The 2022 Poppies Judges Panel

Introduction

This is the fifteenth year (15!) for our awards, and as always we have judges from 5 different categories -  Companies, Websites, Collectors, Retailers, and Artists.  The final list includes a total of 146 people.  They come from all aspects of the industry -  large companies to small, general websites to niche, online to print, contract artists to customizers, and fans of just about every major license.  I'm also happy to say that there's a global influence, with judges from North America, Asia, Australia and Europe.

And so without further ado, here's the folks that will be selecting the winners of the 2022 Poppies: 

Companies:

In this category of judges, the companies are represented by 32 different judges.  The companies represented range from one guy operations to multi-billion dollar organizations, from mass market to specialty market, with headquarters around the world.

- Zach Oat. Zach Oat, a.k.a. DSTZach, a.k.a. MSWord, is the Marketing Supervisor for Diamond Select Toys and Gentle Giant LTD. Before that, he was the editor of ToyFare Magazine, where he co-wrote and photographed "Twisted ToyFare Theatre." He is the co-author of the book "Pop Sculpture: How to Create Your Own Toys and Collectible Statues," considers C.O.P.S. and Crooks one of the greatest toy lines of all time, and is completely addicted to Minimates. Find him online @zachoat.

- David Igo. David Igo, Creative Director for Tweeterhead, has over 16 years of experience in the high-end collectibles industry. Designer turned full-time emailer, phone-call'er, and delegator, David also teaches ZBrush to working artists, and produces his own art inspired by the magical randomness of the 80's that was his childhood. Lover of Chipotle, Snow Walkers, Venom, Mer-Man, and Slash (from TMNT.)

- Steve Forde. Steve Forde is the founder and principal of GoHero. Since 2001, GoHero has been a creative force at the forefront designer toys, first-ever licensed collectibles, and original brands like the Forgotten Future, Mechabot, and more.

GoHero's award-winning works have been enjoyed in TV, film, print, galleries, museums, and private collections around the world. Our consumer products sold through specialty retail like Sideshow, Kid Robot, Super7, Big Bad Toy Store, Toys R Us, ToyTokyo, Funko, and Phillips auction house.

Steve also runs an agency, offering business, brand, and creative strategy and services. Learn more GoHero.com.

- Adam Van Wickler. Adam Van Wickler is Director - Creative Services at Gentle Giant Studios. He has been involved professionally in the toy industry since 2001 and is lucky enough to be making new toys of many of the same beloved characters that he grew up with. #ForTheCulture is a tag team joint column for TOYCOLLECTR magazine by David Vonner and Adam with their takes on various pop culture topics with a toy-centric focus. You can occasionally find him on the @toymigos "They're Not Dolls!" podcast and he's @playing_with_myself all over the internet...

- Dan Lujan - Marketing Manager at Kotobukiya Co., Ltd.
While the Japanese toy and hobby manufacturer is celebrating its 70th anniversary this year Dan began his career roughly 10 years prior during Kotobukiya's 60th anniversary. Getting his start with a US distributor, Dan has had many great opportunities including working on Kotobukiya's Marvel Fine Art, ARTFX and ARTFX+ lines, assisting with obtaining the My Little Pony & G.I. Joe Bishoujo license from Hasbro, writing marketing copy for various products including the Ghostbuster Bishoujo and last year's Yoda Fountain statue and attending numerous events and trade shows throughout the years. A life-long toy collector, Dan's current favorites are 6" and 12" action figures from Star Wars, Marvel, GI Joe, WWE along with the collector-focused Monster High horror dolls.

- Damien Glonek. DAMIEN GLONEK is Director of Development at Mezco Toyz for over 15 years and Co-Creator of Living Dead Dolls now in it’s 25th year, which holds the record for the longest continuously running horror themed doll series.  He also is a co-host for Discover the Horror podcast whose purpose is to entertain and educate by giving you reasons to explore horror you’ve never seen and share new ways to see horror you’ve loved for years.  In Damien’s spare time he collects horror movies posters, watches horror movies, reads about watching horror movies and talks about reading and watching horror movies to anyone that will listen.

- David Stephan. David Stephan is the Director of Licensing and Business Development and Creative Director for EXO-6. Formerly he was Product Manager for 1/6 figures at Quantum Mechanix (QMx).  He comes to collectibles after a career in television producing documentaries about pop culture.

