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12" Andy Warhol
60's and 80's Style

Tonight Jeff Parker is back with a review of a rather unique pair of figures - a 60's and 80's version of Andy Warhol.  Hey, I didn't even know they made one version, let alone two!  Tell us all about them Jeff!

Hello again, something of a quantum leap from my last review for the Aoshima T800, this time I'm looking at the two Andy Warhol figures hot off of the plane from Japan, released by Medicom. So we're talking a few more bucks than your average toy off the shelves down at toys'r'us, but does the extra money mean a better product? Let's see.








Packaging - ***1/2
Now I really like these packs, they're nicely designed, simple and effective. But I do feel that when dealing with a figure based on a real person a little biography doesn't go amiss. There's also the fact that as iconic as Warhol is, he is most famous for the images he produced. So again, having some of the images originated from the era's he's depicted in here i.e. the 60's and 80's, might have been nice. That said, these are still very tastefully done and will keep the collectors of designer toys very happy.

The other thing to note is they are both totally collector friendly. No twisty ties, just a snug plastic tray with a clamshell top, molded to hold him in place. The overall designs are pretty identical in feel but the 60's figure has a black and silver foil stamped design, with a negative stylized image of the figure on the sides. And the 80's is a brown card with black and red screen print effect, again with a stylized image of the figure, both have a Velcro fastened flap with a window inside.

Sculpting - 60's Andy *** 80's Andy ***1/2
On the whole two very nice sculpts. But in my view 80's Andy just has the edge, maybe its because you can see his eye's through the glasses. You can see 60's Andy's eyes if you peek over the edge but the shades obscure them most of the time (and I ain't gonna risk breaking them by trying to remove them). Both the faces are good solid sculpts, but again, maybe because he's older, with a few more character lines on his face, 80's Andy looks just that bit more convincing. The hair is also nicely sculpted, and could have been brought to life more with a better paint job, but more on that later. The only other real area of sculpting are the hands, with 60's you get two right hands and one left, and with 80's one spare for the right hand and one for the left. The 80's left hand is in a pretty weird position, but makes sense when you make him hold his accessory.

Paint - ***
As with most Medicom figures the philosophy seems to be 'keep it simple', don't over complicate things that can often be done better if not labored over. And keeping to that doctrine they keep paint use to a minimum but apply it well. They let a clever use of a slightly translucent plastic, used on the head sculpt give the figure a real 'flesh' feel to it's look. They then paint the eyes and mouth very subtly, but again it works. Now the only real let down for some people will be the hair, it's an all over slightly pearlescent silver, not dissimilar to the DiD's Gandalf figure. There's no denying a more detailed paint job could have made this figure look 'more real', but I think I kind of get where they're coming from giving him this paint job, and in a nutshell it's because it's more stylish/stylized and I think we can take it as read that as this was approved by the official Warhol estate, Andy would probably have liked it this way. In fact I'm sure he would have loved seeing a doll like this produced when he was alive, because as he said "I am a deeply superficial person".

Articulation - ***1/2
The classic Medicom body is used here, so the overall articulation is great, but kind of what you expect from your modern 1/6 scale these days. So all in all he's about as poseable as your average Sidehow, BBI or Dragon figure, and on mine at least there are no loose joints at all. 

Accessories - **1/2
Not an awful lot here, but as always with Medicom, what is here is well put together, simple and if nothing else 'apt'. 60's Andy comes with a camera and a tambourine (see inside sleeve of The Velvet Underground & Nico's 'Andy Warhol' 1967), while 80's Andy comes with a cathode ray tube, or TV screen to your average punter, I would imagine in homage to Andy's most oft quoted line "in the future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes" which he himself adapted to "in fifteen minutes everyone will be famous"....the clocks ticking. Or it might be alluding to his involvement in 'Andy Warhol's TV' a cable channel he production managed in 1980. Both also come with the standard Medicom clear plastic stand.

Outfit - 60's Andy ***1/2 80's Andy ****
Again two nice outfits that are incredibly well tailored to the figures. 60's Andy has socks, black loafers jeans, a blue striped shirt with tie, blue blazer and dark glasses. 80's Andy has socks, black shoes, belted jeans (slightly different from his 60,s version but both well tailored and the stitching is done well to scale) a black turtle neck sweater (no poppers or Velcro, so don't try taking this off without first removing the head), black jacket and black rimmed glasses. These all do really look like scaled down garments rather than 'dolls clothes' with the black jacket even being lined. So simple outfits, but done well, I liked these allot.

Fun Factor - ****
I gave these such a high score as to me personally it just seems so incongruous to have two action figure of 'Andy Warhol' that I can't help but give them the highest score possible. But if you are looking for a play angle, then I suppose these figures have everything you'd want in terms of articulation etc. But I can't imagine many kids wanting to wake up to these on Christmas morning.....unless G.I.Joe or Barbie has started dabbling in the art world!

Value - **
As with most Japanese toys, these are expensive. And that expense will put a lot of people off. That said they are a great collectible and I feel that like that other medicom Holy grail, 'The Rocketeer', they will go up in value. So shop around, I got mine 'as always' on eBay and got a deal of $ 270.00 for the pair (you'll now pay upwards of $300 for one Rocketeer) And as these figure cross the boundary, bringing it solidly into the 'Pop art' collectors market, they won't be around for long. 

Overall - ***1/2
I was so tempted to give these guy's a perfect score, but the price just stopped me. But as you can proberbly tell by my slightly gushy review these were 'MUST HAVE' items for me. So if you are a Warhol fan get'em while ya can!

SCORE RECAP:
Packaging - ***1/2
Sculpt - 60's Andy *** 80's Andy ***1/2
Paint - ***
Articulation - ***1/2
Accessories - **1/2
Outfit - 60's Andy ***1/2 80's Andy ****
Fun Factor - ****
Value - **
Overall - ***1/2

Where to Buy - 
Always keep an eye on eBay, I used a dealer called 'Charlesay' who has a very clean eBay record, he's supplied a couple of things to me and has been very reliable. They seem to be going for around the $120 to $145 mark each (and bear in mind you'll probably have to ship from Hong Kong or Singapore), but contact your seller and see if they can do a deal. So far I can't find anyone stocking them in the U.S., even on line. But they are pretty new out, so give it a week or so and I'm sure the usual suspects for importing Japanese toys will start filtering them through.

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Figure from the collection of Jeff Parker.

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