12th Sep2011

Book Report – Toyland: The High-Stakes Game of the Toy Industry

by Will

This will come as a surprise to no one, but I used to want to work in the toy industry. Yeah, I did the whole 10 years at Toy “R” Us, but I also chose my college major in the hopes of landing a position at Kenner (hey, it was still around then!) or Mattel. My major was early childhood development, with a focus on play and interaction. Since there was no real “toy curriculum”, I figured knowledge of how children go about playing would point me in the right direction. I couldn’t have been more wrong. It turns out that toy companies want *designers*. Instead of trying to make educational toys that look pretty, toy companies attempt to make pretty toys that seem educational. Like with dating and job interviews, looks come first. I did, however, manage to snag an internship at a small specialty toy company in Chicago, called Manhattan Toy. Now, during my time at TRU, I’d learned that I didn’t really care about ALL toys – I just loved aisles 6D and 7D. So, when this small stuffed animal company came along, brash 19-year old me blew it off and jetted of to London. By the time I graduated, I started to realize my dream may not come true. Then came Diamond.

Many people may not realize this, but Diamond has a toy team. Sure, most of the focus is on comics, but they’re also the ones responsible for getting those overpriced toys and busts to your local comic shop. Sadly, the extent of Diamond’s toy decisions are usually something like “How can we get Kotabukiya to give us a great price on these Slutty Sakura statues?” By this point, I was already pretty much over the idea of working in the toy industry. I’d already been a brand manager, albeit in the comic world, and I was really just tired of the sense of entitlement. I didn’t wanna shift over to DST, ’cause a lot of those guys were asshats. Don’t get me wrong – like anything, there were some cool folks, but there were also quite a few douchebags. So, there ended my toy dream. Or so I thought. The moment I cracked open Toyland: The High-Stakes Game of the Toy Industry, it all came rushing back to me. This might sound like hyperbole, but I feel this book should be required reading for anyone with an interest in the business side of toys. If you ever want to bitch about Mattel’s distribution, or wondered why NECA picked up a particular license, or needed to know how toy marketing and development actually work, you MUST READ THIS BOOK.

Toyland, by Sydney Ladensohn Stern and Ted Schoenhaus, primarily follows the creation, development, and release of Tyco’s Dino-Riders toyline. Along the way, however, they provide a great history of the industry – citing major players, as well as the stories behind all of the major toy companies. Published in 1991, many of the companies have since merged or folded, but that doesn’t change any of the history. I got the book about 8 years ago at a used book store, but never really got into it as I didn’t have a lot of attachment to the Dino-Riders line. To be honest, I didn’t even remember it being successful. Now, I clearly see that I was wrong.

I don’t want to give away all of the good parts, so I’ll just give you a sample of what’s inside:

-Sure, you knew about Toy Fair, but did you know about “pre-Toy Fair”?

-Toy companies, while always looking for the next hit, do better with “staples”. In fact, a success could actually be detrimental, as they may be unable to keep up with demand – which is what drove Worlds of Wonder out of business following supply problems with Teddy Ruxpin and Lazer Tag. Hasbro’s acquisition of Milton Bradley helped them stay afloat in lean years, as board games are staples.

-Mattel was considered the “University of Toyland”, as many of its alums have gone on to lead other companies in the industry, bringing Mattel’s systems, terminology, and practices along with them. Most other toy companies ran like family businesses, but Ruth and Elliot Handler built Mattel into the first professional toy operation. Then, they were ousted for fraudulent stock claims, and Mattel eventually became the model of how NOT to run a toy company. Still, it’s nice to read about what it was like before it sucked.Due to its position in the industry at the time the book was written, much of the book serves as an “official history of Mattel”.

-It’s believed that Jem dolls ultimately failed because she was created in a different scale than Barbie. Had they been the same size, they could’ve shared clothes and accessories, despite coming from different companies.

-It’s somewhat amazing to read about the conception of Dino-Riders, and then follow along as it evolves into a completely differrent animal. By no means was the end result what the creators had envisioned, but it was close enough that they could still be proud that their idea ended in a finished product – something few can say.

- Of course a big chunk of the book is about how toy companies felt sidelined when home computing and video game systems came on the scene in the early 80s.

-While the Teddy Bear was originally seen as a fad named for Theodore Roosevelt, it was expected to be replaced by Billy Possum, named for William Taft. Apparently, Taft had eaten roast possum on a trip to Atlanta, but there was no demand for the product.

-When Stanley Weston invented G.I.Joe for Hasbro, the normal inventor’s fee was 5% of net wholesale revenue. Hasbro, however, cited high development costs and only offered Weston 0.5% . Weston countered with 3%, and Hasbro offered him 1% – prompting Weston to sue. In a private meeting before the 1964 Toy Fair, Hasbro asked Weston if they could just buy the concept from him outright, as they felt they were taking a gamble. Eventually, Weston agreed to sell for $100,000. Had he kept the original deal, he would’ve made $150,000 on the first year alone. Weston, however, wasn’t too upset, and had this to say: “I’ve been married and divorced twice. If I’d had all that money I probably would’ve been divorced four times instead of two.”

-Hasbro’s problems surrounding Flubber deserve an entire book of their own. Long story short, a massive Flubber recall resulted in the supply being buried under Hasbro’s parking lot, which has pushed the property about  2 inches higher than the rest of the site.

-My Little Pony was the result of market research where Hasbro asked little girls “What do you see when you go to bed and close your eyes?”

-In the great GoBots vs Transformers debate, Tonka’s development team felt they were doing kids a favor by simplifying the transformations, while later research indicated that kids enjoyed the more complex transformations of the Transformers line.

-Toy companies seem to have more moles than a season of 24, which results in specs and samples being leaked to bootleggers and the competition. Most companies, however, take it as proof than they’re onto something big if other are that interested in stealing the idea.

-Xavier Roberts, creator of the Cabbage Patch Kids, is an eccentric genius. He was an artist first and foremost, making him a terrible businessman.

-There’s a goof chunk about the deregulation of the 80s, leading to the Program Length Commercial. It also into the deals that were cut between television stations and syndicators. For example, Lorimar syndicated Thundercats. If a station agreed to air the cartoon, they would get a percentage of LJN’s Thundercats toy sales.

-There’s a great comparison between the business practices of Toys “R” Us, Kay-Bee, and FAO Schwartz. Two of these companies don’t exist any longer, and the remaining one doesn’t look like it did then. Still, it’s an interesting snapshot in time.

