Display

How you display your collection is sometimes just as important as your collection itself. you don't want cheap shoddy $20 shelves from Walmart holding your pride and joy, you want shelves and cabinets that are as nice to look at as your collection itself.
The best I have found that are easily obtainable and pretty easy to set up are the DETOLF glass cases from Ikea. weighing in at about 60lbs and at a cost of about $60 each, with measurements of 16 w x 16 deep x 63 inches tall, these are the best glass cases for the money. There are vastly more expensive and larger glass cases out there and you are most likely going to find them on eBay.  Go to YOUTUBE and Check out Hot Toys collector Cheskadudu under "Hot Toys Glass Display January 2011", for what I would consider the ultimate glass case that he purchased off of eBay for $475...I plan on adding one of these to my display cabinets.
Also from Ikea is their LACK shelves, these bad boys are 77 inch tall and 41 in wide x 15 inch deep, with a gloss black exterior...these ran about $250 each, but worth every penny.
I've tried other types of bookcases and they just buckle and warp from the weight, which in turn makes them look every bit as cheap as they are. for my money its Ikea all the way, until somebody comes along with something comparable in styling and price point!

Almost forgot to mention, I use plastic spice racks from Bed, Bath and Beyond, so I can get some height difference when displaying action figures. They carry one large ($7.95) and one small ($4.95), and one expanding ($10.95), that pulls apart in the middle making it longer.

Here's a couple of pics of the shelves and cabinets...

2011 SDCC Hasbro Exclusives

Just got in my Hasbro SDCC exclusives package, and I'm extremely pleased with everything I got. first up is the Extremely large Sentinel on card. It came in a HUGE carrying case, and inside is the 18 inch Sentinel on a card like you would see regular action figures on, except its 28 inches long by 18 inches wide. The Sentinel itself says over 12 different phrases and is highly articulated. I plan on leaving this one "on card" and pick up two more from Toyrus when they come out. I expect these to be hard to find in the near future, because collectors will army build these guys. meaning they will buy as many as they can afford to build their own army. this is kind of an offshoot or sideline collection in the action figure collector world.

Next is the Spiderman Mighty Mugg exclusive with material mask that can be taken off to reveal Peter Parker. Hasbro did a whole line of Marvel Mighty Muggs until about two yrs ago when they just stopped making them. Hopefully they are on hiatus and will continue making these cool vinyl representations of our favorite Marvel characters.

Next up is the Avengers Mini Mugg set. as mentioned above the Mighty Muggs line has been on a hiatus with only a miniscule amount of characters coming out at retail. Here we have a Mighty Mugg Giant man, with mini mugg Avengers. Thor is an all new sculpt, and since he is one of my favorite Marvel characters, I had to have the set...it doesn't hurt that the Avengers movie will be out next year as well.

And lastly the Return of Marvel Legends with exclusive THOR with lightning eyes and hammer, and a special Mjolnir (Thor's hammer) package...excellent sculpt, super cool packaging, and a well deserved comback of one of the most popular lines of action figures in years past.

Thar be Dragons

Mcfarlane Toys made some excellent lines before he decided to just do Halo and Sports figures and amongst those was his Dragons line. My collection represents ALMOST everyone he made except for a couple of stinkers. These sculpts are things of beauty to my eye, and I could care less if they had articulation or not. I wished he had continued the line, or come up with a new line based on creatures of mythology. Not his take on it, but rather follow the more realistic approach he did with this line...aaaahhhh one can dream.

Please don't look at the dust, like I said I've been very busy with school and there are some things I just don't have time for, like dusting the collection.

I have the three headed hydra dragon, but he's too big to display at the moment, so he guards my industrial size shredder. You'll also notice Draco from the Dragonheart and the dead horse thing with dragon wings from Harry Potter. I also have all the figures from "How to train your Dragon", but again, no room.

More Toy Goodness

 Tonight I'm posting my Marvel Legends  12 inch Icons collection that I recently had to take down and box up to make room for my ever expanding Hot Toys collection...also included are the  12 inch Rotocast Hulks, Spiderman, Green Goblin, Daredevil, Wolverine, Cyclops, Nightcrawler and Fantastic Four.

 I would Love to display all of my collection at one time, but space prohibits at this time, and I told myself the collection was going to stay in the Mancave and not sprawl throughout the apartment. maybe one day when I get another house I'll have the kind of room/s this collection deserves.

School, School and more School...

I was meaning to post once a day or at least three times a week when I first started this blog, but this summer semester at RN Fastract is REALLY keeping me busy, a test every week and clinicles every other weekend makes ETM a busy guy.  But alas, the end of this semester draws near and I'll have a whole 2 1/2 weeks off before next semester starts. time enough to play catch-up on ALOT of things I've pushed to the back burner....tonight is a rare free night since we only had to take the Kaplan test and were off for the rest of the night, I can post a thing or three.

