Good Happy Fun Strong.....

One of the drawbacks of being a collector of stuff [besides the financial ones and the fact that people ask why you buy toys at x age] is a fairly simple one.

Space.

Depending on your particular taste, be it G.I Joes, Transformers, Lego sets, Star Wars or whatever. It doesn't take too much time to fill up all the standard places in your home.

There's the mantle, dresser, possibly a kitchen counter. maybe a nightstand or two. Then you might put some figures on top of the bookshelf, and one or two on top of the TV. Then you start taking some of the books off the shelf because face it, you weren't reading those anyway.

Then you start buying furniture expressly for the purpose of storing your toys and collectibles.

Now I am at that all too familiar crossroads where you must make the decision of just not collecting anymore.

But my answer came to me in the form of the LEGO Corporation and Art Asylum. For the past few years LEGO has been converting their excellent Star Wars kits into smaller sizes. I can fit a couple of pod racers, an X-wing and Tie Bomber in the same spot as your standard Mcfarlane monstrosity. And ever since they started making Star Wars sets and vehicles the allure of having a tiny Darth Vader face off against an equally small Luke Skywalker is extremely powerful.

Art Asylum started out, I believe as a design firm, but have since gone into the toy game. They've made toys based on Star Trek, Eminem, and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. But they really caught my eye was a series of three inch figures very much in the style of the LEGO figure, but with 12 points of articulation. As a result I now have Captain Kirk, Bones and Spock recreating the Charlie's Angels pose on a corner of a shelf.

But that wasn't enough for them. They then teamed up with Marvel comics to make a line of Marvel Minimates that are even smaller [2 inches] but still have 14 points of articulation. Now Wolverine and Sabretooth are battling it out beneath the awesome towers that are the salt and pepper grinders.

Honorable mentions go to Stikfas, for their smaller size and ultimate poseability, and to Toynami's I-Men, for creating a mini version of the Blue Falcon and Dynomutt.

Bottom line? More Toys for Mike to buy, and I don't need to rent any space.

Take care, folks.