Anyway, I’ve teased enough. If you’re interested in the business of the toy industry, I highly recommend Toyland: The High-Stakes Game of the Toy Industry. How do you get it? I dunno. Do I look like Barnes OR Noble? Maybe it’s on bit torrent or Amazon or something. Geez, I can’t do everything for you!

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25th Aug2011

The Stan Lee Panel – Day 2 of Baltimore Comic-Con 2011

by Will

This is Part 2 of a 2-part saga. In case you missed Part 1, click here: Go ahead, I’ll wait. Done? Good. The following takes place on Sunday, August 21 from 3:00 PM to 5:00 PM.

So I didn’t take part in much of Day 2 of the con. I slept 12 hrs the night before, so I got a late start. I braved torrential rain and traffic to get there right before the start of Stan’s panel. Thanks to that pricey VIP I’d shelled out for, I just walked right in.

Jimmy Palmiotti was hosting the panel, and he asked us to really show Stan how much we appreciated him by giving him a huge entrance. It’s not like Jimmy had to ask – we’re talking about The Man here! Anyway, Stan entered with security to a rousing standing ovation. Once Stan got on stage, he told us that he had caught a bit of a bug over the weekend. He said he’d been talking all weekend, and he was all talked out. This wasn’t a cop-out, however. Instead, he said that he wanted us to ask him questions since he didn’t know what to talk about.

What followed turned into what could best be described as a “love fest”. Fan after fan came up to the mic to thank Stan. Many of them told touching stories of how Stan’s comics had affected them. One guy was a speech pathologist who uses comics to help his clients. One woman was in college to be an animator – inspired by the Marvel comics she’d been introduced to by her uncle. A woman dressed as Poison Ivy shared that she was a military wife, and that her relationship with her husband had bloomed due to comics. He’s currently deployed in Afghanistan, but their shared love of comics helps them to reconnect and strengthen their relationship. It was clear that much of the audience could relate to a lot of how comics had touched their lives, so I almost wish they had orchestrated an audience unison “thank you” to move things along.

Eventually, Stan said that he appreciated the thankful sentiments, but joked that “People keep thanking me for what I’ve done for them, but I didn’t do it for you; I did it for ME! If what I did for me affected others, then great!”

Despite being under the weather, Stan was in great spirits, and the best part of the show was just hearing his stories:

Stan said that Iron Man used to get the most fan mail from women. He said that he believed it was due to the fact that women liked 3 things in a man:
1)Money
2)Power
At this point, a woman in the audience yelled “who drinks!”
Stan said, “Well, that helps!”
3)A woman likes a man who’s got something wrong with him, so that she can say to herself, “Oh, I can fix you right up!”

Stan also expressed his pride in the fact that comics were now accepted in the mainstream. Multiple times, he said that comics used to be thought of as something read by little children and simple-minded adults. He said that was the reason he had changed his name, as he didn’t want anyone he knew to know he worked in comics. He said, “I used to have a real name, a normal name just like you. I was Stanley Martin Lieber. But I was so ashamed that I took my first name, and broke up the 2 syllables.”

An audience member asked him what he thought of the Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark. He answered, “I saw one of the previews. I thought it was really great. I didn’t like the music that much, but that was because not all of the songs were in it. Of course, this wasn’t when people were falling and dying all over the place,” which got a huge laugh from the crowd.

Another fan asked what comic book world he’d like to be sucked into if he had the chance. He replied that he’d like to go to the Archie universe, so that he could have Betty & Veronica.

There were a few moments that were funny in the slight discomfort they caused. One fan said that he was a fan of Ultimo, a manga series produced in Japan by Stan’s Pow Entertainment. He asked Stan what the experience had been like. Stan said that he couldn’t make heads or tails from what was going on in Ultimo. He said that he gave them the beginning of the story, but that he doesn’t even know what’s happening at this point in the story. He said there are plans to bring it to America, and he hopes it comes with an instruction manual so he’ll finally know what’s going on!

As if his candor was a bit surprising, he immediately followed up by saying that “The Japanese people are a hardworking, intelligent and polite people, and I had to learn to bow after every word I said.” You could kinda feel a bit of tension in the room, like when your grandpa mentions how hard working the Mexicans are during Christmas dinner. It seemed like Stan felt it, too, and he quickly recovered with an “I don’t even know what that has to do with what we’re talking about!”

Next, after a fan asked him what his favorite Marvel movie was, he answered that it was the first Spider-Man. Then, he proceeded to talk about Blade, and how he couldn’t remember the writer’s name (David Goyer), but how he had tattoos all up and down both arms. Stan couldn’t believe his arms were absolutely covered, and he said he’d never seen anyone with that many tattoos. Like, he was absolutely amazed by it! Seeing as how it’s Baltimore, and 1 in 5 people in the room had a full sleeve, this, too, was a bit awkward. Again, he recovered with an “I don’t know what that even had to do with what we were talking about. What was the question?”

That exchange did, however, lead to the next great part of the panel. Jimmy decided to ask the crowd if any of them had tattoos of Marvel characters on them. A guy got up, and showed that he had Black Cat and Mary Jane on his arm. At this point, someone in the back yelled out, “What are they doing?!”, which led to a big laugh. Another girl said that she had Marvel symbols tattooed on her. She walked down to the stage and showed that the had the X-Men circled “X” tattooed on both sides of her…bikini area. She got down to the stage, and Stan said “I can’t see it.” She rolled down her pants a bit, and he said, “Oh, I can see it now!” The crowd roared. He said “I thank you, and the X-Men thank you!” As she walked away, he said, “Wait, that’s all we get?” Jimmy piped in “Stan likes the ladies.” Stan countered with, “Yeah, like I’m the only one!”

The panel wrapped up soon afterward, and I made my way back to the con floor. Now, remember how I’d braved the rain and traffic? Well, I had neglected to hit the ATM before getting to the show, as I foolishly thought “I’ll just hit the ATM at the show.” Who knows how this ends? Yup, it was out of money. So, thus began a mad race to hit all the booths I knew had stuff I wanted, praying that they took credit cards. During this time, I also met up with good e-pal @sycobuny, as this has become our annual chance to meet in person. That reminds me that I forgot to mention the great Yo Go Re from OAFE in my last post. He miraculously spotted me out of all the other geeks on the con floor, and I was finally able to put a face to a name. In any case, Sycobuny and I ran around the floor, asking everyone “Do you take credit?” I had a few misses, but I also had a few hits. Feast your eyes on the day’s haul:

As you can see, it’s more of the same from yesterday. More DC Universe Classics, more Marvel Mighty Muggs for the gf. And again, no comics.

