Posted By Dan Greenfield on Dec 13, 2019 | 1 comment

The plastic that fueled artistic imagination…

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Welcome to TOYHEM! For the holiday season, we’re bringing you a series of features and columns celebrating the toys of our youth, which often made for the best memories this time of year. You’ll be hearing from comics creators, regular 13th Dimension contributors and more. Click here to check out the complete index of stories — and have a Merry Christmas, a Happy Chanukah and Happy Holidays! — Dan

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TOYHEM! isn’t really a single series of stories. It’s sort of a series of series. We had the 13-day Custom Mego Box of the Day, for example. (Click here.)

But we also have TOYHEM! MEMORIES – a collection of guest essays by comics creators on their favorite childhood toys.

In this installment, we’ve got David Mack, a 13th Dimension fave and one of the most in-demand artists in all of comics.

Check out his wonderful tribute to Stan Lee, for example:

So, here’s David, with a brief recollection of the toys that drove his young mind…

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By DAVID MACK

In the ’70s my brother and I found those Mego Star Trek figures. I was 5, he was 3. I got Spock and he got Kirk. And those were such a wonderful exercise for our imaginations.

Star Trek figures found on eBay

Then in the early ’80s we found the small G.I. JOE figures. We would build things out of cardboard for these figures, to match the things we saw in the comics. Destro’s Castle, Zartan’s Lair. The Joes’ base before it was offered as a real thing.

We would make vehicles and accessories for all these kinds of figures, and it was really an exercise in storytelling and imagination for us.

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MORE

— The Complete TOYHEM! Index of Features and Columns. Click here.

— CAPTAIN ACTION, by MICHAEL EURY. Click here.