Description

A card-backed, clear plastic shell containing an intangible representation of HG Wells’ classic character. Alternately, an empty piece of packaging.

Background

This seemed like one of those ‘so obvious, someone must have already done this’ ideas. But research didn’t find anything, so I pressed on with it. (This is not to say that someone hasn’t done it before, but just that I wasn’t deliberately ripping someone off.)

I had a lot of Star Wars figures when I was a kid and I think most people my age did, too. But my collection was made up mainly of ones acquired from jumble sales and charity shops. My collection was made up mainly of Rebel Commanders or Imperial Walker Captains - mid-level bureaucrats who could be seen in the background while Luke and Han did more interesting stuff. That was OK, though. I quite liked making stories around these utility players and they could fit in more easily with other types of figures in a way that movies stars like Harrison Ford couldn’t.

Looking back on it, I must have had some new figures, though, because I distinctly remember poring over the group photo on the back of the packaging, learning the names of all the different characters and trying to remember where they had been in the films.

But these were childhood toys. I’ve never really got the whole collectables market and certainly never kept anything in its box. They were meant to be played with and any that survived the trip to adulthood did so battered and bruised, with their paint flecked off and their accompanying laser guns long since lost. The thought of paying a hundreds of pounds for something that cost £1.75 when I was little seemed odd.

(I sadly remember a university friend of mine buying into the errant notion that merchandise from The Phantom Menace would appreciate in value the same way. I’m pretty sure he asked everyone to give him Star Wars toys for his 21st birthday and even then I thought it was an odd time to be alive. Who knows, though? Maybe in another twenty years, those Jar Jar Binks action figures and Liam Neeson face masks really will be worth a fortune.)

Anyway, the Invisible Man Action Figure is a homage to those days and a pretty obvious comment on the collectables market. It should be pointed out, though, that it wouldn’t exist without said market. Buying authentic plastic shells to stick on card would be impossible if figure collectors didn’t want to do exactly that.

It should also be noted that it was while researching this piece that I discovered the work of Obvious Plant, who makes all manner of weird toys before secreting them onto store shelves. As well as thinking that their work was brilliant, I’m also grateful to them for introducing me to Crafter’s Tape, which is as effective as it is ecologically profligate.

The background photos were modified images from a stock image library. I wondered whether those miserable kids looking at the invisible island playset were a little too ‘winky-winky’ in-on-the-joke, but their expressions won me over.