Goodwill Geek Mailbag: October Toys O.M.F.G.!!!

WARNING: This is a long one! It focuses an inordinate amount of time on two small sets of monochrome plastic mini-figures. Like MUSCLE things. If these kinds of toys (or the long and boring dissection of toys similar to them...) are not you "thing". Then you'd best sit this one out. You have been warned.

So a WHILE back (in July) I mentioned that I had ordered some stuff from both the Strange Kids Club and October Toys... and I never really got around to talking about what I had ordered from October Toys... which if you are familiar with ME and my obsession with mini-figures, and you are familiar at all with October Toys... it shouldn't have been a huge mystery to figure out. 

Here's the bulk of what arrived in my package: OMFG!!! (Or Outlandish Mini Figure Guys for the uninitiated...) along with a bunch of fun extras. The fun extras MOSTLY included IMPOSSIBLE to photograph collectors cards and art cards of various different sizes ans styles. If I can get some more shots of them before I post this you might even get to see them. 

I ordered a pack of both Series 1 and Series 2. At the time of this writing, Series 3 has not been released yet but it LOOKS AWESOME and will be ordered ASAP. Series 1 was no longer available in the flesh/pink color, so I got it in purple. Series 2 I got in flesh/pink. It doesn't bother me that they don't match though, as when I was a kid I always had a healthy mix of the multi-colored MUSCLE figures from the big 28-packs in with my flesh colored guys. So this just serves to remind me even more of those classic toys! 

Let's jump right it with series 1 shall we? I picked these up because they looked like an incredible homage to M.U.S.C.L.E. figures of the 80's... and that is EXACTLY what these turned out to be once I got them in hand. These look great! The plastic is very reminiscent of the old MUSCLE guys in that it's hard but very faintly rubbery. This may also be weird to comment on, but here goes: They have this awesome plastic-y smell that I always associate with new toys. Yes. I sniffed these toys. 

I think the only real dud for me out of this first series is "Stroll" who doesn't look terrible, but who also doesn't really do a whole lot for me. His concept art was interesting, but he's just sort of plain in figure form. Being my least favorite OMFG is still sort of like being my least favorite ice cream. I still won't turn my nose up at it. Stroll is still pretty cool. I like his clawed hands and his little naked/furless tushie (in the back).

I think "Multiskull" is actually the contender for my favorite one of the bunch. He ties with only one other figure. Multiskull is just incredible though. The fine detail that went into the sculpt is just mind-blowing. He's like some sort of skull-golem, made up entirely of... well, skulls. His chest is one giant central skull, with a smaller central skull on top for his head. The arms and legs sprouting out of this are just piled-together chains of smaller skulls. Even his hands are skulls! I love the little detail of that right-handed skull with its mouth gaping open. So cool. 

Next up is "The Phantom Out-House" which is pretty just what she is: An outhouse. Why do I keep calling her a "she"? Because that classic moon symbol was the ladies room symbol way back in the day. Boy's outhouses had Suns cut into them. Fun fact! I know for a fact that "Phantom Outhouse" was not this character's original name. It was originally going to be the "Phantom Sh*thouse" I personally like the change of name. The arms and legs are almost certainly formed from excrement... human or otherwise. I really like the sense of humor behind this character, and love the way she looks in purple plastic. 

Next up is my second contender for favorite character of the bunch. "King Castor"! He's another beautifully detailed sculpt. From the awesome tower-like grasping left arm to the cannon-equipped right fist, King Castor is ready for combat! And his face (sculpted squarely between his shoulders there, in the circular window) looks like he's ready to kick butt and chew bubblegum, and he's all out of bubblegum! I seriously LOVE this guy. He's just so craggy and gnarly, and full of detail.

Finally we have "The Crawdad Kid" which I think reminds me the most of a classic MUSCLE figure. He just sort of has the stance and the build for it more than the rest. I really like all the weird little details on this one. He appears to be some sort of crab/man hybrid (or Crawdad I guess) in a fisherman's slicker and boots. But he also sort of appears to have a face UNDER the crab-shell head thing, leading me to believe the crab might only be a hat or helmet or something. He's definitely cool though. 

Onto series 2! Overall I was less impressed with this series as a whole. They've grown on me though, and I'm still pretty happy with the whole OMFG line considering. So let's take a look. 

First up, Grim Gourd. He is squarely my second-favorite figure of the lot. He's a Jack 'o Lantern with arms and legs for crying out loud! I really like the detail put into the fine grain of his shell. That face! He's so sinister! Just so great that this line has a Halloween character represent! Since he's so squat and stocky he feels like a goblin or something. Just excellent. 

Well, it just wouldn't be OMFG if there wasn't a figure referencing some sort of bodily fluid, or gross-out factor. This character makes me think of what the Knight character from MUSCLE (known as Robin Knight in the original Kinnikuman manga) would look like if he was given an Garbage Pail Kid make-over. So this is actually TWO pretty great homages to 80's properties in a strange way. 

