The tenth annual MEGO Meet took place at The Kruger Street Toy and Train Museum in Wheeling last weekend, and it was part of a whirlwind weekend that saw your PopCulteer putting up an eight-man tent in Pittsburgh, raiding a Toys R Us for marked-down Captain Action figures, shooting baskets (WTF?), attending one day of MEGO Meet and introducing Under Surveillance onstage in Hurricane.
And that was just Friday and Saturday. Sunday I took it easy and just shot host segments for and edited this week’s RFC MINI SHOW with StychNTyme.
But of course, the most interesting part of this trip was MEGO Meet. It was a memorable show with cool news from the ReMEGO companies and we thank The MEGO Museum for continuing to put on this great show, right in our backyard.. We heard lots of news about Cast-A-Way Toys, EMCE Toys, Heroes In Action and more, plus we got to hang out a bit with Doc MEGO and Art Baltazar. Some of the news we heard must remain under wraps until all the contracts are signed, but we will spill some beans in this post.
Today in The PopCult Toybox we are going to present a heavily-captioned photo essay. This weekend, look for a music video with even more cool sights from one of West Virginia’s biggest toy shows.
Let us dig in…
The MEGO Meet X poster. Thanks again to The MEGO Museum
A cool stage for showing off the custom figures
Vintage MEGO Planet of the Apes figures, shown here to make Mark Wolfe drool
Okay, I admit it, the covered wagon, Johnny West and boxed Flack came home with me
Yes, Virginia, there are Misfits action figures
Lots of Batmania on display here
MEGO 12″ figures and rare carrying cases
Random vintage figures were all over the place
Gotta love the Red blootleg Batman
Another ReMEGO attack
Custom figures with custom boxes
Many dealers offered a wide variety of vintage toys
ReMEGO in the land of DC
I still need to get a few of these Venture Brothers figures
This guy was selling pre-printed “cut’em out and sew ’em yourself” MEGO suits
Another cool, if random, assemblage
Just more cool stuff
Knockoffs that I hadn’t seen before
7-11 Marvel cups and other coolness
There’s always that guy tucked away in the corner with GI Joe and
Big Jim
Type 2 Toys always has some cool custom figures on display
As seen here, too
Custom Monsters
To The Batcave!
Custom Aquaman accessories
Now you know where his “Bionic” powers really came from
More cool 1970s stuff
A mix of custom and vintage stuff
Custom superheroes and customizing supplies
This was supposed to be Micronaut Central, but there was plenty more at this table
Just drink it in
A wall of vintage MEGO
A head-exploding assortment of ReMEGO and other stuff
Vintage coolness
One dealer even had Lego folks. It’s just one letter off, y’know
More randomisity
Cool comics-based customs
As usual, Stan Lee has elbowed Jack Kirby out of the way
We didn’t shoot too much of of Doc MEGO’s stuff, but it was all cool and much of it was TOP SECRET!
Art Baltazar, in addition to being a great cartoonist (check out his Aw Yeah! Comics in this week’s PopCult Bookshelf) but he’s also a heck of a nice guy and a master MEGO customizer. The MEGO Meet music video will include close-ups of these mini-masterpieces
Here’s Art in a photo swiped from the MEGO Meet Facebook Page
Brian Heiler’s table, the author of Rack Toys. Visit his website, Plaid Stallions, for tons of retro coolness
A table with lots of Brick Mantooth
Laser MEGO had tons of cool custom pieces and diorama accessories
Random Axe (AKA Scott Pierce) , as usual, had folks drooling over h sweet custom figures
At the Cast A Way table, vintage Action Jackson and brand new Zica Six Million Dollar Man figures
Henshin X, Cast A Way’s surprise new product, was one of the coolest developments at MEGO Meet. The 12″ Henshin Cyborgs are clear robotic /organic hybrd figures, and are predecessors to the Micronauts. Seeing (and buying) them in MEGO scale was really cool.
Our first glimpse of the Cast A Way Toys/Zica table
The amazing Dida Displays carrying cases/display cases for MEGO scale figures…
Even Brick Mantooth gets into the act. Dida Displays is the brainchild of Scott Adams, one of the masterminds behind The MEGO Museum
DC’s Hall of Justice…
A great mad scientist lab/monster castle
This Star Trek display area is just epic, Dida Displays is doing incredible work
Charleston’s top MEGO customizer, Tony DiTrapano, with a Dida Display Star Trek bridge that’s still not big enough to hold all of his Star Trek customs
RFC production Assistant and local rock icon, Lee Harrah, hamming it up with DiTrapano’s table
Tony’s custom Leonard Nimoy, as a civilian
A peek into that over-crowded bridge
More of Tony’s creations
Giant Man cradling a leetle monster
It’s the table full of customs for the big MEGO Meet Auction…photo # 4
It’s the table full of customs for the big MEGO Meet Auction…photo #3
It’s the table full of customs for the big MEGO Meet Auction…photo #2
It’s the table full of customs for the big MEGO Meet Auction…photo #1. We counted them backwards
We wind up our photo essay with the MEGO Meet group photo, taken in front of The Kruger Street Toy and Train Museum, and swiped from the MEGO Meet Facebook page. The MEGO Meet music video is coming this weekend. I’m in there, somewhere.
0 Comments
1 Pingback