- Scott Tipton. Scott Tipton is a New York Times Best-Selling author and comic-book historian with a wide variety of both graphic-novel and prose works to his credit. Scott has written numerous comics and graphic novels for publishers IDW Publishing and Archie Comics, including such titles as Star Trek: The Next Generation – The Mirror War, Star Trek/Planet of the Apes: The Primate Directive, Star Trek: The City on the Edge of Forever, The Original Teleplay, Star Trek: The Next Generation/Doctor Who: Assimilation Squared and many more. Readers looking for Scott’s latest ruminations on comics past and present need only tune into his weekly column Comics 101, posted every Wednesday without fail at www.comics101.com. Scott has also long served as design consultant and copywriter for Toynami, where he's worked on product lines like ROBOTECH, VOLTRON, THE HERCULOIDS, THUNDARR THE BARBARIAN, and FUTURAMA, as well as the company's CINEMAQUETTE line. He has a startlingly large toy collection, but in this crowd it's probably about average.

- Jim Wampler. Jim is the Sales Director at Factory Entertainment Inc. He has over 30 years experience in the toy, hobby, and collectibles industries. Being fan and collector himself since his early teen years he has an appreciation and passion for toys, collectibles, and prop replicas related to everything from comics to horror to science fiction and fantasy.

- Barry Eldridge. When Barry grows up he wants to be Jim Wampler.

Barry is Creative Director at Factory Entertainment.  He has been both strategically disappointing and delighting people in the toy and collectibles arena since the 90’s. He hopes significantly more of the latter than the former but he’s also a realist. An amateur toy historian Barry has been an expert on the Antiques Roadshow and has consulted for both Christies and Bonham’s. He still can’t believe he gets to do this for a living.

-   Other Company Judges include Randy Falk (NECA), George Gaspar (Double G Toys), Ed Catto, Michael Polis, Joe Reiter (Symbiote Studios), Charles Howell (Toy Factory), Mike Horn (Cubles), Eric Leferber, Michael Zolotorow, David Silva, Bob Fulkerson, Rick Phares, Pat Linden (Playmates), Joe Amaro, Joe Ahearn, Deihl Betz (Jakks), Georg Brewer (Brewing Factory), Guy Klender, Jared Chapman (Super7), Erik Arana (Boss Fight Studios), Cody Fultz (threezero), Brock Otterbach.

Media:

Where would our hobby and the industry be without the many websites and podcasts out there that report the news, promote the collectibles, and provide the social networks for our geek selves.  The judges in this category represent websites, podcasts and print publications that cover every aspect of the industry, from niche licenses and products to general themes and news.  There are 43 judges from a wide variety of outlets, some of which I'm sure you'll recognize.

- Arnie Carvalho: Arnie has been hosting toy podcasts for 18 years, starting with Star Wars Action News in 2005, discussing solely Star Wars collecting. Then in 2010 adding Marvelicious Toys podcast discussing toys, statues, and collectibles based on Marvel Comics and movies. He also co-hosts the movie review Now Playing Podcast, for which he co-authored a book of movie reviews. He has also been a writer for Movie Magic Magazine.

- Jerry Reed. Barbecue17, AKA Jerry Reed: In 1986, a three year old's parents bought him a General Hawk action figure from G.I. Joe, lots of random Masters of the Universe figures, and some Kenner Ghostbusters. The three year old promptly tossed aside all other youthful pursuits and escaped to the toy aisle. Today, still wanting every action figure he can get his hands on, he survives as a toy collector. If you have articulation... if you're highly collectible... or if you're a Masters of the Universe product... maybe you'll get reviewed by... Barbecue17.

Barbecue17 has been reviewing action figures online for over fifteen years and has been collecting them for over 35 years. He currently spends his days working in affordable housing, his evenings reviewing action figures, and as much time as he can playing with his 9 year old daughter who, fortunately, seems to be following in his footsteps in toy collecting and nerdy pursuits. He enjoys horror fiction, anything related to Masters of the Universe, tabletop gaming, sequential art, flavored carbonated water, Asian Cuisine, and plaid. You can find more of his reviews at Action Figure Barbecue.com.

- Jon Clarke. Jon is the host of "Caffeinated Comics", celebrating its tenth year of podcasting with two video spinoffs "MCU ReVU" and "Top Men: An Indiana Jones Podcast". Jon got his start like every one of you, wanting to write comics. Scripting indie series like "Horseman" and "A.D.A.M." led him to become the staff writer at Art Asylum, writing articles for "Go Figure!" magazine and creating packaging copy for lines like "Star Trek" well into the company's transition to DST Collectibles. Jon was one of the original reviewers and journalists for figures.com, covering SDCC and NYCC for the site. As a day job, Jon has spent over 20 years in the advertising industry, where every now and then he gets to write for Anthony Daniels and George Takei, but mostly is the guy telling you not to take a medicine if you are allergic to a medicine.

- Newton Gimmick. Newton has spent well over a decade reviewing toys, movies and general pop culture goodness over at InfiniteHollywood.com. During that time he's written hundreds of toy reviews and worked in the media industry covering other pop culture and collectibles. He continues to build his plastic empire, one toy at a time and hopes to continue to provide insight and analysis from a grounded perspective on the plethora of toys that inhabit toy aisles today or have been forgotten into the labyrinth of time.