In all, it was a great weekend. One of my fanboy dreams came true, I got to catch up with e-pals, and I also got a lot of cool stuff for my collection. Thanks for reading, and thanks to Cool and Collected for making this blog “crossover” a reality. Meet me back here next time, as we’ll probably talk about a bunch of geeky, politically incorrect stuff. Until then, Excelsior!

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08th Jul2011

Greatest Haul: Origins

by Will

In Greatest Haul: Prelude, you got a teaser of the spoils. Now, learn the fantastical origin of the treasures you merely glimpsed! I’d cap this off with a “True Believer”, but I don’t want my ass to get sued…

So, as many of my twitter followers can attest, I’ve developed a bit of a thrift store addiction as of late. We have a few really good ones in my area, so I’ve found myself swinging by a couple times a week. That said, like any gateway drug, thrift stores weren’t enough. I soon turned to Craigslist to satisfy my urges. It started out with me buying a couple of Mighty Muggs, and then it just got out of hand. Pretty soon, I found myself scouring the “toys & games” and “collectibles” categories several times a day. Eventually, I made a bigger leap: yard and garage sales.

I’ve been going to estate sales with my mom for the past 15 or so years, but they’re a different animal from yard sales. Estate sales tend to be where the stuff of old/dead folks is sold, so the selection follows accordingly. I got my golf clubs at an estate sale. I got old books at estate sales. You do not, however, tend to find toys at such places. In any case, I had come to look down on yard/garage sales, as estate sales were more “high-end”. A few of my twitter pals, however, have had quite a bit of luck with yard sales lately, and I didn’t want to be left out in the cold.

A few weeks ago I decided to wake up early that Saturday morning and get in on the yard sale action. I’d found a nearby sale that was touting “25 Years of Collectibles”. This was both intriguing and off putting. You see, when people sell what they believe to be “collectibles”, they tend to overcharge. They factor in all the time and money they put into acquiring the item, as well as what they feel it’s worth on the market. The result is typically an asking price that’s both foolish AND too rich for my blood. It was still intriguing, though, as a lot of good crap came out in the last 25 years.

Anyway, the next morning, I woke up earlier than I typically do for work (a part of me is somewhat ashamed of that), and set out on my quest. The ad said the garage door wouldn’t go up until 7, and I was there along with 2 older guys. Within 5 minutes, I knew this hadn’t been worth my time or lost sleep. He was selling loose Toy Biz Marvel figures for $10 each. Not the good Legends stuff, but the crappy Magneto with the magnet in his chest. Or a random VR Trooper. Who’s gonna pay $10 for a loose VR Trooper figure of a present-day soap star? I said my thanks, and went on my way.

Next on the list was a multifamily sale not too far away. I’d seen the listing, and I liked the idea of a multifamily sale, as I could hit several mini sales in one area. Apparently, the sales were along a block, so I could just work my way down the street. Or so I thought. Instead, I ended up spending the bulk of my time at the first house. Before we get to that, though, let’s back up a bit.

After that first “collectibles” sale was a bust, I considered going home. Sitting with my McDonald’s breakfast, I fired up my phone’s browser and decided to see if any new, more promising sales had been listed. At this point, I noticed one that touted “carded action figures”. Well, paint me green and call me Gumby! Plus, it turned out it was part of the multifamily sale that I was already planning to hit! The idea of carded action figures was too great to pass up. Little did I know how great of a find it would be.

So, it turns out that the woman hosting the sale used to work for American Entertainment. If you were collecting comics in the late 90s, then that name will be familiar to you. If you’ve never heard of it, American Entertainment was a mail order comic company that specialized in exclusive covers and products (if you’ve ever shopped at Entertainment Earth, it was a lot like that). If you have a comic from the 90s, there’s probably an AE ad in it. Eventually, they branched out into a few brick and mortar shops, but AE cranked out a TON of Image/Top Cow variants and Buffy exclusives, amongst other things. Now, since I worked at Diamond, I kinda have an idea of the sort of items that cross your desk in that industry. Just as in my situation, she didn’t sell anything while she was with the company, so she just accumulated it without really keeping track of what she had. She decided that she finally needed to clear out space, so she was getting rid of all the swag she’d acquired. And she wasn’t lying about carded figures. Buffy, Starting Lineup, Batman, WWF (yes, before they were forced to “get the F Out”), Toy Biz Marvel figures…and many were just $1-2 each! Most yard sales are just a “One man’s trash…” situation, but she actually had good stuff. It was just too much of it to try to price accordingly and sell, so it was like a collectible fire sale. I was expecting to wake up at any minute. When I call it “The Greatest Haul”, it’s not that I stumbled upon a particular holy grail – it’s that I got a lot of cool stuff for the low, low price! Toys, comics, and cards. So, what did I get? Well, you’ll just have to tune in next time!

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25th Apr2011

Comical Thoughts: Super Dinosaur

by Will

…Annnd it only took me seven days – seven days to break the vow that I made in my last post. I swore I was done with Image comics, outside of collected editions, until they got their act together. But then, they had to go and release a book called Super Dinosaur. Motherfucking SUPER DINOSAUR! Look at that cover! How do you pass on a concept like that? Simple answer: you don’t.

I’ve got to start by saying that Robert Kirkman isn’t exactly my favorite creator. He’s got a lot of great ideas, but I kinda soured on him after he became a giant creator-owned evangelist. To him, you’re wasting your time in comics if all you’re doing is working on X-Men or Batman. Instead, you should be creating new concepts that you OWN, rather than making money for Marvel and DC on decades old characters. He’s on to something there, but he reached a point where he became somewhat of a bully in trying to get that message across. There’s no doubt that he practices what he preaches; he’s so prolific that I either believe his stuff is being handled by ghostwriters, or he’s a tortured artist who beats his wife between ideas. He’s already crossed media with The Walking Dead, but I get the feeling that Super Dinosaur will be another crossover hit.

It’s clear that Super Dinosaur is meant to be one of those rare “all ages” gems that we don’t get very often in comics these days. That said, it appears that Kirkman went to the well of a lot of sources, both familiar and unfamiliar, to pull this all together. Basically, Super Dinosaur is what you get when you throw Ben 10, Power Rangers: Dino Thunder, and a little known Image comic called Johnny Monster into a blender. Derek Dynamo is the son of a famous scientist who discovered dinosaurs living 100 miles underground. Dr Dynamo also discovered a powerful mineral, which he named “Dynore”. Now, his former partner is trying to claim the Dynore for himself, but his attempts are thwarted by Derek and his best friend, Super Dinosaur. Derek’s got a healthy ego (he thinks everything about himself is “awesome”), and Super Dinosaur is able to be “super” due to a special tech harness designed by Dr Dynamo. It’s high stakes fun and adventure, as tomorrow’s technology is introduced to the lost world of the past.

