Miniature Giants: Universal Monsters Glow In The Dark Reissues!

 

It's the start of a week I was planning to use for a full lineup of posts, and I'm already a bit late getting this started. Fortunately, it happens that I thought to save a few leftovers from my last Marx post. So here I go with another sequel, this time about the Universal Monsters line I covered from exactly one figure before. While I'm at it, here's a pic I was going to use before of my "new" acquisitions with the freakishly tall Campus Cutie girl.

Now for some previously covered backstory, the Marx Universal Monsters line was released in 1963, the first year of the 6-inch figures. This was an evidently licensed release, since the bases of the figures have Universal Pictures along with the Marx branding. What is of some note is that this was not entirely necessary, as Universal had itself cut legal corners by claiming to use sources in the public domain, and in some cases used works and characters that had been adapted for the screen before. Needless to say, I'll get to that in more detail. In any event, these were evidently popular at the time and continue to command respectable prices in online listings. That was followed by reissues, most notably by Uncle Milton in the 1990s. The company made the further move of selling the figures with paints for the artistically minded, like the Mummy figure shown in the top photo for the post. They also released glow-in-the-dark versions of the figures. Initially, I wasn't that interested in these. Eventually, I got a Hunchback of Notre Dame figure that went in the backlog. Then, during the buying spree where I acquired other figures covered earlier this months, I picked up a figure purporting to be the Phantom of the Opera, and that was where things got intriguing. Here is a pic of the pair together.

Now, what's interesting about these figures is that they most closely resemble the silent films of Lon Chaney, the original makeup/ suit effects guy. With the Hunchback, the figure is just kind of generic, though the grotesque asymmetrical face (photos do not pick up detail on these things at all) certainly looks like something Chaney would have created. The Phantom, on the other hand, most definitely resembles Chaney's version far more than anything else. The twist is, Marx could easily have gotten away with using the characters without Universal's permission. The studio had made the original films (one more reason to downgrade the status of Dracula), and in the case of the Phantom followed with a sound version in 1943, but they would both have fallen into public domain status by the 1950s. The reasonable inference is that the Universal licensing was a matter of cooperation rather than necessity, securing the right to reference the studio's name and films directly in marketing as well as the use of iconic original characters like the Mummy and Creature From The Black Lagoon. Now that I think of the legal angles, the absence of Dracula makes a lot more sense. Given the infamous litigation around Nosferatu, I find myself wondering if Universal was paranoid about an adverse ruling. Now, here's a few more pics. From the back...

Closeup; yeash, this makes Chaney's work look a little tame...

Profile; I think this really caught the most actual detail of any of these...

And one more with the Mummy; this damn thing would be gruesome for a McFarlane figure!

One more thing I'm going to shoehorn in is a little terminology: "original", reissue and recast. As I have commented (see my video on the Star Wars scale figures), what to call original is already a bit of a gray area, as it can include things like the Ukrainian figures (also now a video). I for one am willing to count anything made with Marx's permission up to the company's bankruptcy in 1979. For "reissue", I consider the present figures to be a good example of the most useful criteria: They were still made in the "vintage" 1980s-1990s period; they were sold commercially in the United States; and perhaps most significantly, they were at least nominally made and marketed for kids rather than adult collectors. By further comparison, I would prefer to use the recast designation for items made within the current millennium, which are likely to be made for the US collector market even though most are made in Mexico (see my Space Guys unbagging). For the moment, this remains a minor distinction that really doesn't even have much effect on price, but things could get a lot more complicated down the line.

And while I'm at it, here's a bonus because I already went through all the hoops to use them. These are pics of a full set of Soviet soldiers from Ukraine, used with permission from seller Double Duncan Treasures. Per the seller's very helpful correspondence, these were played-with figures from an owner from eastern Europe, originally part of a set that also included Wild West and Viking figures. Of most interest, he reports that about half of them have Cyrillic markings, which failed to translate as anything but abbreviations. He also confirmed that the reddish color is that of the original plastic rather than an aging effect. Here they are...

And that catches me up. That's all for now, more to come!

Miniature Giants: Mystery Monday crossover!

 

As I write this, I just went a whole week without making a post. I decided it was time to try going a week with a post for every day, which for a while was what I did every week. To kick things off, I decided it was worth doing another Marx figure post and if at all possible bring back my Mystery Monday feature. As it happened, I had a few things in my pipeline that fit both purposes, plus a few more things in reserve in case I didn't get something in time. To kick things off, here is the minor mystery, with a couple friends.

