ToyCyte: Toy Culture Collected

I want to personally congratulate David Horvath on coming up with a swell compromise between the whimsical magic of blind packaging and the lack of fun that is paying a lot for a case of designer toys only to find that you have a bunch of dupes and no time/desire to trade/sell/re-gift. One case of the Uglydoll Action Figure collection (series 1) contains one of each figure. Or to put it another way, if you buy a case, you get the whole series. I like that. Opening up a blind box is fun for the first few heartbeats…until you discover you jinxed yourself by looking at the ratios and saying, “I’d be OK with any of these Dunnys except for ___.” Well of course you get “_.” Or worse yet, you’ve bought and bribed your way to near-completion only to keep unwrapping the same seemingly 100/100 ratio figure in your quest to finish. Some people may feel that it’s the journey, not the end result that is the fun. These people enjoy going to trading parties and hawking their extras on forums. This is perfectly cool if it suits your chill personality. Me, if I like something enough to want the whole enchilada, I prefer to get there without a ton of red tape. And speaking of tape, David has thought of everything: To make sure an Uglydoll Action Figure Series does indeed contain all the characters, a proprietary round piece of tape has been used to seal the carton.

The sets will go on sale at NYCC 09 this weekend and then hit your favorite toy stores. Avoid eBay price-g0uging advises David. There will be more than enough to go around.  Here’s his signing schedule:

SIGNING TIMES:

• Uglydoll Booth (#1021): Fri. 4PM, Sat & Sun 2PM
• Giant Robot Booth (#2527) Saturday 4:30PM
• Disney Book Group Booth (#1721) Saturday Morning: 11:30 AM -12:30 PM