The Super Dinosaur concept is VERY toyetic, which has a somewhat negative effect on the premiere issue. Instead of feeling like a true introduction to that world, it feels more like a comic book adaptation of a TV show that might be called Derek Dynamo & Super Dinosaur. I can’t put my finger on why, but it just doesn’t feel genuine. At the end of the book, there’s a blurb where Kirkman goes on about how this is an all ages book and how he’s excited about that. While that may be true, it’s an all ages book with an agenda. If handled correctly, this is the kind of concept that pays for summer homes. The 8 year old boy inside me thinks it’s a kickass concept just from the title alone, but he’d much rather wait for the cartoon that the book seems to be adapting. The same way some publishers are using comics as a cheap way to create movie pitches (I’m looking at you, Radical Publishing!), this book feels like Kirkman’s audition to join Man of Action at the big boy table of Nicktoons and the like.

Apparently, a special origin issue of Super Dinosaur will be offered on Free Comic Book Day. I’m not sure if it’s going to change my opinion of the book, but I’m definitely willing to give it a chance. It’s not that I don’t like Super Dinosaur – in fact, I love the idea. I just feel that it has enough potential that it almost seems like a waste to tell the story as a comic. It’s very reminiscent of the done-in-one-season animated concepts of the late 80s/early 90s. Maybe Kirkman’s hoping for more of a shelf life for this one, but it’s hard to tell where this falls on his full plate that already includes Invincible, The Walking Dead, and various other projects.

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16th Sep2010

Live Free or Origin Hard

by Will

Comics as escapism – this is a concept that is always bandied about when people try to explain the notion of collecting & reading comics. Supposedly, we read superhero comics because they take us out of our day to day lives, and might even inspire us to greatness, as we observe acts of heroism. I don’t discount any of this, but I know that, for me, I enjoyed the escapism that the hobby provided me. This is going to get into a lot of family stuff, and may not be as action-packed as the other stuff, but there is a point here. Trust me.

So, we already covered that my mom had me late in life, but it should also be said that my father passed away from an aneurysm when I was three. So, I tell people that I was raised by the Black Golden Girls: Mommy, Muddear, and the Aunts. Being a single mother, my mom was at work most of the time, so I spent most of my time with Muddear, hence the Alabama trips and whatnot. Then, around 1993, something changed.

To go even further back, my mom had been married before. This is actually a bit of an odd story. She got married when she was 26, to a guy named Fred West. He was a bit of a cad, but their marriage lasted about 14 years. When it ended, she said that she was never changing her name again. She eventually met my father, Willie West, who was not related to Fred. So, she got to keep that name-change promise.

In any case, I bring up Fred because he resurfaced around 1993. You see, he had time to think about what he had done (whatever that may have been), and he decided that he wanted her back. Since he had “con man tendencies” about him, he knew how to get to people. He realized that the best way to get to her was through me. Now, this isn’t a standard “creepy stepdad/mom’s boyfriend” kind of thing. I LOVED him. He was a really fun guy. It was hard for me to think he could’ve done anything wrong, and he genuinely seemed to care about me.

So, how does this relate to comics? Well, he used to SHOWER me with toys and comics. Of course it was in order to curry favor with my mom, but I would have these free-for-all days, where he would pick me up in the morning, and we would hit 4 comic shops, 3 Toys R Us stores, and a McDonalds. Even though I’ve exhibited the whole “I’m asking for this just to see if I can get it” behavior, it wasn’t like that here. We’d get in the car, and he’d ask, “So, where to today, buddy?” This was how I learned about comic shops and the back-issue market, as I was always looking for new places for us to go. This took place during the summer, so we’d make these runs about 2 or 3 times a week. Honestly, it got to the point where I had run out of shops and things to buy.

These Fred Sprees were fruitful, as they taught me about local comic stores, like Geppi’s Comic World and Barbarian Books. I also had my introduction to back issues, as I tried to catch up with what the characters had been doing before I got into comics. Geppi’s used to have these $5 grab bags, where you’d just end up with the worst comics. I didn’t know that then, of course. They ALL seemed cool to me, even if it was a Crystar comic from the 80s, or Moon Knight #27. I loved those grab bags because they taught me about other types of books on the market, and they all seemed like these ancient treasures. Even if they were just 10 years old, they felt like these relics from forgotten times. I loved seeing the ads for canceled cartoons and failed breakfast cereals. I also realized that many of them didn’t also didn’t end in one issue, but that just gave me something to search for next time. The seeds were being planted for my love of The Hunt. I was beginning to see comics as things to be collected, and as I had already learned from the Happy Meal toys, I’m a bit addicted to collecting.

*Not actual family. I wasn’t that lame.

Anyway, as this was going on, there was a period where we were almost like a nuclear family. Sure, the aunts and Muddear were still around, but Fred would come by and take Mommy and me to dinner. We’d be in a booth at the Hot Shoppe (that’s for you MD/DC folks!), and I’d be reading an old copy of All-Star Squadron, as they laughed at some joke he just told. I liked that, as it was something I had never had before, but had always seen on TV. It was like I had a mom and a dad, and we were all just happy together.

So, eventually my mom put a stop to the Fred Sprees because she really didn’t think he had changed, and she didn’t want to give him false hope. There was no need for him to waste all his money on comics and toys if it was going to be in vain. Fred stuck around for a while, but he finally moved to Virginia. He died a few years ago, from Alzheimers. I could tell he wasn’t necessarily “all there” back in the day, but that was part of his charm. Just another reason I loved him.

So, when I think of “comics as escapism”, I’m not thinking of how cool it would be to be Batman, or what it must be like to live in Metropolis. I fondly think back to the time when I had what society considers a “family”, and how much I liked that feeling. It was fleeting, but comics were there for the whole thing. I can look at a copy of All-Star Squadron now, and it all comes back to me. Maybe that’s more accurately “comics as nostalgia”, but isn’t nostalgia just escapism from the present? Next time, I wrap this all up and bring us to the present.

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13th Sep2010

At Long Last – My Comic Origin!

by Will

I’ve been wanting to write lately, but really haven’t had much to write about. I’ve been to a LOT of comic cons and stores lately, and it made me realize that I’ve never really explained *how* I got into comics. This isn’t just a blog thing, as many of my “in real life” friends don’t really know this tale either. So, it got me to thinking, and those memories have brought us here. Let’s go for a little ride, shall we?