This lady is from the previously covered Campus Cuties line, labeled Lazy Afternoon. In the time I have been aware of these figures, she has been my favorite, though I waited a long time to make a purchase. What convinced me to make the purchase was that the figure was a white or gray color I had seen frequently, quite different from the pink color of the trio I had purchased. I had already seen others voice the suspicion that this was a mark of a reissue. I finally ordered the figure and had it arrive s little after my previous post. Here are a few more pics.

"Hmm, actually, I've never been canoeing in my life. Why do you ask?"

Now, it will be evident on examination that there are a few things that are... odd. First, this is one of two of the original 8 figures wearing pants instead of a dress or skirt, and the only one in what can be considered athletic wear. Because the oar is not anchored to the rest of the figure, it is commonly warped as a condition issue (also a problem with the Flag Guy astronaut). Then there are some odd details of of anatomy. The lady's endowments are not so much oversized as oddly squeezed, to a degree that would be difficult to achieve short of using recycled shock absorbers as an undergarment. Her hands and feet, on the other hand, are curiously small. (For that matter, the angle of her right wrist does not look natural or comfortable.) What really only stands out on actual handling (grow up...) is that things look significantly off-center, which might be rationalized as an ill-fitting jacket if the hood and her head didn't also appear skewed to starboard. The upshot of all of this is that Marx's moldmakers were still working out both the female form and poses that reflected peacetime activities. But the mystery was always, is this an original figure or a reissue? Here are a couple pics that just might give an answer.

To state my conclusion first, I am not necessarily convinced this is original, but I am definitely far less skeptical than I was. First and to me most significantly, the real color of the plastic is a tan or off-white, which is different than the pink usually accepted as a mark of authenticity but still a "flesh tone" in keeping with the concept of the line. Second, it does bear the Marx name and logo, though this is not conclusive. Third, it is made from soft plastic typical for Marx, which among other things made it relatively easy to bend the oar back into its intended position. My one reservation came down to two marks in the wrist, at least one of which should be visible in the first of the pics above. On casual inspection, this looks like nothing more or less than chipping, but that would really only happen with much harder plastic. There are independent signs of scratches on the figure, but this kind of damage would take deliberate gouging, which I see no evidence of. What I believe is that this is an imperfection caused by air pockets in the plastic (see the Field Museum Mold A Rama dinos), which would definitely be out of character for Marx. As usual, there is middle ground here; maybe this was made later, when the company was struggling, or perhaps in one of their foreign factories. And that brings me to the other item under consideration...

Now this was a figure where nothing looked right. While it is vaguely similar to the nominal 45mm figures I have been using for the Space Marine analogs, it did not match any of the sculpts used for the US soldiers within the 6-inch line. The fact that it was painted was odder still. On top of that, the whole style was quite different than usual for Marx. It would have been easy to count it as the work of a competing manufacturer (see the Lido draft dodger from back when), except that the seller showed a pic with Marx markings on the base. It was also reported that it was indeed 5 to 6 inches tall. I concluded that the only way to sort this out was to buy it. Immediately on receiving it, I discovered the greatest anomaly: The figure was made of hard plastic. Here is a lineup with the Japanese office and a Soviet soldier to show the difference.

And here are a couple more pics.

Now, this was a little more than a Wall of Nothing. The markings identified it with a set called Combat Soldiers, released as part of a reasonably well-known line called Warriors of the World which I ran across several times trying to run this guy down. These were "army men" figures of about 60mm scale that represented a range of nations and historical periods. Unusually, they were sold pre-painted, typically in individual boxes. Evidently, they also tried scaling these figures up to nominal 6-inch scale (I get about 5 1/2 inch, and yeah, part of the gun broke off) at the same time they started releasing the soft-plastic 6-inch figures we know and love. By all indications, this was a dead end of another dead end. Warriors of the World clearly failed to displace playsets with unpainted army men. As for their large-sized counterparts, the WW2/ Vietnam era US soldiers are the only ones I turned up that received this treatment. By all indications, they were short-lived compared to their soft plastic counterparts. I believe it is possible they were sold mainly outside the US, based on the fact that the only other seller to offer them was in another country. As for their value, I paid a little more than usual for this one because it was so clearly unusual. The problem, as I keep doomsaying, is that price is a function of demand more than actual scarcity, so most likely, items as obscure as this will remain no more than moderately expensive.

Now I really need to wrap this up. I can't call it a night without a shot of the Truckstop Queen! We've come a long way, kind of...

That's all for now, more to come!

Miniature Giants: Campus Cuties!