What keeps this from being my absolute favorite character of the bunch is this. The "puke" element separates from the "knight" element. I know a lot of people were delighted by this, but I'm just not into it. I realize there were probably manufacturing problems with designing this as one big piece... but it just screams "you're going to lose part of this toy!" to me. I've actually considered the idea of gluing the two parts together since I bought them. I don't seriously think anyone is going to display these two pieces separately, so what's the point? If you're the kind of collector who gets these in multiple colors, you could then mix-and-match colors from different sets... but I personally don't collect that way. 

"Shirtle" was initially my least favorite character of this series. But his cuteness has worn me down and now I like him quite a bit. He is some sort of bizarre shark/turtle hybrid and of course he's actually wearing a shirt. I guess my initial judgements sprang from the fact that he had so little detail to him compared to some of the other OMFGs. He also feels the least like a MUSCLE character out of all of the characters. But as I previously mentioned, I've grown to love Shirtle. He feels like a bit of a sad-sack, like the Eeyore of the group. But being an ARMORED SHARK he has untold power even he doesn't know about.

"Cry-Borg" is absolutely my least favorite figure of the bunch. Again, as with Stroll above, OMFGs are like pizza (or sex) even when it's not great it's still pretty good. I just don't really like the pose, the sculpt or even the concept here really. I'm not feeling the giant baby character as a part of this line at all. What do I like? Well, the idea of a destructive robot baby is not all bad. And the WMD as his rattle is a clever idea. But ultimately, I would have liked to have seen a more MUSCLE like character than this included. He does balance on that one foot as well, but not exceptionally well. I just... meh.

But luckily there's still so much more to love about OMFG!!! Like "Cuddlehard"!!! He is by far the very BEST that series 2 has to offer! And he's obviously the OMFG logo right off the packaging, turned into a road-warrior!!! He looks just AWESOME. He manages to remind me of both the old Tang mascot-mouths and the Rolling Stones logo too:

plus

Besides the fact that I always find it pleasingly meta when they can somehow work out the branding of a toy-line INTO the toy-line itself:

Case in point.

So basically Cuddlehard is my ULTIMATE OMFG figure. 

But WAIT!!! Then, as an added bonus to my order they tossed in this little guy! It's an announcer guy with a T.V. for a head with the Toy Break logo! He's fantastic!!! Nothing got me smiling bigger than when I saw this included in the box!!! Looking at him, I knew EXACTLY what he was inspired by (and even possibly partially casted-directly from) and that made me even happier! It was this little guy:

Photo courtesy of Toyriffic.blogspot.com
Property of Eric Stettmeier.

The little MUSCLE Announcer Guy! I loved him as a kid! When I would play he would always get himself into trouble and need rescuing. He was the nebbish little brother of Petey Graffiti of the GPK mini-figs. I had two of him actually, because I was given two identical 28-packs that included him. Both of them were green. So getting a surprise "Toy Break" figure who is an homage to this little guy was the cherry on top! (Just FYI: Toy Break is a youtube show done by the folks over at October Toys, who produced the OMFG figures. It's a great show and you should totally check it out!)  

"Why are there always toys piled up everywhere in here!!!???
Clean up this room!"
- My Mom when I was 10, in my head when I took this picture.

So in this shot I just had this perverse need to look at these OMFGs as if I were a 10 year old kid again. I always had HEAPS of MUSCLE guys all over my room, all mixes of colors piled together. There was something truly nostalgic in seeing this little heap of OMFG that took me back there. 

Here I wanted to compare two of my favorite OMFGs with a few of my favorites from other new and old lines of mini-figures. So left to right we have: Flyboy in teal, who is a sidekick figure from the the classic TMNT line. Cuddlehard in flesh from the OMFG series 2. Wendigo in red, from the Monster in My Pocket line. King Castor in purple, from OMFG series 1. Cobra Satan in Orange from the M.U.S.C.L.E. line. Zero Hero in green from the S.L.U.G. Zombies line. And Hiccup from the Spinmaster How to Train Your Dragon Bucket of Dragons set. I think these look great together! 

Heeeeey! Look who got off his lazy butt and took a picture!

So here are the extras that were included in my order beyond the little purple Toy-Break Head guy... A Crawdad Kid postcard done in GPK style... a postcard promotinf D-Con (a convention for toy designers/makers) and some October Toys/Toy-Break collector's cards! These are just an awesome cherry on top of the sundae. 

So I'm waiting now with baited breath for the third series of OMFG to finally be released so I can order some. I want to get them in a nice light blue color so they really stand out from the others I already have. Count on a review of those when I get them as well! Overall I can't recommend these enough to kids of the 80's who played with MUSCLE, or who collected Monster in My Pocket in the early 90's. OMFG will set off all the nostalgic synapses in your brain and release the collector's endorphin you so desperately need! 

Anyway, that's it for me tonight, but I'll be back soon with some actual Geeky Goodwill Goodies! Until then, Happy Hunting!