Toy OTD: RFX, John K.'s Political Toys: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton

I'm way overdue for another Toy OTD column, so I thought I'd come back with something special. After a long toy hiatus, John (Ren & Stimpy) Kricfalusi has designed some terrific new figures! I'm not exactly sure why, but John has graced us with cartoony versions of all three candidates from the primaries.

These are simply wonderful figures - the designs are really pushed and fun, the sculpts are great 3-D versions of John's drawings (a big shout-out to sculptors Chris Peterson and Arshak Nazarian), and the paint work is amazing as well!

There's a lot of imaginative, striking color choices to savor. Look at how many colors there are in Hillary's hair alone! Barack's face could've looked very uniform and dull, but there's some airbrushed accents here and there that really go the extra distance. The gold podium is unusual but eye-catching, and Hillary's flocked pantsuit is a great touch!

The toys are generously sized - up to nine inches tall! - so the $24.95 price is a great bargain, considering the quality of the figures.

The John McCain figure is the only disappointment. It's still a good toy, but for me, it's not as successful as the others.

Granted, he's a tough guy to caricature, but the body seems a little generic compared to the other designs. The color work on his face is low on contrast, so the viewer's eye tends to get pulled to the detail on his body instead. It's loaded up with props, which feels a little unecessary, considering how successful the other designs are without them.

Mr. Kricfalusi is a firm believer that toy packaging can be just as entertaining as the toy itself, and I heartily agree! While the boxes for these toys are nicely colored in the old-school style, and loaded with funny drawings and comments (check out the huge American flag with "MADE IN CHINA" printed beneath it!), the package design feels a bit scattershot in approach. The clubhouse and rocketship boxes were so strong in John's early toy work, that I came away feeling like I wanted a unifying theme to pull the current package designs together - like a campaign bandstand or a voting booth decorated with bunting - something that says "presidential election" more clearly.

Regardless, this is an awesome toy line! You can get Barack Obama or John McCain for $24.95 + shipping each, Hillary Clinton for $19.95 + shipping, or all three for $54.99 + shipping at the RFX toys website. Order yours today!


PS - John even had a Huckabee figure in mind... too bad it wasn't to be. Check out this, and a lot of other cool stuff in his interview with Meltdown Comics!

Interesting Video By Lawrence Lessig

Here, Mr. Lessig makes a YouTube case for why he supports Barack Obama (It's twenty minutes long, so you may need to schedule time for it).

I think I'm going to vote for Obama myself, and I felt pretty clear about that before I saw the video, so this may not be as convincing to you, or convincing at all. I'm not as hard on Hillary Clinton as Mr. Lessig is, and I'm not as informed about her campaign tactics as he seems to be. I'm not sure if he's taking any of her statements out of context, for example - I might be relying on him maybe a little too much to interpret the past year or so.

Personally, I think Hillary could make a good president, and I'd be fine with her winning the Democratic nomination and the election. But personally, I favor Barack Obama because I think Hillary is very divisive and polarizing - no one's on the fence about her. I worry that she'll bring so much baggage with her into an administration, that it'll be hard for her to do much more than constantly struggle against her opponents' resistance.

I'm not going to prattle on about this - I tried that four years ago, and all it probably did was irritate people. But I do think this is an eloquent, well-reasoned case, so I thought I'd post it.