Chapter 264: Creed in Comic-Con III
Sure enough... and further along the Creed Toy exhibit... the rest of the Creed Comics' properties had their own toylines now!
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Starting off the line-up for new Creed Comic titles in 1985 was the February romance story of Shinri and Hotaru.
'A Mysterious Feeling Called Love' was relatively tame for the hardcore action and superhero-dominated comic book stories.
However, it appealed to people with its chosen genre-Romance!
Timing it as a February release with Valentine at its peak, the graphic novel was quite the hit.
Of course, this far along in the year already with the summer season, it had pretty much dampened down its popularity.
Still, with these Shinri and Hotaru toys before them... people quickly found some rationale behind the decision.
Wasn't this romance duo extremely appealing to women?
In fact, the booth was pretty much grouped up by the rarest species of nerds and geeks in this convention- the girl nerds!
Hotaru was a pretty girl and the Hotaru toy before them and its nominal packaging was not too far apart from the completely dominant Barbie! If that didn't appeal to girls, then they didn't know what was!
It was honestly quite impressive how Creed Toys was able to replicate the lovely and love-shy girl into toy form.
What was equally impressive was the Shinri toy!
Granted, the awesome and handsome Shinri was also someone that appealed a lot to the ladies that read the graphic novel as well.
Unlike the preferably forgotten add-on which is the Ken doll... Shinri should pretty much complement Hotaru since it was pretty much the entire lore of their story.
If a girl would like this new Barbie-like doll, then it made her more likely to have it paired up with the more appealing Ken. Of course, if one were to look at it further... it would come full circle to their graphic novel as well.
It's a round-robin of toys being bought together with a toy, then eventually hooking in people towards a comic story.
Perhaps the supposedly-dead romance story might have a second wave.
Of course, that was just speculative pandering but it also led people to speculate further on what the makers of Barbie were to think of this.
Would a single story and storyline be able to beat the Barbie Empire? That must be quite the day!
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Of course, not straying far from the doll-like motif of its February senior, the bizarre story of March had its toys as well.
Although the toys weren't really as bizarre as advertised... just seeing Jonathan Joestar and Dio Brando toy figures was enough to remind people of their bizarre tale.
Aside from the scheming and evilness... Hamon energy has just been introduced in the storyline and... flattening a boulder whilst a frog remained unharmed was still a comic book spectacle to many.
There was the walking on water stuff... and the general bizarre training that JoeStar went through... it was bizarre all throughout.
In all actuality, the abilities in the JoJo story weren't anything revolutionary in the world of comics where Superman can pull the entire Solar System.
As a matter of fact, this entire Hamon energy stuff seems not so different from Turtle Hermit's Kamehameha energy blast.
Alexander Creed and his writers have just framed the entire start of the story to be a parallel depiction of old England... and had realistic historical events that timed to it.
With the entire Hamon energy being linked as a secret power of old and the story lining up to recorded history, comic nerds didn't know what to think.
Was it real? Was it not? It was just clear that this bizarre tale had a lot more going for it.
It was so much more... that the entire publicized Phantom of the Opera theory was way too laughable now.
As confusing and confoundingly bizarre as the comic story was... with the toy line being made available to them... fans would just buy them.
Maybe these toys had much more to them than they realize. It was just a simple toy and they were just overthinking things. However, that was the entire appeal to it!
Of course, it also helped that the JoJo figurine/doll-esque toys had coherence to the next toy line with an overwhelmingly praised character selection.
Right off the bat, like how the gritty story started... there are rows of Comedian boxed toys in their place.
The rest of the Watchmen had their own boxed figurines as well.
Then there's the unboxed display of all of them side-by-side each other with complementary chemistry that made them look more of a formidable hero team-up like any other.
God-like Manhattan's controversial toy nudity aside...
There was a Silk-Spectre toy as a femme fatale with a design that fit well...
There was Nite Owl as a caped crusader...
There was a Rorschach toy with his grittiness and cool mask... in fact, in what looks to be a bonus fun in toy production, the inkblot in his masks seem to be unique to each one.
As mentioned, there was the Comedian with his 80s macho appeal...
Then, there was Ozymandias toy with all his majesty...
Together and at face value, these Watchmen displays made them seem formidable... but everyone knew them otherwise...
Completely dysfunctional and torn apart and a completely dark depiction of what a "hero" ensemble should be!
It had also had to be noted, that in-Watchmen lore, Ozymandias became an economic power by just virtue of his action figures!
With Creed Toys selling all of these, wouldn't they just be an overwhelming company that would lord over the world?
It was quite an interesting possibility to think about!
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Well... with all the highs of those... one Creed property did appear lackluster as it only had one toy to it and that was Phoenix Wright.
Of course, it still matched the entire 1985 toy coherence and could fit perfectly when displayed together with Hotaru-Shinri, JoJo, and the Watchmen!
Still, that didn't discount the fact that it wasn't that hounded over as the Ace Attorney ever only appealed when Creed Comics was in trouble, and when that had died down, it was just a fun read for legal aspirants or comic-vested practitioners.
Granted, this low appeal may make it a 'Comic-Con exclusive' toy, and Phoenix Wright toys could very well be all gone by the end of the convention.
Of course, this may all just be because not a lot of legal practitioners and legal aspirants attend these kinds of events. If even just a fraction of them knew where to look... Phoenix toys would all be sold out.
Either way, it was interesting to see that there were veritable low-earning outliers in Creed's incredible roster.
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On the subject of outliers and somewhat being connected to Ace Attorney… 'Calvin and Hobbes' is a unique thing in these Creed booths.
Although it stemmed from the very first and talked-about Ace Attorney storyline, it had already branched off and was mostly known as a comic in the newspaper's funny pages.
That didn't make it lackluster compared to the rest though. In fact, it may be the most known and most encompassing Alexander Creed creation before Back to the Future!
How could anyone miss out on some daily dose of Calvin and Hobbes' antics?
Somewhat staying true to that virtue of standing out... Calvin and Hobbes' toy line was just a simple stuffed toy!
It was a stuffed toy in the form of a cute tiger. It seemed out of place to have a teddy bear-like thing in this plastic toy-dominated convention but everyone knew what the cute stuffed tiger is all about!
That was Hobbes! Not the talking, witty Hobbes... but the true-blue Hobbes!
It was hard to put into words but everyone that laid eyes on those stuffed tigers could very well say that it's the most realistic toy that came out of a comic!
Hobbes was literally just a stuffed toy that they laughed at... but now... it had become a stuffed toy that they can take home and cuddle!
How mindblowing was that?
It didn't even matter to them that a Calvin toy wasn't made available. What mattered is that they could be their own Calvin and had a Hobbes of their own.
Limited or not, a lot of people just want to bring Hobbes home!