 

As I write this, I'm at a watershed moment with my Marx figure collecting: I have been covering things on my godforsaken Youtube channel before I posted about them on this godforsaken blog. (Of course, I'm also finally doing another installment of this feature in the same month as the last one.) One thing that came up recently is that I did a video in connection with the Star Wars scale Japanese soldiers where I discussed the general question of the rarest Marx figures. In the course of that video, I finally showed off something that was backlogged a long time, a representative set of Marx Campus Cutie figures. Here are 2 of them in full... um... glory?

"I'm like any college student... I go to class in the morning, show up for work at noon and pick up my kids at night."

For the usual backstory, the Campus Cuties were perhaps the most notorious line released by Marx in the 1960s if not their entire history. (See Marx Wild West for most of the details.) Eight of these figures were released in 1964, the second year of production for Marx 6-inch figures. The concept was exactly as advertised, a lineup of perky, perhaps flirty young ladies in detailed outfits that, as many observers noted, had little if anything to do with academic pursuits. In further hindsight, these conspicuously failed to anticipate to anticipate either the fashion or the politics of the rest of the decade, though there were several sculpts that showed athletics and outdoor activities. (I will get to that...) The exact reasoning behind the line remains debatable. It did roughly coincided with efforts by Marx to expend into toys for girls, as evidenced by their dollhouse figures. It also would have offered an opening for sales to teenage and adult males. The latter scenario would further account for an apparent decision to market them as models for painting. As a result, a large percentage of the specimens in circulation have been hand-painted, as seen here. This particular set was sold to me by a seller who claimed or implied to have painted the figures. I bought it primarily for the pair shown immediately above, labeled Shopping Anyone? and Stormy Weather. Here's one more pic.

"This is lame, let's go to Woolworth's..."

Now, the unavoidable joke here is that, even given the spectacularly dated clothes and assumed gender roles, these look anything but youthful. In considering a place for these in my emerging Marx-based universe, I immediately associated the one on the right with a character who was supposed to be over 40. The other one at least looks like she could be college-aged, but she looks more like a senior with her own apartment than a romping freshman. Then there is the paint. It will be evident from the pics so far that the work on these two is pretty good in both quality and current condition. The third, on the other hand, was different.

This one is marked On The Beach, which for the easy gag was indeed the title of the "classic" post-apocalyptic film released in 1959. The first thing to note about this one is that the outfit is in fact a bathing suit typical for the 1950s and/or early '60s. If anything, the sculpt actually looks more risque without factoring that in. As far as the paint, this was done well enough that the straps on the suit are neatly painted. The head is not so good, I'm sure in part because of damage to the hair. The fundamental problem is the pose and posture. To be blunt, she looks either morbidly depressed or actually stoned. (Heck, maybe she is in On The Beach...) And here's a closeup pic. The paint isn't good, but I'm not satisfied it could have gone this bad if there wasn't already a problem.

And here's closeups for the other two.

"Well, why can't `Campus Cuties' include adjunct faculty?"

Now, there is a little more backstory that led to this post. The original eight Cuties were produced in significant numbers, and remain available as reissues and recasts. Fortunately, these are easy to tell apart, originals being a pink flesh tone and reissues tending toward white, grey or tan, and as often happens with Marx figures, there isn't that big a price difference to begin with. The values are somewhat above average, from about $10 for likely reissues to $50 or so for full sets. However, a second series was made in evidently limited numbers, without any report of reissue. These were a vast improvement in both aesthetics and relevance, complete with jeans, trendy jackets and accessories, and one pair of glasses between the lot of them. Alas, they are also so scarce that there is not a frame of reference for their value. By comparison, the astonishingly expensive Marvel figures (which I barely got one of) are at least available in sufficient numbers to track their prices at any given time. The second-wave Cuties, on the other hand, are simply a Wall of Nothing. Nobody is buying them, because nobody is selling them, because in all likelihood, nobody who would sell through normal channels has them. The only things comparable are a few items that I have called Marx's equivalent of the rocket-firing Boba Fett, prototypes like the Superman figure that never saw the light of day and novelties like the nude figure that were never intended to. This was the state of affairs for months, and then years, until about a month ago, I found a seller offering two sets of these damn things.