People never believe this, but I started rudimentary reading at 18 months old. This, combined with the fact that my parents were older, meant that I skipped a lot of “typical” children’s literature. I never had any fairy tales, and I missed out on Dr. Seuss. I probably sound like I snob, but I realize that I truly missed out on some classics. Later, I went back and tried to read The Cat in the Hat, but it was too late – the damage had already been done. So, what did I read? Mainly, I read the Style section of the Washington Post. Yeah, there were pictures, but I also learned a LOT about the television industry.

My mom and aunts loved to encourage my reading, so they were always willing to buy books for me. They, however, had to approve of the books, so the covers couldn’t show anything demonic, and they couldn’t be something that was a “waste of time”, like “funnybooks”. Anyway, they used to make me go to Alabama for the summer with my grandmother. The thing about those trips was that I HATED going, but ending up loving it once I was there. In any case, I would throw a FIT prior to leaving, so they’d always bribe me with books and toys so that I would “be a good boy for Muddear”. Also, Muddear was given money to keep me pacified while down there.

The first time I was sent to Old Dixie was 1989, and my cousin Cephus (we are from the South!) drove us down in his Winnebago. There wasn’t much to do, but I had a scooter, and our front yard had a ditch. If you do the math, you’ll realize that I had my own Fat Kid X-Games event going on. I’m still amazed that I never fell in and died – this was a DEEP ditch. I remember, though, during one of my ditch-jump lulls, buying my first comic at the local bait shop. Rather, I didn’t pay money for it, but it was bought for me by a cousin during an ice run for a cookout. I can’t remember the issue number, but it was a Star Trek comic published by DC. This was during the Original Cast Movie Era, so those were the uniforms they were wearing.

Now, I’m gonna be real honest here: I don’t think I ever even read that thing. I mainly asked for it just to see if I could get it. Yeah, I was that kid. Since I hadn’t really been allowed to go near “funnybooks”, I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. Plus, I was as much of a Trekkie as you could be at the age of 8 (I’d been watching TNG since its premiere, and had seen all TOS episodes). Seeing it on the stands, it was familiar to me and that’s what I went for. I think it had Klingons in it, but didn’t they all back then? I know that comic made the trip back to Maryland from Alabama, but I really don’t remember what became of it. I guess it got thrown away during one of Muddear’s cleaning jags. The main point is that, while I remember owning it, comics had yet to make any real impact on me. I think I had it more for its connection to Star Trek than for the fact that it was a “forbidden comic book!”

Over the course of the next year, I had another one of those “I wonder if I can get x to buy this comic for me” moments. One Sunday afternoon, my aunt’s boyfriend took me to 7/11. It’s a long story, but here’s the gist of it: Muddear lived on a street in DC that wasn’t exactly the nicest. The ice cream truck came through, and I really wanted ice cream, but Muddear was always of the opinion that the ice cream truck was really just selling crack. So, she wouldn’t let me near it. I think I cried, and Mr. Jackson (my aunt’s bf), who had been doing some work on the house, volunteered to take me to 7/11 for some non-crack ice cream. So, in addition to my Push-Up, I ended up with a Heathcliff comic. Now, I’m not sure if y’all remember, but Heathcliff was the Flavor Aid to Garfield‘s Kool-Aid. He was not the A-list cartoon cat, but I remembered that his cartoon had a really cool theme song (one that I still find myself singing at times). Plus, the kicker was that he was dressed as Batman on the cover. Now, my whole love of Batman extends back to the Super Powers toy line, as well as syndicated reruns of the ’66 show. Surprisingly enough, I had never thought about seeking out Batman comics. This changed all that, as it was the first time I really thought “Wait, Batman started as a comic character, right?” Anyway, I remember that this comic was just a loose parody of the first Michael Keaton movie. Still, it was the first time a comic actually kinda stuck with me, and I still have that book in my collection today. This was not, however, when the collecting bug bit. No, my friends – that happened on the next installment of Will & Muddear’s Alabama Adventures, which I’ll talk about next time.

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09th Jul2010

Best of the West #1: Signed Amazing Spider-Man #583 Variant

by Will

Going through my posts, I realized that I never really spoke much about my time in comics. On top of that, I’m supposed to be this big collector of comics and toys, yet there aren’t many posts that reflect my hobby. So, instead of being all snarky and digging up a bunch of dirt, I figured I’d try something new, by showcasing a few of the best items in my collections that most haven’t seen. You might see some cool stuff, or it might result in me having my apartment broken into. In any case, I’ll give a little rundown of its history, and voila, I’ve got a new regular column.

So, today’s item is what you see here:

IMG00182-20100708-2333

Yes, that’s a first printing of the hard to find variant cover of Amazing Spider-Man #583. The first of the popular Obama Comic Cover gimmick, this book sold out quicker than hotels on prom night. Last I checked, I think it got up to about 5 printings, many of which are still being sold above cover price. Well, I somehow managed to get a copy. But wait, there’s more! If you look closely, you’ll notice that it’s signed. No, it’s not signed by Big O, himself, but by Marvel Editor-In-Chief and Chief Creative Officer, Joe Quesada. So, how did I snag this comic? Well, it’s funny you should ask…

Last year, I went to the New York Comic-Con with a couple of my Diamond friends.  Near the end of most conventions, the Marvel booth has a giveaway panel. This isn’t a nice, orderly contest, however.  No, at the Marvel booth, everyone stands around yelling for shit, kinda like those  businessmen watching Jennifer Connelly get it with that double-ended dildo in Requiem For A Dream.  There’s a guy (and I really should know his name by this point), who’s like Wayne Brady with the huckster showmanship of Stan Lee. The Marvel Minions bring him large, unmarked boxes of stuff, and he just grabs something out. The stuff ranges from big ticket items (autographed books), to dead overstock (Dark Towers hardcovers), to random licensed items (lunchbox, anyone?) on down to Saga books. That’s right – I’ve seen them give away the same crappy promo comic you would’ve gotten stuffed in your bag at your LCS.

