Grey Matter

I can't think of a better way to end this zombie thing, than by showing a nice juicy brain...




...or a soft rubber brain model.

I've had this thing for a while now, and I still have a hard time putting it back together, which goes to show why I'm not a neurosurgeon.

Zombies!!!

I think one of my greatest failing as a nerd parent has been that I don't spend nearly enough time playing board games with my son. He hit middle school this year, and when I was his age, more than just a little of my spare time was spent throwing 4, 6, 8, and 20 sided dice, while pushing poorly painted lead figures around. So I recently picked up a Bag O' Zombies as a kind of commitment to the idea that we'll soon be playing the Zombies!!! game by Twilight Creations Inc.




The concept is hard to resist, and not just because it give me an excuse to buy a bag full of little plastic walking corpses, but I love the idea of bonding while rolling dice and fighting off zombies.

Enter the World of Survival Horror...

A few years after the first Resident Evil game was released for the PlayStation, Toy Biz put out a series of action figures based on various characters from the now classic game. Seeing as how I've got a theme going here, I thought that I'd focus on the zombies in particular.



This line was an evolutionary step between earlier cartoonish toy lines, and the kind of more graphic and detailed figures that we've come to expect from companies like McFarlane, NECA, and Mezco. Some characters are modeled using an anime style of sorts, but just the same, they're gory and very much in keeping with the spirit of the game.

The figures came in sets of two, with the first that I'd bought being the "Zombie and Forest Speyer" set. The Zombie is a generic, shambling, lab coat wearing stereotype; while Forest Speyer is an unlucky member of the S.T.A.R.S. team, who has been pecked to death by virus infected birds.

   


Forest Speyer is less action figure than he is toy gimmick, being that his only real action is to raise up and lift his arms when you turn a lever on his base. The Zombie figure is very nice, if not a little unbalanced, but his various limbs are removable, so there's plenty of play value.

Not willing to waste a design, Toy Biz put out a second, yet slightly different version also, with a bald head and a red flannel (classic), instead of a lab coat.



The Zombie Cop probably wins my vote for "most creepy" of all the figures in this line, and it comes with some great features as well. Removing his hat reveals his brain, and when you push on the mass of intestines leaking from his gut, he falls apart.

The donut's a nice touch also.



Nothing scares me in Resident Evil like the dogs, but unfortunately the Zombie Dog figure is about a thousand times more fragile than the ones in the game. The idea is that when it's shot by the Chris Redfield figure that's packed with it, the dog explodes into pieces. It's a cool effect, and it does work, but just a little too well, as you'll spend a lot of time snapping the halves back together if you barely touch them.



This line is one of my favorites for many reasons, but I have to say that I'm always amused when I see toys with as much play value as these, that are also somewhat inappropriate for small children. I mean, I'm no prude, and my own kid has clocked enough zombie killing time by now to where I think he could actually handle himself after a T-virus outbreak, but there's something a little weird about a line of toys based around shooting things in the head.

Yes, weird... but great also.

A Man's Best Friend is His Dog

To continue my love fest for NECA and the year 2006, I have to mention another undead effort. 2006 marked the tenth anniversary of the original Resident Evil game, and NECA put out a fantastic basic "Zombie" figure to help celebrate.


   


The figure is truly great looking and well made, but it's also fun, because it has removable limbs and comes with an equally creepy zombie dog.

When There's No More Room in Hell...

2006 was a huge year for zombie action figures it seems. Most every collectibles shop had shelves that were overflowing with plastic rotting flesh, and some of the best out there was being made by NECA.

As far as I'm concerned, NECA puts out a product more closely akin to a really well made garage kit with limited articulation, than a traditional action figure. So many of their efforts follow the garage kit formula--obscure subject matter, great detail, display worthy set pieces. But best of all, the things come assembled and are painted with a great deal of care.

The "Plaid Shirt Zombie" from Dawn of the Dead is a very obscure character. It's a blink-and-you-missed-him-because-he's-been-shot-in-the-head kind of character, but he's totally iconic, and a very classic looking zombie.


   

Blue skin, a bullet wound, rotting flesh, and a creepy eye make him one of my favorites. Something that I'm also really into, is how this figure stands at a kind of weird and uncomfortable angle. The whole thing's very well thought out, and very well executed.

And speaking of executions...



As many times as I've seen Dawn of the Dead, I'm always crushed when Stephen is killed. I mean... I'm a pretty jaded horror fan, and I can't say that I really care about the characters in many other zombie films, but Stephen, or "Flyboy" as he's nicknamed, is someone that you want to see survive.

Just the same though, his blue faced zombie corpse makes for another great action figure, and once again NECA has handled it very well. The only thing that I would change, is that I would have liked a simpler base without the random corpse. Or maybe it should have been a biker corpse... I dunno.



After writing this, I've remembered that I never picked up the Hare Krishna Zombie, which was the third Dawn of the Dead figure that NECA released. It's a great figure also, with all of the same strong points as the others, but perhaps a bit less gory, and just a little more humorous.