Needless to say, I was very interested and wildly incapable of meeting the lowest minimum bid for the listings, a partial painted set and a full set that was in pristine condition. My suspicion was that these were not going to sell for more than the $30-40 per figure that came out of subdividing the minimum bids, which I knew to be typical for Marvel figures (and maybe originals of the Universal Monsters line). Given the obscurity of the items compared to the (fair!) price, it seemed conceivable they might not sell at all. I was optimistic enough that I reached out privately to discuss buying one individually or at least reposting the seller's absolutely beautiful photos here. As it turned out, the painted set sold within the range I suspected, a fact I reported in my most recent video. When I reviewed the listings, however, I discovered that the complete set had gone for much more than the minimum bid, as in over $60 per figure with shipping factored in. That, of course, is still not exceptional compared to a Blue Snaggletooth. Alas, while I did successfully correspond with the seller, I received no reply regarding permission to reuse images, so I have nothing to show for it here but the tale.

So, I have one more chapter done in my adventures in Marx figure collecting. All in all, these are an essential part of any Marx collection. The only caution in order is that it's best not to go overboard, which is why I haven't gone further than this. And I couldn't avoid an extra pic with the Truckstop Queen (and Connie)...

"Let me get this straight, women's jeans were invented in 1934???"

That's all for now, more to come!

Miniature Giants: Blue Moon figures???

 

As I write this, I'm still in what is dormant mode compared to what I once did with this blog. That has given me time to consolidate my new and old acquisitions. That, in turn, has brought me back to a big part of what started all this, my giant Marx figures. Over the year since I last posted on this subject (most of the links will be below), I had made a few new acquisitions. What led to this feature, however, was a literal accident: A few days ago, I got someone else's package. In the process of figuring out what happened. I looked at the most beautiful figure I have ever seen. Here are a couple pics I took to cover my posterior.

The backstory here is that I received a package from an online seller I had made a previous purchase from containing figures I hadn't ordered or paid for. A quick correspondence confirmed that this was another buyer's purchase, accidentally shipped with my name and address. The figures proved to be Scooper and the Cameraman, both in the shiny marbled blue Marx used with some of the astronaut figures released at the beginning of 1970. What made me immediately paranoid was that there was absolutely no sign of damage to the lens of the Cameraman figure, where both of my specimens of the figure had been so roughed up it was hard to say if there was a trace of the original detail. I made sure to document this fact before repacking the figures. Here are a couple more pics.

And of course I had to do one with the Truckstop Queen...

"Hey, chicks dig a guy who's good with animals..."

Now, here's what started this. About a month ago, I put in a bid with the same seller for a blue version of a sculpt I have called Digger, which I previously had acquired only as a specimen in an odd shade of white with the head broken off. That one had been most interesting as an evident example of a different kind of plastic being used, possibly in a later run of the figures. I hadn't been unduly concerned with getting a more complete specimen, but when I saw I could get one that was whole and in blue, I put down a minimum bid and won. Here's a pic of the two together.

This, in turn, was proceeded by another purchase from a different seller. This was for the Commander, which I already had two of. I still decided it was worth the money, so I put in an order. What I got was much more impressive than I expected, particularly since my very first blue figure, the Cameraman (featured in the top pic), had proven distinctly underwhelming. This is literally brilliant, and if anything, that's a strong indicator that this is from the first run by Marx. Here are all three in a lineup.

I know, I'm bad at lighting...

And here's a few more pics of the new guys together.

"Sir, it appears that we are in a world of plastic toys. The upside is, most of them are smaller than us."

"Let's go home. Half our funding was just diverted to defense spending anyway."

So, the upshot of this is that I have now handled and photographed 5 of the 6 astronaut sculpts in blue. On the whole, having to send two of them back was a small price to pay. The future remains uncertain, as I have a few more relatively recent acquisitions I haven't posted about (see my video on rare figures) but no immediate plans for more purchases. Here's one more pic.

"The briefcase says authority, but a shovel says a guy who will bury the evidence."

That's all for now, more to come!

And as a bonus, here's all the installments of this feature.

Part 1: Enemy Marx (Japanese figures)

Part 2: Marx Marxists! (Soviet figures)

Part 3: Marx on the Moon (Apollo/ astronaut set)

Part 4: The Good, the Marx and the Ugly (Wild West and "'casualty" figures)

Part 5: Not Marx Is Still Good Marx (Mexican Marx toys and other large-sized figures)

Part 6: Marx By Marxists??? (Ukrainean produced figures)

Part 7: Back to the Moon! (Astronaut figures, part 2)

Part 8: Scooper Mystery? (Bulgy-pack production variant/ error)

Part 9: Mexican Scooper and Marvel Guy (The Daredevil figure...)

Part 10: More Cowboys! (Wild West, part 2)

Part 11: Universal Monsters Reissue Figure (The Mummy!)

