An action figure is a poseable character model figure made most commonly of plastic, and often based upon characters from a film, comic book, military, video game or television program; fictional or historical. These figures are usually marketed toward boys and adult collectors. The term was coined by Hasbro in 1964 to market G.I. Joe to boys.
Walt Disney's Comics and Stories, sometimes abbreviated WDC&S, is an American anthology comic book series featuring characters from The Walt Disney Company's films and shorts, including Donald Duck, Scrooge McDuck, Mickey Mouse, Chip 'n Dale, Li'l Bad Wolf, Scamp, Bucky Bug, Grandma Duck, Brer Rabbit, Winnie the Pooh, and others. With more than 700 issues, Walt Disney's Comics & Stories is the longest-running Disney comic book in the United States, making it the flagship title, and is one of the best-selling comic books of all time.
Wizard or Wizard: The Magazine of Comics, Entertainment and Pop Culture was a magazine about comic books, published monthly in the United States by Wizard Entertainment from July 1991 to January 2011. It included a price guide, as well as comic book, movie, anime, and collector news, interviews, and previews.
Diamond Comic Distributors, Inc., is an American comic book distributor serving retailers in North America and worldwide. It transports comic books and graphic novels, as well as other popular culture products such as toys, games, and apparel, from comic book publishers or suppliers to retailers.
Robot Chicken is an American adult stop motion-animated sketch comedy television series created by Seth Green and Matthew Senreich for Cartoon Network's nighttime programming block Adult Swim. The twelve-minute show consists of short unrelated sketches usually satirizing pop culture characters or celebrities. Toys are employed as the players, animated via stop motion and supplemented by claymation. The voice cast changes every episode, and features many celebrity cameos. The writers, most prominently Green, also provide many of the voices. Robot Chicken has won two Annie Awards and six Emmy Awards.
Ashley Wood is Australian comic book artist and illustrator known for his cover art, concept design and his work as an art director. Wood initially worked in both the UK and international comic book industries, working on characters such as the British character Judge Dredd, before breaking into the US market, where he worked for such companies as Marvel Comics and DC Comics. Wood later worked for Image, creating graphic novels and cover art for the various Spawn properties of Todd McFarlane, and projects with IDW Publishing.
ToyFare was a monthly magazine published by Wizard Entertainment that focused on collectible action figures, busts, statues, and maquettes. It previewed new and upcoming lines and figures each month, as well as providing a price guide for toy lines, both new and old. ToyFare was also known for its satirical humor.
SOTA Toys, or State Of The Art Toys, is a developer, manufacturer, and wholesaler of collectibles based on licensed properties from companies such as Capcom and Universal. Formed in 2000 by Jerry Macaluso, they have created and manufactured numerous licensed products based on the characters from popular films, TV shows, hit video games, and literary works, as well as legendary musicians and pop stars. Aside from being a developer and manufacturer, SOTA Toys also serves as fabricator and prototyper for the motion picture, toys/collectibles, and video game industry.
The Super Powers Collection was a line of action figures based on DC Comics superheroes and supervillains that was created by Kenner Products in the 1980s.
DC Direct is a division of WarnerMedia that sells collectibles based on DC Comics characters.
Butter sculptures are three-dimensional works of art created with butter, a dairy product made from the fat and protein components of churned cream. The works often depict animals, people, buildings and other objects. They are best known as attractions at state fairs in the United States as lifesize cows and people, but can also be found on banquet tables and even small decorative butter pats. Butter carving was an ancient craft in Tibet, Babylon, Roman Britain and elsewhere. The earliest documented butter sculptures date from Europe in 1536, where they were used on banquet tables. The earliest pieces in the modern sense as public art date from ca. 1870s America, created by Caroline Shawk Brooks, a farm woman from Helena, Arkansas. The heyday of butter sculpturing was about 1890–1930, but butter sculptures are still a popular attraction at agricultural fairs, banquet tables and as decorative butter patties.