- Peter Cass. Pete, co-host of OFAC podcast, the U.K. arm of the Collecting Weekly Network. Collecting 1/6 scale figures for the last 12 years, focusing on Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Lord of the Rings and 80s movies.

- D. Martin Myatt. D. Martin Myatt is cofounder of Blue Milk and coauthor of their book The Vintage Collection Archive Edition. Before this, he's been an active member of the toy collecting community for over twenty years, writing and photographing archives and events. Keeping close to the subjects many of these products represent, he spends most of his time working in the Properties Department on feature films and television programs.

- Daniel Lynch. Daniel has been writing about action figures since "the year 2000".  A former contributor to a variety of web sites under screen names like Daniel313, Son of Hawkgirl's Mace, and NoisyDvL5, Daniel is forgoing the pseudonyms on his newest project, CardbackHero.com. The new site features various 6" checklists designed to emulate the roadmaps of our youth: the cardback. You can find Daniel on various social media as CardbackHero, trying to make collecting easier and injecting some fun into the serious world of toy collecting.

- Ian Ashton. Co host of the Only Fools and Collecting podcast on the Collecting Weekly Network is a UK based pod cast that covers all the latest 1/6 scale news and releases.
Ian has been collecting 1/6 scale figures and customising for ten years.

- Justin Bell. Justin is an author and lifelong toy collector, cutting his teeth on G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero and Masters of the Universe way back in 1982. He's been an avid fan and collector in the years since, and built GeneralsJoes.com in the early 2000s as a place to find G.I. Joe action figure reviews and dio-stories. For twenty years, GeneralsJoes has gone through many iterations, but Justin has remained an avid and enthusiastic fan ever since. As one of the co-hosts of The Full Force podcast, he talks about his love for G.I. Joe and even occasionally still posts a review or two of one of Hasbro's excellent G.I. Joe: Classified action figures.

- Jason Spiller. Jason "Slick McFavorite" Spiller has been collecting his whole life, but kicked it into high gear about 15 years ago. He, along with an amazing team of toy aficionados, hosts the action figure podcast, Open Your Toys Cast. OYTC is dedicated to the four greatest action figure franchises of the 80's and all time: Star Wars, Transformers, G.I. Joe and Masters of the Universe. Check out www.OpenYourToys.com for more on one of the community’s longest running podcasts.

- Jeffrey Lyles.  Jeffrey started Lyles Movie Files to just focus on movies, but quickly expanded the site to include another major love -- action figures. Now spanning over 400 reviews of figure lines including Marvel Legends, WWE, Star Wars, DC Multiverse, Masters of the Universe, Transformers, Storm Collectibles, Hot Toys and his current favorite, G.I. Joe Classified Series, he continues building up his collection while trying to figure out the age old collector's dilemma -- where to put all these wonderful toys. In addition to the website, check out the Lyles Figure Files YouTube channel where he breaks down all the big news and controversies about our favorite hobby.

- Jed Keith. Jed wears many hats: high school history teacher; editor-in-chief of the pop culture site FreakSugar.com; social media coordinator for a variety of companies; educational and technical writer; and Head Referee and Public Relations Head for his local roller derby league. He's busy but happy, living in southeastern Kentucky with his fiancee, dog, and two cats.

- Mark Picirilli. Mark is the admin and webmaster of Yodasnews.com, a daily news site for Star Wars news and collectibles. He has been involved in the collecting online community for over 25 years. He also owns and admins several other collectible fan sites and is a regular contributor to many online and print publications as a collectible and movie memorabilia expert. In 2015, Mark started to do work as a Topps Sketch Card Artist, he has sketched cards for Star Wars Chrome Perspectives: Jedi Vs. Sith, Journey to The Force Awakens and Star Wars Finest coming out in December. Mark's collection has grown a lot over the last 25 years, he now mainly collects Hot Toys, Gentle Giant, Sideshow, Funko, Hasbro Black Series, Kotobukiya  and eFX and is a longtime autograph and trading card collector.  He often posts collections room photos and videos on his Instagram account, @Yodasnews, which has over 10,000 fans.

-  Other Media Judges include Daniel Pickett (Action Figure Insider), Craig Moore, Dylan Poehls, Paul Nicholasi, Blake Wright, Eric Resnick, Frank Patz, Bradley Jacobs, Ron Mirasol, Jack Muramatsu, Brian Slivka, Khalil Quatop (Kastor's Korner), Brian Heiler, Sohaib Awan (Fictional Frontiers), Billy Cooper, (ITCE), Roger Froilan Jr., Paul Wolf, Michael Skram II, Michael Richardson, Justin Gammon, Jordan (Toy Shiz), Sean Long, Richard Gottlieb (Global Toy Experts), Matthew Kaplowitz, Tom (Toys and Tomfoolery), Colin Dorman, Cat Eldridge, Ben Mulder, Ryan Aston, Stacey Raider.

