I remember the days when we had to endure whatever figurines came our way. Back then, South Africa only had two comic stores and the Batman figurines were sold either at the supermarket or strange places like the gas station or book stores.
My first figurine was a Nightwing, Legends of Batman figurine I got from a bookstore in my hometown, (circa ’95 for South Africa). Back in those days I was fascinated by the Elsewords designs, and an instant addiction had me acquiring an entire series in a matter of weeks.
When I reached the end of my high school career I discovered the edgier, Legends of the Dark Knight series. With South Africa’s internet in dial up mode, I quickly discovered a world of comics and artists such as Kelley Jones (whose artwork featured a Batman that resembled the figurines).
Enter the world of R-rated movies, thanks to my older brothers, I also experienced new films such as The Crow, Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th. It never crossed my mind that there would be action figures of characters such as Freddy, Jason or Eric Draven, and most collectors here lived in total oblivion and continued to buy action figures from Toy Biz who made the X-Men and Hulk movie figurines. The 12” Nightcrawler, Hulk and Wolverine figurines were my favourites but it was only after hearing that some guy called Todd McFarlane had created super-real figurines of Spawn and Freddy that I wondered, will we get any figurines not based on main stream movies and tv shows?
Someone listened, or rather, someone knew about fans such as me. One day, walking into a music store I came face to face with an 18” Eric Draven by a company called NECA. It had realistic eyes, a fantastic paint job and a motion sound chip. It cost a little more than the Toy Biz figurines but for the first time, a material object had struck a nerve. For the first time in over 10 years my lips cracked the same smile I had when I got my Nightwing figurine. With this new figurine came a brochure of all the figurines yet to come, and yes, Freddy, Jason, Predator and Alien were joining the party. I figures that South Africa was catching up and that I was going to have a lot less money because of it. I figured that I would at last, although in a small way, be able to experience American pop culture.