"The Armageddon Epidemic Has Spread Out of Control."

A couple of years ago, Mezco put out a very nicely done zombie line called Attack of the Living Dead. It featured three characters: Earl, Jake, and Hellen. Shown below are Earl and Jake, but I skipped Hellen, largely because I didn't care for Mezco's choice of a limited kneeling pose, and not at all because of quality.




As a matter of fact, Mezco did an excellent job with this line, and all of the figures were top-notch as far as build and paint goes. The paint versions alone (different colors, black and white, glow-in-the dark) made it fun, but things like a choice of "strain" variation, with two "phases" of zombie severity, made the line great.

It was a unique effort in that obviously Mezco put them out because they love the subject matter, and not to support a book or movie. Just zombies for the sake of making zombies... and the only thing that I can complain about, is that it doesn't seem as though they intend to make more.

Mini Marvel Zombies

I constantly fight with the idea of collecting things like mini figures--it's just another one of those avenues that I don't really need to be going down. Occasionally I'll get sucked into it though, because a company like Art Asylum has put out something really cool.

Case in point, Marvel Zombies Minimates...




This set was a convention exclusive for 2007, and features very well done little figures of Zombie Daredevil and Zombie Giant Man. Leaving the center of Daredevil's chest transparent was a nice touch, and makes for one of the few times that you'll probably ever see a block figure's internal organs.

Falling to Pieces

There's something about Easter that always makes me think of zombies, so it might be fun to spend the next few days looking at some of my favorite zombie toys.

From Ace Novelty comes this figure from the "Tales from the Cryptkeeper" toy line, that was based on a relatively short lived cartoon from around '93 and '94.




The Zombie is an awkward but fun figure, where you're able to pull off an arm or a leg, and watch him fall over to one side. Zombie toys are everywhere these days, but a little over ten years ago this was one of the only ones out there, so I give it credit for being original.

Oh... and here's part of the cartoon. Enjoy!

Millions of Unusual Small Creatures Lurking Everywhere

A few years ago, a friend handed me a small container full of little pink wrestler figures and said, "I have no idea what these are, do you want them?" At the time I only knew vaguely, but did know well enough to take them from him and read up a little.



I was finishing High School when the M.U.S.C.L.E. thing was big with the kids, so I missed it entirely--which is funny, because I have a younger brother who was really into things like He-Man, Thundercats, and Transformers at the time. He was my window into the whole '80s toy scene, and I usually played with his toys when I played with him.

M.U.S.C.L.E. figures, like so many other great '70s and '80s toy lines, where an Americanized version of something that was already big in Japan. Known as Kinnikuman, they played on the universally loved wrestling phenomenon that had become so huge by the mid '80s.

On a related note, a few years back they put out a modern-ish version of the show called Ultimate Muscle, which was both very good, and very well liked my by own son. A true testament to the strength (pun intended) of the Kinnikuman concept.

Print: Conan The Barbarian (autographed by Ernie Chan)

It's not that I don't care about modern comic books, or that I'm not interested in meeting current artists and writers, it's just that when I'm given a chance to say hello to someone that helped make the books from my childhood happen, then I'm really only going to get excited about meeting that person.

I visited the Emerald City Comic Con in Seattle this weekend, and after quickly running down the list of attending artists, I saw Ernie Chan's name on there. Ernie is one of those guys who worked for years to ink and draw some of the books that made the mid to late '70s a great time for me to be a kid.



My first exposure to comic books came when I discovered a stack of old issues tucked inside a side table at my grandparent's house. They'd been left behind by an uncle who was a huge fan of the more obscure books like Doctor Strange, Man-Thing, The Tomb of Dracula, Warlock, Ghost Rider, and Conan the Barbarian. Over the years I was rewarded with book after book from that hidden stash, and aside from spending a crazy amount of time reading them, I also used to slave over studying and copying the art.

By the time I'd grown up and graduated from art school, the one thing that I'd come to admit was that I was never going to draw like those old comic book masters, and for sure I would never be as prolific as someone like Ernie Chan. Ernie's hands have touched an incredible number of great looking books, and just getting to watch him pen out an illustration for a few seconds was truly awesome.

The biggest thrill though, was the simple joy that came from sorting through a stack of books that he had worked on, and after deciding on one that I liked the most, I was able to bring it over to Ernie for an autograph. He was gracious enough to sign it, thereby turning my bargain box purchase into something priceless.

An Eye for an Eye

There's only one cool thing about eye infection medicine, and it's the advertising display used to sell it.



From the good people at Sporin Ophthalmic Products, comes this 3-D rubber eyeball diagram, which was probably made to show all of the places where you don't want an infection.

"Hey doc, my retinas itch pretty bad. Have anything for that?"

Man of Steel

Nothing says April Fools' Day like a good old bootleg toy, so enjoy...




(Almost looks like Ronald Reagan wearing a rented Superman costume.)