Anyway, I’ve witnessed this thing quite a few times, so there’s generally a formula: “Wayne Lee” generally looks around to see who wants the item most. Sometimes, he might ask a trivia question or ask you to dance for him or something.  He usually goes for the cute kid, the 20-ish girl, etc. In fact, he tends to go for everyone *except* the stereotypical “fanboy”. By adhering to this pattern, the Marvel Giveaway Panel may be Marvel’s smartest initiative to reach out to a new audience; cater to the young, the women, etc. So, the trick is to save your energy for something that you really want. Nobody walks away with 2 items. Not even that  kid in the wheelchair. If you don’t want the Spider-Man sleeping bag, don’t even waste the energy to acknowledge it. Wayne’s pretty good at scanning the crowd, so he’s gauging what you really want. When everyone’s jumping up and down like they’re on The Price Is Right, you become more conspicuous if you stand still. Wayne notices that, and he knows you’re being strategic. Hell, it’s best not to even make eye contact with him. Save it for the big prize.

So, I knew all of the above going in, and I used all that to play my hand. I didn’t acknowledge the Wolverine baseball cap or the Eternals hardcover. Out of the gate, we knew that the big ticket item was the Obama cover, especially since this was about 2 weeks after the inauguration. There wasn’t even a second printing at this point, yet here it was, SIGNED by the creative head of Marvel. I knew they had 5 copies to give away, and those were the only things I went for.

After he had given away the 4th copy, I probably should have gotten discouraged. I mean, I’d been at this panel for about an hour and a half, watching people sacrifice their young for a Hulk pencil sharpener. One thing about me, however, is that I don’t quit. I had a good feeling. I had no basis for said optimism, but I really thought I was going to leave with one of those books. I’ve actually been really lucky in life when it comes to comic-related contests. When I was 12, I won a Batman watch from a Choice Hotels Batman Returns sweepstakes. When I was 13, I won some Avengers/X-Men Bloodties trading cards from a contest I’d forgotten I had even entered. And the list goes on. So, I felt like some of that magic might be in the cards for me for that Spidey comic. My friends were leaving to go to dinner, and some of the booths had even shut down, but I was determined to see this to the end.

Wayne got to the final copy, and made quite a showing about it being the final copy. He paced the floor with it. He’d stop and think about whether the time was right to give it away (he does this a LOT – pulls out an item, gauges the reaction, and then swaps it for a Human Torch backpack once the fever builds). He decided to ask a question: “What’s Wolverine’s real name?” This, my friends, is somewhat of a trick question. I didn’t know which answer he wanted. After all, everybody knows it’s “Logan”, yet this was after Origin had come out, so the real answer was “James Howlett”. Seeing as how he IS the guy from Marvel, I figured Wayne would want the Howlett answer. So, I jumped up and down, screaming “James Howlett!” I could hear a good deal of the crowd going the Logan route, while my fellow fanboys were chiming along with the Howlett chorus. I have to believe that Wayne noticed how I’d played the game. I think he knew that I was there for one thing, and he was determined to make me wait for it. Or, maybe he just noticed me at that point. Whatever it was, he was prepared to make my day. It felt like slow motion, as he walked over and handed me the book. In my haze, I shielded it until I could get out of the crowd, and I quickly put it in my sketchbook for safekeeping. Once I got to an empty corner of the Javits Center, I double-checked to make sure that it was real, and that I hadn’t imagined the whole thing. What I saw in my hands was the book that you saw above, and it’s been sitting on my makeshift mantle ever since.

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20th Apr2010

The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men…

by Will

“They got all the right moves in all the right faces. So yeah, we’re going down.”

I’ve been told that I don’t blog enough on a personal level anymore. The Adventures West Coast posts are all well and good, but they don’t have the gravitas of the Lesbian Chase or Marion Barry Karaoke posts of years past (if you haven’t read my archives, they’re really quite good! I advise you to read them now, while they’re free. When I become famous, you’re only gonna get those in my book!). Anyway, something happened to me today that I felt should be shared.

I’ve long felt that some people don’t have the capacity to be bad. Sure, they wanna be cool like the next guy, and scheme and cut shady deals, but for every Zack Morris, there are about 150 Screeches. I am one such Screech. I tried to fight the giraffe, and the giraffe won. Let me wind it back, though.

For anyone who has never read this blog/known me, I love toys. I buy toys. I don’t usually play with them, but they typically reside in a glass case from Ikea (I highly recommend the DETOLF). In any case, my preferred toy line at the moment is DC Comics figures from Mattel. These either come in the form of DC Universe Classics (I tweet about these a LOT) or the Movie Masters figure line from The Dark Knight movie. This story concerns the latter.

The Movie Masters were released 2 years ago, when The Dark Knight actually hit theaters. They were hyperdetailed figures, with a good bit of articulation, and pretty decent likenesses of the characters. They weren’t all that popular after awhile, and they all went to clearance before the 3 series was released. Well, Mattel decided to make them an online-only collection, where they would release a new one on their MattyCollector.com website on a monthly basis. This idea sucked because they were charging, roughly $20 (not including shipping) per figure. The figures were nice, but not that nice. At San Diego Comic-Con last year, they announced that the figures would first be sold online, but would then make their way to Toys “R” Us stores exclusively. I figured I’d wait for the TRU release so that I wouldn’t have to pay for shipping, plus there was no way TRU was going to charge $20 for them. I watched as the Bruce Wayne and Harvey Dent figures sold out online, but I was sticking to my plan. I was hoping that Mattel had put some stock aside for the TRU sales, so I wasn’t gonna order online. Then, I experienced a bit of a toy drought. A bout of ennui had inspired several toy hunts of epic proportion – all of which yielded NOTHING. At the same time, blog posts from Matty seemed to imply that the TRU deal was falling apart. So, if I wanted any of the figures I’d been waiting for, I’d probably need to just buy them online. Needing to get my toy fix, I crumbled and ordered Jail Cell Joker from the MattyCollector site. After shipping, that fucker cost $23! I didn’t care, though, as I finally had a new toy. That feeling subsided, however, when he arrived in the form of the most boring figure I’ve seen in some time. Don’t get me wrong – it’s a good likeness, but it just sits there. No special features, and the articulation isn’t as great as that of others in the line.

Fast forward to last week. A Mattel blog post reported that the web-only Dark Knight figures would be showing up in TRU stores “in the near future”. This prompted blog comments from collectors reporting that they’d already seen them in their local TRU stores. Ya see, Mattel didn’t want to publicize this because they wanted to sell them for $23 before you realized you could get them in stores for about half that price. Those online collectors were reporting that TRU’s price for the figures was roughly $12.99 each. But the plot thickens: remember how I told you the first 2 series had gone to clearance after the movie hype passed? Well, the packaging of the new figures is exactly like that of the old. So, many lazy TRU employees had just thrown them up on the clearance pegs for $4.98, not realizing that this was different product. So, if you got to a register and it rang up as $12.99, you could just point out the sign and they’d adjust the price.