Art toys, also called designer toys, are toys and collectibles created by artists and designers that are either self-produced or made by small, independent toy companies, typically in very limited editions. Artists use a variety of materials, such as ABS plastic, vinyl, wood, metal, latex, plush, and resin. Creators often have backgrounds in graphic design, illustration, or fine art, but many accomplished toy artists are self-taught. The first art toys appeared in the 1990s in Hong Kong and Japan. By the early 2000s, the majority of art toys were based upon characters created by popular Lowbrow artists, linking the two movements.
Rubén Procopio is an American animation and comic book artist, animator and sculptor. Long affiliated with Walt Disney Feature Animation as an animator and sculptor, Rubén is credited with restoring the maquette process to feature animation film production in the early 1980s. He is the founder of Masked Avenger Studios, whose clients include Walt Disney Studios, Warner Bros. Studios, New Line Cinema, Cartoon Network, Electric Tiki and DC Comics. He is known for his versatile sculpting and illustration style in both cartoony and realistic characters, with an emphasis on Disney characters, superheroes, and the masked heroes of yesteryear.
DC Universe Classics is an action figure toyline, a sub-line of the DC Universe toy brand manufactured by Mattel. They were 6-inch scale figures based on the fictional characters owned by DC Comics. The entire line was sculpted by the Four Horsemen Studios, and was first available for sale in 2008. The "DC Classics" line ceased to be sold at retail in 2012. The series then became an online-and-convention exclusive line. It was announced in late 2014 that the line would end with a final series of six figures celebrating the history of the line.
Tom Root is an American writer, producer, director and voice actor for Robot Chicken.
Zenos Frudakis, known as Frudakis, is an American sculptor whose diverse body of work includes monuments, memorials, portrait busts and statues of living and historic individuals, military subjects, sports figures and animal sculpture. Over the past four decades he has sculpted monumental works and over 100 figurative sculptures included within public and private collections throughout the United States and internationally. Frudakis currently lives and works near Philadelphia, and is best known for his sculpture Freedom, which shows a series of figures breaking free from a wall and is installed in downtown Philadelphia. Other notable works are at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, Brookgreen Gardens in South Carolina, the National Academy of Design, and the Lotos Club of New York City, the Imperial War Museum in England, the Utsukushi ga-hara Open Air Museum in Japan, and the U.S. Embassy in Pretoria, South Africa.
Diamond Select Toys was founded in 1999 by sister company Diamond Comics Distributors to create collectibles for adult collectors, and has since licensed a variety of pop culture properties, including Marvel Comics, Star Wars, Star Trek, Transformers, Ghostbusters, Halo, G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Indiana Jones, Battlestar Galactica, 24, The Muppets and Back to the Future. While they have made collectibles in numerous product categories, including action figures, plush, banks, busts, statues and prop replicas, many of their licensed properties are released in the form of Minimates mini-figures.
Sideshow Collectibles is an American specialty manufacturer of movie, film, television and collectible action figures, statues, and high end pieces. Sideshow's licenses include Star Wars, DC Comics, Marvel Comics, The Lord of the Rings, Disney, Harry Potter, Masters of the Universe, Pokémon, Dragon Ball Z, Street Fighter, Game of Thrones, and Star Trek.
Stuart Williamson is a sculptor, teacher of sculpture and poet from North East England. He is a Fellow of the Royal British Society of Sculptors, a Member of the Society of Portrait Sculptors (UK), a Member of the National Sculpture Society (USA), and a Founding Member of the Portrait Sculptures Society of America. He is also a Member of the Salmagundi Club in Manhattan and was featured in their American Masters show in 2015.
Blaine R. Gibson was an American artist, sculptor, animator, and theme park designer best known for his work with The Walt Disney Company. Gibson made contributions to both Disney's animation division as well as its theme parks as an animator and a sculptor. He brought many of the parks most famous Audio-Animatronic figures to three-dimensional life for attractions like Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln, Walt Disney's Enchanted Tiki Room, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Haunted Mansion, and more.
