The ToyMan Show in Bridgeton, MO has been the convention I've been looking forward to the most. After the
moderately disappointing Cape Con and the
generally meh Free Comic Book Day, I was really hoping to come home with some incredible pieces. Let's take a look at this year's trip to the show.
As always with the ToyMan Show, it was packed. It can be almost overwhelming at times, so if you have difficulty with crowds, I would highly suggest reconsidering attending. It's extremely cramped and there are tons of people packed in. Sometimes you can't even walk through the aisles because there are so many people.
I made my rounds through the show and wasn't finding much of interest. I was almost getting worried, to be honest. Then I came to a table and saw a bunch of things I was interested in.
First up are these Chun-Li figures. Chun-Li is my main in Street Fighter, and I've loved the character since I first played Street Fighter II back in 1991 in a bowling alley arcade. I had both of these figures already, but both of mine are open and the version I own of the one on the left is the blue one. Any Chun-Li figure I own that is open I'm wanting to also get sealed in the package.
From the same vendor, he had these Danger Girl figures. Last year at the
Saluki Con I picked up one of the figures from this line and mentioned that I didn't know if I would ever find the rest. Well, here at ToyMan, I found the rest. Even though the total for all four of these figures would have been $100, the guy gave me a discount and I got all of them for $70. Not bad.
I soon came to another table that had these two Spider-Man figures from the 90s animated series for $5 each. Back when these figures first came out, one year for Christmas I got the figure on the left along with Carnage. The figure on the right I was never really a fan of because his arms don't move from that position and I thought that was strange. I've picked up a few figures here and there from this line and now that I have these I only need three more before I have the entire first wave. I'm not actively searching for these or anything, but I'll pick them up if I see them. $5 each was pretty good.
I don't come to shows like this looking for loose figures, but I did find a guy selling loose Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles figures. He gave me a card and his business is
Snyder's Toys if you want to check him out. Since I was little, I have always wanted the Tokka, Rahzar, and Super Shredder figures, but I never saw them. My friends had them, but I never did. These were a no-brainer for me. Last August I posted a
Proof of Youth Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles article that you should check out if you haven't already. It talks a bit about my nostalgia for the Turtles. I also picked up Hothead and Merdude. Those two came out around the time I was getting out of TMNT. I had actually never seen them in person before.
I ended up back at the first table and looked over his stuff again. He motioned to one of his tables and told me that everything on the table was $5 each. So I grabbed three... questionable... figures for $15 total. The Hellina figure is so 90s I had to have her. I also own her first appearance, so there's also that. The Gen 13 Fairchild figure is actually not that bad, but I definitely wouldn't have paid more than $5 for it. I wouldn't have paid more than $5 for any of these figures, to tell you the truth. The Ghost figure, her stance is really wide and she looks off, but there's an Adam Hughes comic behind her and I'm a fan of his work.
Speaking of artists I like, I was thumbing through a box of comics and found this Frank Cho variant cover to an issue of Street Fighter Legends: Cammy. It's signed, but it doesn't have a certificate of authenticity with it, so... that kind of makes the signature irrelevant. It was marked at $40, and I looked it up on my phone real fast because that seemed a bit high for it, but that was actually the going rate for it. He told me he'd give me 30% off of that price, too. Had to have it.
So that was it for ToyMan. We headed to
Cicis Pizza and ate lunch, as tradition called for. After eating we visited a new comic shop for us called
Comic Book Relief in St. Charles, MO. I had actually seen this shop before on an episode of a YouTube channel I enjoy called Comic Trips. It was featured in
Webisode 49 - St. Louis Not-So-Blues. I even saw the Comic Trips sticker they put on the window when they left the shop!
These are the comics I grabbed from the shop. Nothing outstanding, but I had been looking for some of these comics for a while. My go-to website to order comics from,
My Comic Shop, hasn't had the first two comics shown here in stock since I added them to my wishlist over a year ago. The silver foil Barb Wire comic is a retailer incentive cover I didn't have. The Chaos Quarterly comics are books I didn't know existed until I saw them there. The Catwoman comics, the first one filled a hole in my collection and the other one is a magnet I have on my refrigerator. Marvel Comics Presents I probably don't need to explain
(three more to go), and I'm trying to put together a complete run of The Maxx, so that's what those are.
Also from Comic Book Relief was this Spider-Gwen graphic short box. I don't have many graphic short boxes, so I thought I'd add this one to the stack. The guy working the shop said that the graphic short boxes don't last very long, even though there was a thick layer of dust on the lid.
After leaving, we hit up another comic shop that we had never been to before called
The Fantasy Shop. We had gone to another location the year before, and I continued the tradition this year by not really finding much of interest inside the shop. It looks nice, yeah, but they really didn't have much to offer me. They're more of a table top gaming/comic shop with the gaming being the focus and the comics being the afterthought. I really dislike stores like this. If I walk into a store and see a bunch of people sitting around playing Magic or whatever, I'm pretty much done with the store at that moment. And this is coming from someone who has played Magic since 1994. Anyway, all I bought was this Emma Frost magnet.
Finally we left and then traveled to
Saga Toys, which is an incredible store. In 2017 I started trying to put together a full set of carded Toybiz Marvel Super Heroes action figures. Since that time, I have managed to find a bunch of them at various comic conventions and a few from eBay. One that had eluded me this entire time was, surprisingly, Punisher with "real machine gun sounds." I have looked and looked for him, and even on eBay he doesn't turn up often. When he does, there's always something wrong. The bubble is caved in badly. The card is bent. It's a picture of the machine gun sounds figure but the description says it's the cap firing one. At Saga Toys, I found him, and I have now completed my set. He was $20, and I gladly paid it. I need to replace my carded Iron Man because his card is rough, but I have them all now.
Saga also had this Vinyl Vixens Harley Quinn... I hesitate to call it a statue, so I guess I'll just call it what the package calls it... Harley Quinn vinyl figure. I've never seen this before, but I thought it looked pretty good and would go well with my jester outfit Vinyl Vixens Harley. I also found a Marvel Legends Julia Carpenter Spider-Woman figure. This is my favorite Spider-Woman costume, which you would know if you read
my favorite versions of superhero costumes article from a few years ago.
There was also a little tray up at the register that had some various things in it. I found this Spider-Man magnet for $3, and I thought it looked nice so I got it. So this trip I acquired two magnets for my refrigerator. I own a lot of magnets. I don't think I've ever really mentioned them.
So after that we headed to
Vintage Stock, but I didn't buy anything from them. I had gone in with the intention of buying a bunch of Dreamcast games from them, but I couldn't find a single one in the store. It looked like their toy selection had dwindled down as well, so we'll probably have to go to one of their other locations next year. After that, we walked to
Slackers, where I again didn't buy anything.
On the way out of the mall I glanced down and saw a GameStop. I thought maybe they might have one of the Savage World Chun-Li figures and I could buy one of the blue ones to open. I walked in and immediately saw this Emma Frost statue. It's very tall and it's clear with sparkles in it. In other words, it was something I needed. I walked in intending on only spending about $10 on the figure, but the statue was $50. It's actually a Gallery statue, which surprised me. Gallery statues are very good for the money. I have absolutely no idea where I'm going to put it, but I'm sure I can make room by shuffling some things around.
And that was the end of the trip! It was a good time, and I probably spent a bit more than I should have, but I only do this run once a year. This has been an extremely wordy article, but I had to talk about all the great things I got.
Until next time.
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