Comic Haul 7/8 - ToyMan Show 2018

Summer convention season is quickly approaching its end, but we still have a bit to go. This past Sunday was the ToyMan Show, and I attended it along with a few friends. This time it isn't so much a comic haul as it is a toy haul.


Looking back at what I bought last year, it would seem as though I did a lot better this time around. Of course, not everything I'm about to go over came from the ToyMan Show. I actually didn't buy any comics at all at the show. I didn't even so much as look at them. I did go nuts with the toys, though. Any comics I mention in this article came from the other places we visited.

Like last year, I was joined by my friends Dan Brown [Twitter | Blog] and Jon. This year we were also joined by our friend Trenton who joined us on the Cape trip, the Evansville trip, and the Metropolis trip.

So to begin, the ToyMan Show. This was the second time I had been to this event. As is typical with this, it was held in the same building, the Machinists Hall, in Bridgeton, MO.

I began making my rounds in search of Toy Biz Marvel Super Heroes action figures from the early 90s. I have talked a bit before about how I'm wanting to assemble the entire line of them still in their original packaging. I found these two figures at a booth almost immediately. They didn't have price tags on them, so I asked and the guy was like, "$25 each." I kind of scoffed at it and he was like, "How much do you think they're worth?" So I told him $15, as that was the max I paid for them at the Superman celebration last month. He ended up selling them to me for that price. I bought the Dr. Doom and Invisible Woman figures from him. Silver Surfer came from another vendor and the Human Torch came from a place we went after the show.

Then I found these. These are things I didn't know I wanted until they were right in front of me. I have been a fan of Star Trek: The Next Generation for a long, long time. When I was a kid, I was really into these figures. I still have all the ones I had as a kid (because I don't really get rid of things like that) but seeing the entire first assortment of them still in the package... I had to have them. They were all priced very low, too. In addition to that, when I bought them all, the guy running the table gave me 25% off of the purchase, so I ended up getting all 10 figures for $64. That's crazy to me. This is a piece of my childhood that is very nostalgic. These predate the Star Wars figures I was on the hunt for last year, and even those are super nostalgic. I'm glad to own these.

Near the table with the Star Trek figures was a vendor who had some odds and ends including this Angela figure from Spawn. I almost bought the entire first wave of Spawn figures, too, but I ended up only buying this figure who isn't even a part of the first wave. I bought her because she's a Marvel character now and it's weird to me that she made the jump from Image to Marvel, and she started with this action figure right here. Next year, if I have all the Toy Biz figures, I might move on to early Spawn figures.

In the corner of the room was a guy selling action figures I didn't even know existed of garbage bad girl comic characters from the 90s. I found this figure of Lady Demon mixed in with them, who herself is a garbage bad girl comic character from the 90s, but I have two other figures from this line that I bought last year at Kokomo Toys & Collectibles in Kokomo, IN. I have the Lady Death and Purgatori figures from the line, so I thought I should add Lady Demon to the set. There's also an Evil Ernie figure and at least one Lady Death variant figure in the line, but I don't really want those, so I'm good.

I was about to make a run to the car to drop off all the things I bought, but then I spotted a guy selling prints. His name is Brian Atkins [DeviantArt], and he had some really, really nice pieces for sale. I flipped through the book he had of prints and I was really taken with this one of Princess Peach fighting monstrous versions of the enemies from the Mario Bros. series. His prints were $10 each, and he offered to sign it for me because "it makes me feel famous." I thought that was really nice of him and I liked the print so much I ended up giving him $14 for it instead of $10. I even went to Wal-Mart the night I got home with it and bought a nice frame for it.

I saw this in someone's booth, and I instinctively bought it because it's Chun-Li. Well, it turns out I already have this figure sitting on my shelf with my other Chun-Li merchandise. I still don't remember buying it before, but I apparently did at some point. So, I ended up opening this one. It felt wrong to do it even though I already had one. I held them both side by side to determine which one had the better package but they were both identical. Oh well. She's a really good figure. She comes with a bunch of interchangeable hands and a few different facial expressions. Very articulated.

