NOT "Dolls"... "Action Figures!"

For some reason last week in AP Language and Composition class this past week, in an effort to be humorous, I used figurative language to suggest that one of my colleagues was a doll collector.  When the class laughed I feigned frustration that they as a group would find doll collecting to be less-than-cool as far as hobbies go... of course, what I knew that they didn't was that there is a moderately sized brown box in my own attic full of unopened dolls action figures.

"I bet you collect dolls!" blurted out one of my wards, aware of my penchant for comic book collecting. How people connect the two hobbies I'm unsure (although given that I do have both maybe the assumption is fair--and accurate).

"In fact, I do... but we collecotr's refer to them as action figures, NOT dolls!" I admitted as the students groaned in acknowledgement of how "silly" I can be--but at least it's not like have I haven't shared this secret in the past. I then added, "And I don't even take them out of their packaging play with them!"

The purchase of action figures is an area of comic book collectibles that I ventured into only briefly about six years ago. It started with both a fond reminiscence of the Mego Superhero "dolls" of my youth and the release of the first modern Fantastic Four (2005) movie, I film I had (at the time) been waiting my entire fanboy life to be made. With the film's release, the market was flooded with toys, games, figures, and other goodies (I still regret not buying Electronic Thing Hands) much of which I did sample by buying for either myself or my children.

This morning, I ventured into the crawl space and among the longboxes and holiday decorations I found and unearthed the box and, for the first time in maybe a year, pulled some of the figures (still in their original boxes) out. I figure that now when I can't think of anything to blog about, I'll reveal another of the seven or eight figures I have had stashed away. Though to be clear, when the new Lone Ranger movie is released (regardless of how bad it looks) I, in true fanboy form, will likely pick up a figure or two. Besides, the DC Universe Classic Jonah Hex figure (still in box) on my office bookshelf needs someone to chill with...