Mid-Sized Marx: Star Wars scale Japanese soldiers!!!

 

It's Monday and I still haven't done a weekend post. Fortunately, I have something I've been using the time to examine. It's a new acquisition that I wasn't sure existed before I actually got it, and now I'm still not completely satisfied it is what it's supposed to be. The one thing that is sure is that it's not like anything else I've got, including the set they are literally identical to. Here are my new 3.75 inch Marx Japanese soldiers, a scaled-down version of the figures I wrote about in my very first Marx post! And how about a comparison shot with one of the originals?

Now for the backstory, I first encountered Marx figures in "action figure" 3-4 inch scale when I picked up my first pair of the evil Space Guys. I followed that up with more acquisitions, including a whole bag, but in all that time, I never found compelling evidence that Marx had manufactured any more in that scale. If anything, it appeared to be a one-off experiment, left behind by the ludicrously huge nominal 6-inch figures that proliferated in the 1960s and '70s. Still, there were passing mentions here and there of Marx figures larger than the 70mm Space Guys but still under 5-6 inches. From what information was at hand, they could have been any number of things if they existed at all. Maybe they were "real" Marx figures that never got to full commercial circulation. Maybe they were a vintage experiment from the Mexican Plastimarx or a foreign outlier like the one that made the Ukrainian figures. Or, they could have been just scaled-down copies or loose tributes from long after Marx bit the dust. Once I saw a batch on sale, clearly based on excellent figures I already had, I decided it was worth the money to get a look at them firsthand. Here's pics of most of the lot.

It was immediately clear from inspection that these were not simple imitations. These are virtually identical to the Marx 6-inch sculpts, with a fully comparable level of detail. If these weren't from Marx molds, which I never doubted after getting a good look at them, they were made by someone with direct access to them. Here's more detail shots.

If anything, the real Japanese pistol looked less effective than this.

And here's one that's... different. Well, presumably, some Japanese officers had glasses. I don't recall anyone suggesting they had machetes, though.

The one further question was whether they came before or after the 6-inch figures. I can't easily rule out that these were a prototype of the larger figures, but the law of economy (aka Occam's Razor) dictated that the far more prolific 6-inch line came first. A non-trivial piece of evidence is the bayonet, which I covered in detail the first time around. I don't recall if I mentioned that I had to repair my original infantryman about a year ago, which might or might not have had something to do with bending the bayonet into a horseshoe shape. (Just in case, if it comes up, don't do that.) At any rate, the bayonet on this guy is a lot bigger that the shiv on the Mexican copy, but it still looks proportionately smaller than the 6-inch figure. Since Marx already had trouble with bayonets (more on that in a moment), it's very safe to say the biggest one is the oldest. Here's a lineup of all 3 versions.

And here's the officer, with a 4-inch Space Guy (aka Jason) for comparison. It will be evident from this photo that, alas, these don't "scale" well enough to be easily integrated with the Space Guys adventure.

One more loose end was how many other Marx figures got this treatment. In the inquiries that led to this purchase, I considered a comparably sized set clearly based on the German/ Nazi 6-inch figures (which would have been more relevant to the current and planned Space Guys adventure arc). I declined to buy them partly because I would have nothing to compare them to, and partly because I have found that set far less interesting and attractive than other Marx figures, an opinion that did not improve on seeing them in a smaller scale. It's safe to assume that Marx also at least planned to release similarly sized US troops for them to fight, and perhaps a version of the Soviet set as well. One further datum is that the set had already replaced a discontinued figure shown making a semi-graphic downward thrust with a bayonet, offering the most conclusive proof that the 6-inch line came first.

A further loose end I considered was whether these were in any way part of the evolution of the "standard" 3.75 inch action figure. These definitely are of the same size. Here's a few further comparison shots with Bossk and Sidekick Carl. (I know, Carl's adventure has been postponed a long time...)

As can be seen, these can be considered among the precursors of the 1970s-'80s action figures, assuming they weren't made in the late '70s as a bid to make Marx figures semi-compatible with Star Wars and Adventure People. However, they certainly would not have been the first figures to settle on this size. Here's a lineup with the Archer Space Woman, Ajax Space Guys (plus non-binary person) and the Marx Onion Head alien.

With that, I'm bringing this post to an end. It's another Marx lineage I just might pursue further, if I can do so at a good  price. It may be shrouded in mystery that we probably wouldn't care about if we actually knew, but it's what makes this fun. And to wrap this up, here's an oldie with the Truckstop Queen.

Yeah, this guy didn't even get to the "friend zone"...

And that's all for now, more to come!