AFB is Bewitched!

I had the great fortune of traveling to Singapore recently, and amongst all of the amazing culture and unbelievable food, I discovered what I have come to call "Toy Nirvana". It was a nondescript little shopping centre called China Square Central, located on the edge of Chinatown (best place to stay and eat in Singapore, by the way). I wandered in there on my last weekend in Singapore just looking for a coffee, and nearly fell over when I walked in. The place was basically two floors of toy stores. Not Toys R Us style, but action figures and statues. Two floors of the them. Wowza!

There was pretty much everything you could want, including retailer exclusives of all descriptions. I also worked out where all the Mattycollector.com stuff goes to - It was the end of July and I saw a guy walk into a shop with two boxes of She-Ra figures and sell them to the owner. I enjoyed looking around but didn't buy a great deal as I hadn't budgeted for it and the prices were pretty much on the mark for what I'd pay in Oz. However, as I left one shopkeeper told me that there were flea markets the next day where people could pay for a table and sell their own stuff, so I decided to come back.

The flea markets were a pretty amazing scene, and I ended up at a table where a guy had a huge bunch of statues and busts he was selling for a steal. Quite I few I already owned, but I was pretty gobsmacked to walk away with the brand new Sideshow Scarlet Witch Comiquette for a complete bargain, and delighted when the hotel I was staying at told me they would send it home for me. Whoo-hoo!

This is an utterly amazing piece. The sculpt is exquisite, particularly the amazing job done on the Scarlet Witch's headsculpt and her flowing cape. I love the sense of humour that Adam Hughes infuses into his designs, and the concept of Wanda remote controlling a toy version of the Vision is just genius. This is really great fun! The paintwork on this piece is also incredibly vibrant - rich colours and a nice mix of metallic and matte paint.

The one issue I have with this beautiful piece is that the base is utterly gigantic. The Sideshow Comiquettes are on a rather large scale to begin with, and the base on this one is round - 12" in diameter, which makes it just too wide to fit in Andy's display. The downside is that I can't display it at the moment, but the upside is that Mrs AFB has stated that I'll have to get another display cabinet to show it off!

I've recently acquired the older Mystique and Rogue Comiquettes, and I couldn't be more impressed with Hughes work for Sideshow. I'm worried that it looks like the series is coming to an end with the announcement of the new "Women of Marvel" Comiquette Series starting with Sue Storm, and if that's so, that's a shame - it's great stuff!

You can see a multitude of pics at Facebook, discuss this at the AFB Forum, and comment on this post to enter the September AFB Comment of the Month Contest.

Until next time!