Back from the Toy Fair – Lili
My first Toy Fair, my first experience of New York in winter… It has been a jam-packed and tiring two days but all completely worth it. I had a blast meeting and hanging out with the creme de la creme of ‘boutique toy’ artists and distributors, whom I have to thank Brian for introducing me to.
The New York Toy Fair is similar to San Diego Comic Con in its overwhelming scale, but located in two separate buildings: The Jacob Javitts Center (West side) and the Toy Center (Broadway, 5th Ave). Due to time constraints I didn’t make it to the Toy Center where you had to schedule appointments to view the products (eg, Jakks Pacific, Hasbro etc.) I spent most of my time wandering through the hot and crowded Javitts Center, with very sore feet…
Highlights
(with lots of namedropping)
SNOWFALL! Not ever having experienced snow (at least not since Perisher Blue in 1990) I was like a crazy tourist, taking photos of anything and everything with white stuff on it. I could have stayed outdoors all night if I had not been so exhausted… Well, you know, I’m from the tropics so snow is a novelty :)
Outside Botanica on Houston
Dinner with Mike and Heather at Calle Ocho, an amazing Cuban restaurant on the Upper West Side. The food and cocktails were to die for! Which was followed by coffee and desserts at Cafe Lalo. Mike and Heather are the very cool owners of Wootini, and I am look forward to working with them one day soon…
Meeting everyone at the large and lively STRANGEco booth which was located in the Boutique Toy aisle
…showcasing toys by Friends With You, Nathan J, MARS-1,
Wootini, Dan Clowes, Superdeux, Rocketworld, James Jarvis…
Salivating over some cool new toys…
New figure from MARS-1
(Mario will be exhibiting at Gallery1988, L.A. in March)
UPDATE: See Designs/Working Process HERE! (thanks, Antoi)
Kaijukidz by Ralph Cosentino/UFO Toys;
Helmut The Hot Dog Man by Will Sweeney/Amos Toys
MadL wrestler by Wheaty Wheat;
Gorillaz by Kidrobot
Two figures from “The Good Wood Gang” series
by Friends With You
(scanned from the STRANGEco catalogue)
JAKe APE by JAKe/AdFunture Workshop (HK)
Meeting Sebastien aka Superdeux! (visiting from France). I am a huge fan of his Stereotype ‘bondage’ figures.
With Sebastien;
Monkey Show/AdFunture @ Gigantic Brand gallery-store
Seeing some rather bizarre ¡Mucha Lucha! plush figures (licensed for the Mexican market by Angel Toy) Bizarre, because when you squeeze the bigass Snowpea, he vibrates with Sr. Midcarda’s voice: “Lucharaaaaaan!!!” Squeeze Buena Girl – she also vibrates and the ML theme song plays!
ML plush (vibrating, talking) figures
Meeting Tim Conroy, president of SCULPCO, the Cincinnati company who sculpted the ML Jakks figures. Very chuffed when Tim presented me with a special gift from Sculpco: the ‘master’ model of a Zero Kelvin figure (which will not be produced). How cool is this!!!
One of a kind, translucent Zero Kelvin!
Also met: the very nice Andrew Bell (Groob figures); Whitney & Kirby of the Rotofugi store in Chicago; (Memo to self: Must visit!); and Sally from Phony-Baloney (who’s a big ML fan, and whose mother is in The Sopranos! )
with Sally
As for the rest of the Toy Fair… well, there was A LOT of stuff to take in. Action figures, cheezy plushes, creepy-looking realistic dolls, a millions different kinds of dice, costumes, casino games, and things that make you go Uh-huh…
In a week or so, I’m returning to NY for John’s and Bee’s xanga wedding of the century. Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow! 
Related Links:
… Now, time to unpack and enjoy this brief moment of NO RAIN…
Flickr: A very cool place to host/share images. From what I can see, Flickr seems to be to hobbyist photographers/artists/designers, what myspace* is to indie musicians or people seeking cool new music. There are thousands of themed photo-sharing groups here. I haven’t been browsing the site for very long, but so far these are some favourite pools: Kitsch Itch, Mexicanos, The Secret Life of Toys. 
We arrived late at tonight’s L.A. premiere of 
As much as we enjoy offering free mp3 downloads on 
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