Fractal Dreams

One day, I happened to see a War Machine action figure in a toy shop. Being the comic fan that I am, I thought it wasn’t a bad a idea to buy one, after all, I practically worshiped the comic book character back when I was younger. So I shelled around five hundred for one, and told myself, this’ll be the last one.

That was around two years ago.

Today, I have two cabinets chock-full with action figures and other collectibles. In two years that single war machine figure grew into a 78 figure collection, encompassing around 5 comic universes (Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, Image, some Indie lines), with my latest find being the (Variant Paint) Darkseid. That’s not even counting my small anime figure collection.

I’m not bragging or anything. As I look at it, I feel kinda shocked- no way I’d imagined it’ll grow this big. But somehow, the fun of collecting- the excitement you feel when you see a new release, and the thrill of the moment when you finally get it in your hands- it’s as absorbing as any other hobby in the world. I really haven’t much had exposure with other collectors, and most of my purchases were made in stores- but I also did what other guys did- trek long ways to check on some obscure stores, hoping to find some rare cache, join message boards and discuss stuff with other people, going to conventions… it’s been fun.

That last bit kinda sounded like I’m quitting or something, but I don’t think I can get over the collecting bug yet. It’s just in one point in life, each and every one of us will fondly look back at the memories behind each and every collectible  and notice how times have changed. It’s kinda lame to the ears and difficult to explain, but anyone who is into collecting (or maybe some other hobby) surely could understand.

What I want to do is to complete those comic universes (as much as I can possibly can, although I don’t expect to net them all) and make a really huge diorama for it. I mean a room-sized diorama. Given my current financial status, I doubt it’ll be possible, but then again, I never expected to have an action figure collection, for God’s sake. So you’ll never know.