Here’s my thought on this: is the tactic wrong? Yes, because you know the real price. That said, if TRU isnt dilligent enough to catch this, it’s not the consumer’s fault. By law, if there are multiples on the peg, they have to honor that price. I feel like a TRU employee in the boys dept should notice something odd about them receiving product for a line that pretty much trickled off 2 years ago. I worked that department for 10 years, so it’s not like I’m speaking out of class. The products look the same, they’re hung on clearance pegs and, most importantly, there’s NO new peg tag reflecting the new price. If a different price is not indicated where they hang, how is the consumer to know?

So, how does this all apply to me? Well, yesterday, I went into a TRU and pulled off this trick. There were no pegs indicating a new price, and the price scanner system was down. So, I honestly didn’t know the price until I got to the register (after all, $12.99 was just the average price being reported online). I told them about the shelf pegs, and they did the price adjustment. So, I got 2 new figures for a total of about $11. The saddest thing is that they weren’t even figures I really wanted. It was a weird Scarecrow variant and a Batman with glow-in-the-dark eyes. I can make all kinds of excuses, but I basically wanted a deal and I was tired of being fucked over by The Man. I mean, Matty Collector put the same “Night Vision Batman” for sale on their site at noon yesterday for, you guessed it, $23 (including shipping). So, Mattel was trying to rip me off by charging twice retail, while TRU’s negligence allowed me to buy what is, really, a dead toy line, at a great price. My problem, though, is I got cocky. I didn’t listen to The Gambler, and I counted my money before the dealing was done.

You see, today, I had lunch with my friend “Special Forces” (we call him that because he was in charge of the storeroom at TRU, and when it was holiday season, he got to wear a special black uniform so customers wouldn’t ask him questions). He had acquired a DCUC Deadman figure for me, so I took him to lunch to thank him. When we were done, he informed me that TRU had gotten a truck last night, so there was a chance they might’ve gotten the Harvey Dent figure I’d been wanting.

We get to the store, and all they have are a shitload of the older figures, on clearance for $4.98. After looking all through the aisles, we stumbled upon 3 of the new figures. I had them all, but he needed 2 of them. Now, since my episode yesterday, I now know that these things scan as $12.99. That said (and I checked), there was NO shelf tag indicating the new figures. So, as far as TRU’s shelves were concerned, it was a $4.98 figure. So, SF is all nervous, ’cause he used to work at this particular store, plus he knew he probably couldn’t use his discount card because he’d have to identify himself as an employee, which would require a manager. To make matters worse, the manager on duty was actually a guy we both used to work for at another store. When I noticed this, I said “Crap, we can’t do it because Paul’s here.” Remember that. I didn’t yell it or anything. Just said it. It’s going to be important later.

Instead of going to customer service, we go to the R-Zone, which is the electronics dept. I ask the chick in there if she can ring us up, and she begrudgingly agrees. Since SF’s nervous, and I didn’t really care about $10 (yup, I’m a balla!), I told him I’d take care of it. She scans the figures, at which point I do the whole, “The sign said these were $4.98.” Of course, she returns with “Well, I’ll have to see the sign.” I follow with a “And I’ll be glad to show it to you.” We get to the aisle, and it’s not like she can find anything to the contrary, try as she might. I know how this works. I’ve been in her role before. Still, there’s nothing she can do. She goes back to the register and then decides she has to look up something. She runs over to customer service, while I’m running my mouth to SF about how you’ve got to take back from the system sometimes. The rantings of a failed revolutionary. So, she comes back, and it all falls apart.

First off, she says that the clearance price is just for Scarecrow. I say that it’s not, and that the signs make no indication of this. Then, she says, “You knew this, which is why you said ‘We can’t do it because Paul’s here.’ Yeah, you didn’t think I heard that. You also didn’t know that I’m a supervisor.” Well, bitch got me there. No, I didn’t know she was a supervisor. I still held on to the argument that it’s not my fault that they didn’t retag properly, and that they were hanging with all the others. She goes through the whole “somebody must’ve put them in the wrong place”, which still isn’t my fault, but I was still pretty much caught because she’d heard the Paul comment. So, I played it off and followed through with the transaction. However, what was originally gonna be an $11 transaction was now (and correctly so) a $27 transaction. FUCK! Sure, I could’ve walked away, but I was already guilty, so I paid the woman. Special Forces got his figures, so he was happy. What pissed me off most, however, was how she took her damn time ringing me up once she felt vindicated. OK, I suck at bamboozling you, but just get me out of here, OK? Nah, she milked it. When it was done, I went over to Customer Service to talk to Paul. I knew I’d avoided him in the beginning, but I still felt I could argue to my advantage, especially concerning the lack of shelf tags. If nothing else, maybe he’d dispatch someone to retag the shelves at once, and I’d feel vindicated or something. Unfortunately, Paul was gone. Yup, he was there one minute, and gone the next. I thought that meant he was hanging out around the corner, but he was nowhere to be found. So, I walked away, tail between my legs, $27 poorer.

This isn’t Consumerist, so I’m not going to try to say what I did was right. I was merely trying to exploit a loophole in the system. However, I let greed and cockiness get the best of me, and my luck ran out. So, now they’re probably gonna look at me funny whenever I go in that store ’cause I’m that “guy who thought he was slick”. I hate those looks. I used to give them to the guys who’d pulled this stuff on me. But I guess that’s what this is really all about: I worked for TRU for 10 years, and there were countless times I was on the other end of this. Unfortunately, the law is that they have to honor the price, so they got away scott free. I guess I just wanted my corner of the sky. But, as you’ve read, I’m just not cut out for deceit, even concerning something as lame as action figure collecting. The way I see it, TRU just got from me today the money that they should’ve gotten yesterday. Everything balances out in the end, and I can’t beat the system when I try.

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28th Dec2006

Christmas Crazies

by Will

“Honey, why you callin’ me so late?”

I love Christmas, but I hate Christmas retail. Here’s an exchange I had at “The ‘R Us” the other day.

Old Man: Excuse, me…um…I’m looking for…umm…what is it called?

Me: *eyeing him with annoyed look on my face*

Old Man: *fumbles with phone* Let me just call…I can’t remember what that thing is called…Can you wait just one second for me?

Me: Well, actually, I REALLY need to go to the bathroom.

Old Man: Good! Me, too!

