So I just sold my action figure collection.
Unthinkable, I know. But you never know what you are capable of until you find yourself up against the wall. For reasons I won’t bore you with, I recently found myself up against that wall, and, let me tell ya, it wasn’t a nice feeling. With the weight of the world at my back and unexpectedly empty coffers, I found myself scrambling just to catch a breath.
Now, making a living as a novelist is difficult under the best of circumstances. That should come as no surprise to anyone. But the pop-culture idea of a struggling writer usually involves some sort of eventual breakthrough, when all of the hard work and sacrifice comes together to validate that seemingly crazy life choice. In movies it’s usually handled with a montage of the poor bastard frantically typing, working harder than ever to finally conquer self doubt and adversity in the form of a number one best seller: if you’re lucky, at some point Burgess Meridith will show up to give you a pep talk. Unfortunately I don’t live in a movie, and Burgess Meredith is long dead.
So there we were, my collection and I, alone in a room pondering our fate. And while I continued to hammer away at the keyboard, transforming all my boo-hoo and balloon juice into something resembling a chapter, hundreds of unblinking eyes stared. Eventually I had to look back. Now, my new project is still months from being finished, but it’s only once the book is written that the fun begins. That’s reading and re-reading the damn thing, scanning for mistakes until you want to claw your own eyes out. Then you try and round up a bunch of unwitting dupes to do the same thing, although they prefer to be called “beta readers” (God bless ’em). Once you’ve taken all of their criticism and notes to heart, you have to go through the book again and implement all those changes without screwing anything else up. And there’s loads more, but I’ve already lost half of you, right? The point is, I wasn’t going to be making money from my literary efforts anytime soon and the wolf was quite literally at the door. I needed some fast scratch and I knew of only one way to get it.
So I turned to them, those hundreds of tiny eyes. And while it was easy enough to look at someone like Speed Demon or Whirlwind and think “Ah, I can live without these figures for a while,” it was a good bit harder doing that with my ToyBiz Giant Man. I mean, seriously:
That stare. It’s like he knew all along or something. I know I’m crazy for allowing an action figure to get to me on an emotional level, but who ever said I wasn’t crazy? There are certain action figures that are more to me than just toys. My wife bought me that Giant-Man our first Christmas together. And while that situation may have changed (my marriage, not my relationship with Hank), it still represents a good time in my life, and one I am loathe to let go of. The same with my ToyBiz Series One Hulk. Sure, he’s got weird shoulder joints and monkey arms, but he was my first. I mean, I’d be lucky to get five bucks for him, but that’s not the point. It’s not just a collection of items, it’s a collection of memories. I may be broke, but can I truly afford to part with something irreplaceable? Do I even have a choice?
I’d seen it coming in the rear-view mirror. Though the situation wasn’t as dire at the time, I had already purged my DC Universe Classics collection for similar reasons. But I told myself that under no circumstances would I dip into my Marvel Legends. As a life-long comics fan, the joy that came from owning 3-dimensional representations of my favorite heroes and villains was considerable. No longer was I forced to get my Batroc fix off of the page; now I could enact my own battles with zee Flying Frenchman right on my own tabletop. If you think Batroc is fun in comics, you should try taking some photos. I hate to keep harping on the guy, but the camera loves him!
So how could I part with something so awesome? Well, owning only one set of sneakers that have more holes than sole can be a powerful motivator. But more than just new shoes, it’s the idea of using that potential influx of cash to get a leg-up after Fate and my own bad decisions have knocked me down. And so life and fantasy intersect. As cool as my Armin Zola figure is, he’s never offered to buy me lunch or pay my Internet bill. And while I dig my MODOK, he’s probably not the most edible thing in the world. The bottom line is, life means living, and that’s not always easy or fun. Without the means to live, the biggest action figure collection in the world is just dead weight you gotta haul.
So I did it. Without so much as a shot of Irish Courage I cleared my shelves, dusted and tidied my product and put the whole lot up on an auction site. Someone made me an offer and wham, it was over. Was it the end of the world? Nah. Like I said, I knew it was coming. In spite of the lies I told myself, I knew need would eventually outpace want. If readin’ and writin’ have taught me anything, it’s that, sooner or later, you have to kill ol’ Yeller. It hurts like a bitch and there’s some messy clean-up afterwards. But no one is gonna do it for ya.
So I did the unthinkable. I dumped just about everything in my collection to buy myself more time. Now it’s up to me to make the most of that time. I can see now that writing alone isn’t enough to pay the bills, so I’ll be pounding the pavement tomorrow looking for work. Am I giving up my dream of being a novelist? Hell, no. When all is said and done, writing is what I love to do — it’s what I live to do. It’s as much a part of me as my big bulbous German nose. I have loads of tales yet to tell and won’t let a bit of misfortune keep me from doing what I feel I’m here to do. And if I have to sacrifice some soldiers to do it? It’s for a noble cause. I tell myself that they’re in a better place now, in a new home with a new collector, who will make all-new memories with them. Its the best a bad situation can be, really.
Have I quit collecting action figures? No way. I’m as pumped as anyone for a new series of Marvel Legends — I’ve been waiting on the Enchantress for forever now. I’ll start picking them up again as I can afford it, slowly replacing my depleted ranks until they number in the hundreds once again. But lest any super villains think I’m now easy pickings … well, let’s just say I still have some back-up.
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