the torso to lean forward. The Trapasaurus's jaw is also articulated to allow him to chew on his Mordle. There is a little knob on his back that I think is supposed to activate his transformation, but it seems like a rubber band inside him broke because the knob is kind of loose and doesn't do much. I can manually turn him into a rock and he easily springs back open into dino mode.

Well, I'm really glad we got Junior a pet. It's good for a boy.

Fright Features Janine Melnitz

Janine Melnitz was the Ghostbusters' secretary in both the live-action movie and Real Ghostbusters cartoon. On one or two occasions in the cartoon she got to suit up with the boys and do some busting. While not screen accurate this figure represents Janine in a ghostbusting uniform. He cartoon outfit was more orange while her toy outfit is pink.

Janine features four main points of articulation at the shoulders and hips. When her right arm is raised it triggers an internal mechanism that activates her "Fight Feature".

Janine came with two accessories. Just like the rest of the Fright Features characters, she came with a ghost companion and a ghostbusting device. Her not-a-proton pack was a yellow gun with a comb end. I lost it years ago as a kid, so it is not pictured.

As mentioned before, when Janine's Fright Feature is activated her eyes (and glasses) pop out of her head. Her jaw drops and a section of her hair stands on end.

I never thought her features was the funniest or most extreme of all the figures from this series. It's cute, but her hair looks odd when it lifts up. She has a large void in her head.

The only real detailed paint apps on the figure are her blue earrings, fine eyebrows, and Ghostbusters Logo on her arm.

Even though Janine is dressed in her Ghostbusters cover-all I usually just had her sit around the Fire House and answer the phone.

Janine's little ghost companion/adversary is a chubby little purple ghost with gigantic lips. This goofy little ghost also has a tuft of rooted red hair. The packaging refers to this ghost as the Tickler Ghost. It's made of a translucent purple plastic and it's rooted air works with the comb like gun that came with Janine.

Toy Collector: Back to the Future?

Yesterday I posted some old sales advertisements for the Battle Force 2000 toys. My buddy John, from Clawful Punch, commented about wishing he had a time machine. This brings up a conversation topic I've been wanting to post about for a long time. This is a "What would you do?" issue for toy collectors. I am going to apologize for the a little bit of set up before I ask the question, but I want people to at least understand the way I'm looking at this question.

Below is a photograph of myself from around 1989. My Grandmother took this picture of me playing with my GI Joes in my parent's basement. I lived in that house my entire childhood. Even when I "out grew" toys I never got rid of my GI Joe (besides a few vehicles) and Star Wars toys. I did sell off Masters of the Universe, Thundercats, X-Men, and Ninja Turtles to name a few line. So every toy in the photo below (except the Battle Force 2000 vehicle in the bottom  right hand corner) is still in my collection.






















If you had access to a time machine, but could only make one toy related trip back in time, would you travel back to...

A) bring sealed copies of the vintage toys you always wanted as a kid back to the present for your current collection

or

B) purchase the toys you always wanted, and give them to your childhood self (hopefully they survive being played with to be in your collection in the present)

Now I know some people sold off all their childhood toys or lost stuff in various moves over the years, but I'd love to know what everybody things. I think this could be a tough choice.Oh and either choice will have no ripple effect on your situation in live in the present besides what may or may not be in your collection.

Battle Force 2000 - Vintage Sales Flyer

Nine years ago, when I started teaching at the school I work at, I did a lot of cleaning up. In the finishing room of the wood shop there were stacks and stacks of newspapers. We frequently need to cover tables to keep finish or paint off of them. I was straightening up the papers and I decided to peek to see what the oldest ones were in the pile. They were from the 80's... I couldn't believe it. In with the papers were a few sales flyers and I naturally looked through for toys. I clipped both of these adds for GI Joe Battle Force 2000 toys. How crazy are those prices? I'd love to buy boxed Joes for less than ten bucks.

I love the display in this lower add. How awesome is that little scene? I like that they have the jets "flying". They don't really do this kid of adds anymore, but I think that would be a great job to design and create these displays for photographing the toys.

I can't believe that you could get the entire Future Fortress for like $60. No one I know ever had all six vehicles to be able to build the fortress. I think as a kid if I got together with two other friends we had the six vehicles between the three of us.

RoboCop - Kenner

As a kid, I had several RoboCop and the Ultra Police toys before I ever saw the RoboCop movie. When the movie was on tv one time my Mom taped it for me on the VCR. The movie was so violent she would make me stop watching after each big action scene. Then I'd have to wait until the next day to watch more of it. The title character was the first figure I had from the toy line and I though he was pretty awesome.

 In 1989 when these figures were released, I was in 1st grade. I loved the built-in cap firing backpack. RoboCop comes with two important accessories. His helmet which features nice sculpting and a little paint work looks great. His helmet fits tightly and doesn't fall off while playing with him. RoboCop also comes with an insanely cool gun. His action figure weapon is not movie accurate.

 Like all the figures in the line, RoboCop has a hole in his leg where his gun can be "holstered" via a peg on the side of the weapon. His backpack can flip down to allow you to feed a roll of caps though his back. RoboCop came with two rolls of blue caps what could be fired in rapid succession through his backpack. This makes a lot of noise and smoke.

The head sculpt on this figure without his helmet does a nice job of capturing Peter Weller's likeness. You can see my figure has a little battle damage that he picked up over the years beating up on my other action figures. His armor is slightly scuffed.

Jubilee - Marvel Universe

Jubilee was a pretty important character in the 90's X-Men cartoon, but I never really read a ton of comics featuring her. When I saw this new figure of her I wanted to get a Jubilee for my Marvel Universe X-Men team. I've been trying to get as many members as possible.

 She's wearing her classic yellow trench coat, but the uniform she's wearing under that is a more modern outfit. I've been trying to stick with the 90's versions of the X-Men, but if there isn't one... then I have to go with what Hasbro is releasing. Jubilee came with one accessory. It's a purple energy blast that represents her mutant power, which she calls "fire works".

Tasmanian Devil PVC - Looney Toons

Time is kind of short today, so this post is going to be kind of short. Below are two PVC Looney Toons figures of the Tasmanian Devil. One figure is eating an ice cream cone that's melting down his arm. The other figure is holding his hand above his head like he's having a tantrum. Both figures were acquired at yard sales in the early 90's when I was actively collection Taz figures. I had a big display of PVC figures set up on a shelf in my bedroom in Elementary School.

 

The Ice Cream Taz was made by Applause in 1998. I don't have any real details on the other figure.

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Every September my buddies and I camp out in a field all night and pull guard duty for a bunch of antique tractors. The local 2-Cylinder Tractor Club (John Deere) has their Antique Tractor Show on Saturday. Many of the people involved have to trailer their tractors to the show site and if they are bringing more than one often drop some off the night before and then bring their final tractor to the show in the morning. The Club buys event insurance, but they have to have someone there to make sure no one steals or vandalizes them. The people that restore these put as much time and money into them as many antique car collectors do. Several of my relative, including my Uncles and Dad show old farm equipment at the event. So from 9 PM until 6 AM, I'll be guarding the Tractors. As a kid I always wished my Dad and I were the guards, because a kid from school and his Dad did it. When they stopped I was volunteered by my Dad. At this point I was in college and my Dad didn't have to volunteer himself. We've been doing this for 11 years I think.