Me: Yeah, let’s not continue this there…

The sad thing is, had I not said that, I’m pretty sure he would have carried the conversation into the bathroom. He DID follow me, but i went into a stall. We had a comedic moment at the sink as we both needed to wash our hands. Exited said bathroom, and the conversation continued as if the urinary interlude had never occurred. And it was just as awkward as it sounds…

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20th Nov2006

Where The Bratz At?!

by Will

“Welcome to the layer cake, son.”

So, it’s been awhile. Not gonna talk about the main job yet, but I will say that I’ve gone back to Toys R Us for the holidays. Not sure if I’m going to stay on, but it’s certainly as surprising to me as it is to you. The other day, I was telling someone that I feel like an old, grizzled cop when I put on that uniform. The whole sense of, “You don’t know how many times I’ve looked in the mirror and said ‘Never Again!’.” But, as with any retail job, the crappiest part is the customers.

Back at my old TRU, it was pretty ghetto, and that sucked. But this TRU is in Columbia, known for is affluence. For those of you who read “Gatsby”, it’s very “new money”. But I’ll go a step further than that. It’s essentially White trash who have somehow come into money. You know, contractors who charge too much for work, or the final season of Roseanne where they won the lottery. Butterface trophy wives of Redskins and the lot. Yeah, by switching stores, I went from hair weaves to Nascar quicker than I thought humanly possible.

Well, every Christmas, regardless of store or location, I have the same archnemesis: the Black mother. And why is she my nemesis? Well, she’s upset because she can’t find the Black version of the hottest toy of the season. Be it Amazing Amanda, Cabbage Patch, or even Holiday Barbie, she wants the Black doll. Now, what Mrs. Black Mother doesn’t seem to understand is that she is chasing the niche of a niche. Not only does she want the hot toy, but she wants a variant of the hot toy. I’m sorry, sweetie, but they don’t allocate them equally.

Now, I can see her position, but I really just don’t care. Yes, I know that’s callous. And maybe my views will change if I have daughters. Sure, these women want their children to have toys that represent them. A toy to help solidify their sense of identity. Something to instill racial pride. And this is all admirable. This is also all bullshit.

Toys only have that effect if you reinforce it. If you point out to a child that this doll is different, and make that your sole focus, then they will manifest that and you have achieved your goal of racializing “play”. But if you just give them a toy, and let them sort it out, it ain’t that deep. IF the child asks, “Mommy, why doesn’t this doll have hair like me?” then you might even have the chance to establish a dialogue as to people’s differences. But just because you get Tashiba a white Barbie, it doesn’t mean that she’s gonna go out and join the Republican party and buy a Volvo.

I always hate these mothers because they take it out on ME. Like I was the one who ordered all of the White dolls. The other day, I told a chick to write a letter if she was so mad. What I’d love to see, though, is a White parent ask for a White doll of a predominantly Black line. I’d love for some soccer mom to come in and ask, “Do you have any…White Bratz?”(editor’s note: these DO exist, but people never really ask for them)

The funny thing to me, though, is the way that these encounters always play out. First of all, I will watch these mothers walk past several White employees just to get to me. And even after they’ve gone out of their way to find “a black guy”, a “brotha” a safe harbor of sorts, they still can’t be forthcoming with me. So, that’s when I have some fun.

They’ll approach me and ask, “Where are the Barbie’s?” And of course, this is while we’re IN the freakin’ Barbie aisle!

“Umm..they’re all around you, ma’am.”

And that’s when she’ll reply, “No, the other Barbies. You ain’t got no other dolls?”

Loving where this is going, I’ll ask, “Well, what kind of other dolls are you talking about?”

And this is the kicker, and they ALL do this, she’ll ask, “You ain’t got no ***** dolls?” Now, let me explain here. This is when she says “Black”, but she doesn’t actually say it. She mouths it. It’s kinda like those Cingular commercials about the dropped calls. As if to say that we can’t let The Man hear about our plaything plotting.

And at this point, I have a myriad of responses, ranging from the polite: “No, ma’am. Those are always the first to go.” to the obnoxious: “No ma’am, it seems that the toy companies just don’t really like Black people.” Yes, I HAVE said that. And I lived to tell about it.

At this point, regardless of what I say or how I say it, she erupts with, “I don’t want no White doll! Why they think I want a white doll?” And if I’m lucky, this tirade ends with a “Where the Bratz at?”

Now, don’t get me started on Bratz. Sure, these women are upset that there aren’t enough Black Barbie’s, but I feel it is a FAR worse crime to fill that hole with a Bratz doll. Sure, that shit is popular, but it’s the minstrel show of toys. If you’re afraid of toys giving your child a poor self image, then you sure as Hell shouldn’t be bying them Bratz. I mean, the name alone. It’s like they’re trying to reclaim the term or something. A “brat” is a BAD thing. Not something endearing. And there’s a reason there are no Black people in anime. You know why? Because they’d look like fucking Bratz! God, those dolls are HIDEOUS! And ignorant.

The other night, I saw a talking Bratz doll on the shelf, and just to test a theory, I pressed the button. Do you know what that plastic bitch said to me?

“Like, have you ever had a bad hair day?”

Huh? I HATE those trifling things, but they’re just as popular as ever. But the only people who buy them are ghetto Black people and ashamed White people. It’s true. I actually enjoy watching the disparity. As I said before, A Black family will come in, all, “Where the Bratz at?” And Woo! You get them to that aisle, and they can’t spend that welfare check quickly enough. But the White families approach me just like the Black mom looking for Barbie. I’ll get a White women who kinda looks down, or can’t really make eye contact. She’ll sheepishly ask to be pointed in the direction of the Bratz stuff. Yesterday, I had a dad who just looked exhausted. He said that their daughter was crazy about the stuff and she made them redo her bedroom in Bratz decor. First off, only a White guy would say “Our daughter made us do so-and-so.” And he looked so forlon and ashamed. All I could muster was a “I’m so sorry for you. Hopefully, she’ll grow out of that phase soon.”

So, in closing, if you want a Black doll, do the talking with your wallet. Don’t buy White Barbie, but don’t buy Bratz either. Hold out until something comes along to your liking, but don’t just jump on the first ethnic thing to come along. Buying your kid a Bratz doll is far more degrading than having to watch her as she combs Barbie’s long, blonde hair. And if you’re THAT mad about it, write a letter. Hell, start your own toy company. Maybe Michael Richards will even donate some of his Seinfeld money to help you get started (Man, that reference is gonna be SO dated when I re-read this in a year!). But don’t shoot the messenger because I actually know where the Black doll bodies are buried.

I don’t even know what that means, but I felt the need to go out on a strong note. And I think this exposition just killed any attempt at that. Seacrest, out!

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