I really LOL’ed. Great, great article.
Also which figure is that in the middle, the wizard ending in “dust”, maybe “stardust”? Aha
I believe I previously learned about this nutty guy on BB as well? Somewhere…
https://www.google.com/search?q=stardust%20super%20wizard%20boing%20boing
Jared, thanks for all the work on this piece. But you didn’t talk about the various safety tests required under CPSIA (Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008) and California Prop 65 regulations. Every toy maker/importer must pay an independent lab, approved by the US Gov’t, for tests.
At a minimum you need:
You are required to produce a Certificate of Compliance and post on your website for each item, or include the paperwork with every sales. You also are requited to mark each item with a unique factory code and date of manufacture. It is very costly and onerous and has put many small companies out of business.
The penalties are severe for failing be compliant—up to $250,000 per incident and jail time. Really.
It’s all mind-numbingly complex and costly. It keeps the big toy companies from being bothered by artists and small companies and drives up costs to consumers for no significant improvement of safety.
Do the same regulations apply to collectible figurines that are not marketed as children’s toys?
Cofounder of Formlabs here. The article mentions high-resolution, desktop 3D printers potentially changing the work flow for figurine designers. Some of our users are already doing that. Scroll down on this page to see some great examples.
Huh, that is startlingly progressive for 1963. I was expecting unfortunate caricatures.
I’m perpetually bemused that Fletcher Hanks has a fandom. His art is really not good at all, even by the considerably looser standards of the time. His writing, ditto. So why does he stand alongside the guys who invented Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman in the “only Golden Age creators that anyone cares about or remembers” category?
My best guess is that somebody posted a Stardust scan to 4chan or Reddit or something, and by happenstance it picked up enough steam to be noticed by the “self-aware fans of outrageously crappy media” demographic at large.
Like Ed Woods, but not as interesting a a person (Hanks was apparently a real jerk to his family) or unintentionally funny.
I notice in the cartoon, the boy sidekick is leaning in the window about to clobber the bad guy with a club studded with nails.
While the artwork itself can be crude, under that is a sense of power and insane storytelling that I haven’t seen anywhere else until All Star Superman came along.
The comics are certainly a product of the time, but Fletcher was doing things like nobody else before or since. It’s just amazing to look at even if you don’t know what to make of it.
That’s how I feel when I look at his comics anyway.
I’ll second that. It is interesting to hear about the pitfalls and vicissitudes of carrying out a global artisan project like this. Off putting, but interesting 
You beat me to it. Bald pate, spiked club… ow!
My brother was in the painted figurine prototyping business in California 15 or 20 years ago. He worked with sculptors to make master prototypes to ship to China, where molds were pulled from them and reproductions made in resin and then painted. When the painted copies were shipped to the US they were imported as “giftware” - decorative objects and collectibles rather than toys.
A kid might have pulled one down from his or her mother or father’s knickknack shelf or collector cabinet and played with it but they weren’t sold in toy stores and weren’t considered to be toys. I’m aware of the change in laws a few years back but I assume that giftware is exempt from laws specifically targeting toys - but I am not a lawyer.
There will be blood.
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