As mentioned earlier, I wanted to get caught up on the happenings in the world of urban vinyl toys. For those of you who don’t know why I watch that niche segment on this blog, let’s just say that in a rapid-manufacturing future, simple products – especially those that engage consumers in the way these toys are able – will likely be among the first offerings available via the internet… as a 3D file download which is “fabbed” by the consumer.

Given that assumption, it makes sense for me to watch this small market. Furthermore, because good ideas aren’t constrained to one media format, and because toys and comics are so well aligned, I wanted to mention another series of development posts over on Vinyl Pulse, this time for a model called Red Demon (Link). As it turns out, I’d previously posted about another vinyl character (reLink) that happened to come, as it turns out, from the same source material – a comic:

The entire world of Lucha Libre began with the Luchadores 5. Originally created by Bill and Jerry Frissen as a 12-page comic book story, the Luchadores 5 quickly set a visual tone and style for this unique spin on Mexican Wrestling.

Earlier this month I posted a rather long comment on Henry Jenkins’ blog where one of his grad students had posted an entry titled “ComicCon & The Power of the Devoted Niche” (Link). In that comment I shared something I’d learned years ago while in Japan. Rather than try to explain further, I’ll let you read the full comment over on his blog and figure out where I’m going with all this. It’s enough for me to say that I don’t see many boundaries between media types; nor many boundaries between the real and the virtual.

{Image source: Vinyl Pulse}