Immediately after buying that, at the next table I found this Catwoman figure in the Jim Balent costume. This is my favorite version of the costume. This is what she was wearing in the early 90s when I started reading comics and getting into Wizard Magazine. It's admittedly very basic and looks like it was just painted on her, but it's nostalgic to me. The figure isn't that exceptional, but I have a very modest Catwoman collection going so I thought she'd fit in it nicely.

Oh, and I found an NES game I didn't own there. Picked up Destiny of an Emperor from a table for $22. Any NES game I don't own at this point is pretty hard to come by, and I have never encountered this one before. That leaves 54 licensed games before I own them all. Not bad for never having used eBay and only shopping locally.

About this time I received a phone call from two of my friends who had made their way outside. I made my way up front but bought these two Elastigirl Funko Pop! figures before heading out. The Spider-Gwen came from the store I mentioned earlier, which I'll get to. The one in the middle is a Target exclusive, and the guy selling it had a premium price on it, which annoyed me. Not enough to get me to not buy it, though.

So I headed out and met up with two of my friends. While waiting on the third, I went back inside to the entrance and talked a bit with the guy who runs The Toy Bomb [Facebook | Website]. The Toy Bomb is a semi-local toy shop that I've only been able to visit once but I always try to talk to the guy who runs it when he's set up at cons. Had I not walked back in to talk to him, I wouldn't have seen this Jim Balent costume Catwoman statue he had for sale. He seemed thrilled that I bought it from him. He's just a good guy, honestly. Anyway, calling this a statue might not be entirely accurate. It's more like a... premium figure? It's from a company named Iron Studios if you want to see more of their stuff.

That's all that I got at the ToyMan Show. After that, though, we went to a store called Saga Toys. It was like Kokomo-lite, but that doesn't mean it was bad. It was a very impressive store, and I found quite a bit there. For starters, they had a whole wall of knockoff Lego minifigures, including these clear Godzilla ones. I grabbed one of each color. They feel really, really cheap. I don't know how anyone could tolerate having a whole bunch of knockoff Lego minifigures, but whatever. They were $3.99 each.

They also had figures in little baggies on pegs. I already had this Chun-Li figure, but the one I have is still in its package. I thought I could just stand her up with all my others. Then I found this Power Girl figure, which I think is from a blind buy box. Really don't like blind buy things. If I was trying for a blind buy DC figure it would have been Harley Quinn or Power Girl, though, so this works out. I like them if I know who I'm getting.

And that's all that came from Saga Toys. Oh, the aforementioned Human Torch and unmasked Spider-Gwen also came from Saga Toys.

After that we ate at Cicis Pizza before making our way to a comic shop called Fantasy Shop. I didn't end up buying anything from them, but it was a decent shop. Some people were gaming in there which always annoys me and puts me off, but it was fine otherwise. Then we went to the mall and visited Vintage Stock. Again, I bought nothing. However, after that, I found a few Mighty Captain Marvel comics I needed at Slackers.

After leaving the mall we headed to Twilight Comics in Swansea, IL. Last year I had some luck there finding a key issue of G.I. Joe I needed. This year all I ended up leaving with were two Frank Cho variant covers to Wonder Woman. I might have been able to find more I needed, but I didn't really spend much time digging though boxes to find out.

And that was the end of our trip. It was a good time, and I'm very glad I got to go. Through all this mess with Toys "R" Us, I have been worried and concerned that I wouldn't get to go to any of the comic conventions I planned on going to this summer. So far I've been able to attend every one of them I wanted to with the exception of the convention in Salem. We still have the Burg Con in August, the Saluki Comic Con at the end of September, and some other vague con in Paducah, KY. to attend, so we'll see if I get to go to all of them.