Its all about the Toys III

Muppets and more muppets. I loved the show and the movies, and of coarse Sesame Street. If I had to pic favorites it would be a toss up between The Swedish Chef, Beaker and Animal.

 This is the whole series including most exclusives. 

As you can see I also have the 12 inch muppets as well as the original puppet muppets from the 70's...also seen above is a set of extremely hard to find action figures of one of my favorite Hanna-Barbera cartoons from the 60's... the Herculoids.

Its all about the Toys II

forgot to mention Underdog and crew in the last pic...Here's some more. I still have some re-arranging to do (a never ending task) to put Towelie,  Butters, frozen Kenny and  Satan into the display.

SouthPark

AAaahhh Southpark, no explanation needed! The first line I didn't feel the need to get all the characters they released, BUT wish they would have released more from the show. seemed they stopped producing figures around season five, and if your a fan of the show you know there is a plethora of characters you wish they would/could tackle. They have recently begun re-releasing the core characters again at Toysrus and I'm hoping they will continue this by adding in some new characters...time will tell.

                                                  

Hanna-Barbera

Space Ghost

Thundarr the Barbarian

Blue Falcon and Dynomutt

Birdman

Its all about the Toys

Ironically only a select few have seen my collection in all its glory. Of those, only 1 actually collects toys, and then only passively, so I've never really gotten to "show off" the collection to those that collect or can appreciate it the way I do. YES, everybody that sees the newly dubbed Mancave, formally the Goober room, oohs and aahhs over the sheer vastness of it. My nephews Braydon and Mason actually know a lot of the characters because of the Marvel Superheros cartoon as well as Batman the Brave and the Bold cartoon....but kids will marvel at any collection of toys, whether it is displayed in cabinets or thrown  all over the floor ready to be played with.

As much as I enjoy showing non collector friends and kids my collection, I've always wanted to hear back from other collectors who can appreciate it for what its is. to be jealous that I have a piece they have always wanted, or in awe that I have achieved a level that they one day hope to ascend to....not in a braggadocios way, but rather a collectors giddy throwback to the younger years of childhood wonderment and awe.

Backstory: My collecting mentality started with comic books. I read and collected comics since I could read, my imagination ran wild at the possibility that I could one day use those same powers as my favorite heroes and villains to rule the world...my imaginary world anyway.  Remember when kids had an imagination? this is of coarse the days before the Internet and video games and 400 channels of TV....anyway I continued this hobby until about 1998 when something newer and cooler caught my interest (other than girls, partying and adult beverages of coarse) a company called Toybiz started to make action figures of Marvel superheros.
Cool! now I can have action figures of my favorite superheros....soon after that a former comic artist started his own toy company and revolutionized the action figure industry.... the rest, as they say, is history.

Instead of showing everything all at once, I'm going to post a  couple of pictures a day, so as not to overwhelm you the reader and so you won't miss anything.

Futurama

I Love this show, and watched each episode over and over again when it aired on Cartoon Network. I have everything released to date by Toynami, including 3 of the 4 original releases from Moore Action Collectables in 2000, The 4Th character was the ship itself.

I just picked up the new 9 inch talking bender that says over 12 phrases from the show, and Toynami announced more figures including the robot mafia, Lerr, Morbo, Gender Bender, and a HUGE Wrestling robot at this years SDCC. Also included in the pic is almost all of the Kidrobot blind box figures. the ones I'm missing are the accursed "Chase" figures of Robot Devil and the handy man.

Popeye

Who doesn't love Popeye? I used to watch Popeye cartoons on the Bozo show when I was a kid, and the memories have stuck with me ever since. Mezco put these out around 2004/5 and I had to have them all. Included is the hard to find Seahag, Alice the Goon, and Pappy. As well as the black and white set in the back middle and the pvc set in the front.

Pink Panther

Pink Panther cartoon debuted in the late 70's and was half based on the movie of the same name. Palisades toys produced these for only one year in 2005, then went out of business. Palisades is the same company that made the incredible Muppet's line.

Evil Toy Monger begins!

Well kids here it is, the first post of my very own blog. I think it fitting that my first post should be about my alter ego the Evil Toy Monger, a name given to me by my long time friend Jenni Gregory years ago in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.

At this years Mega Con in Orlando, Fl. a company called " iam enterprises" offered 3D comic sculptures of you as a hero or villain. The examples they had on display looked exactly like the models that were there, and the best part was they were only $49. They gave you three facial poses to choose from angry, normal, or smiling and let you preview what the sculpt would look like before you paid...8 weeks later this 5 1/2 inch beauty arrived at casa de monger.  I was overjoyed at the results and would encourage anyone interested in having a sculpt of themselves to get it done. You could also have them paint it in any colors you choose for and additional price, but I chose to finish the piece myself.

Go check them out at http://www.iam3dstore.com/