Artists:

You can't produce amazing products without designers, fabricators, sculptors, painters and other artisans.  These judges come from that side of the business.  Many are freelancers, but some work for specific companies. Others are well known and respected customizers, who do commission work for individuals, magazines and others. There are 29 judges in this category:

- Jeremy Sung: Jeremy Sung is President and Head Designer of Spy Monkey Creations Inc. Originally starting with hand cast resin accessory items, Spy Monkey Creations eventually joined the Glyos family of products moving into full factory production.   Products have included the Spy Monkey Armory, The Weaponeers of Monkaa, and Battle Tribes: Weapons & Warriors.   Battle Tribes has since expanded to include both ninjas and wrestlers in addition to classic fantasy figures.   Jeremy is based in Southern California where he lives with wife Heather and a menagerie of furry, feathered and finned friends.

- Ken Davis. A professional cartoonist, storyboard artist for TV animation, and comic book artist for over 38 years, Ken has been a collector for as long.  He's worked on numerous prominent animation and cartooning projects, such as Ren & Stimpy, Freakazoid, Baby Huey, 101 Dalmatians, Action Man, Wing Commander Academy, Reboot and many others.  He's been an animation studio co-founder and co-owner and an instructor at several film schools in western Canada.

An avid action figure collector, a nutty detail and articulation-junkie, he's collected at least something from most major action figure lines from the past 50+ years, with the exception of Wrestling figures.

Cuz, sweaty people just ain't his thing...

- Cason Pillod. Cason Pilliod has been building custom toys since before we called them “customs.” What started out as cardboard and tape now involves epoxies, dyes, and 3D printing. His website, Inanimate Objects, is entering its third decade, and still documents how customs are made. In fact, his customs have been around so long that several people in the industry claim Inanimate Objects as an influence on their career choice. Whether it’s taking questions from new enthusiasts, or talking shop with old masters, Cason encourages everyone to “make their own stuff!”

- Derek Handy. Derek Handy - VP of Design for Mattel Action figures. With a stable of brands including Jurassic World, WWE, Masters of the Universe, Minecraft, and Pixar, Derek and his team have won 4 TOTY awards for best action figure as well as numerous industry accolades. Prior to his 15 years at Mattel, Derek was Sr Manager of Gentle Giant Ltd. and concept sculptor at LEGO way back in 1999. He’s been at this a while.

-  Other Artist Judges include Matt Cauley, Jonathan Mathews, Tim Miller, Joe Dunaway, John Guzman, Jim Maddox, Joe Allard, Baas Gert, Brian Stevenson, Hauke Sheer, Nate Baertsch, Guillermo Barbiero, Dayton Allen, Tim Bruckner, Scott Beatty, Hugo Dourado, Eamon, O'Donohuge, John Harmon, David Vonner, Hunter McGarry, Andrew Mann, Mike Thain, Mathew Black, Allan Bradley Freeman, Scott Rogers.

Retailers:

Without retailers to sell the stuff, there'd be a whole lot less to buy.  In fact, that's one of the current issues for the industry, as fewer and fewer retailers carry the figures, statues and busts we love.  These 14 judges represent some of the best known specialty and mass market retailers, from small to large.

- Todd Jordan. Todd Jordan, co-owner of Kokomo Toys & Collectibles with his wife Amber since 2008. Home of the largest selection of action figures and toys in the Midwest. Avid collector of Gi-Joe, ThreeA/Underverse and USSR/Soviet Union made robots and toys. He enjoys spending time with his 3 children, granddaughter, basset hound and his 2 guinea pigs.

- Roger Mack. Roger Mack is owner of Choking Hazard Toys in Bremerton, WA and a collector of all things pop culture. His passion for toys has led to a lifetime devotion to them and to sharing that love with other collectors and his community. Beyond his love of all things Ghostbusters, Marvel, and Transformers, running his shop, and scouring remote antique shops for vintage toy treasures to restore, his greatest passion is toy philanthropy. Having been a kid who’s family had financial insecurity, sometimes toys were the last thing on the list of priorities. Every year Roger and Choking Hazard Toys arrange for 100’s of donations to Toys for Tots to keep the dream of imaginative play alive for kids in his community who otherwise wouldn’t have access to it.

- Michael Shah. Michael Shah is the owner of Mike’s Toys and Stuff, a brick-and-mortar store located in the city of Orange, CA. Specializing in action figures, he’s there selling Hasbro, NECA, Mezco and more stuff most Saturdays. An avid and lifelong comic book collector he fulfilled his dream of opening a comic book related business in 2019.

- Wyatt Edwards. Wyatt is a blog writer and editor at FUN.com. He also helps plan content and product launches, and outreach to websites and social media. FUN.com makes and sells collectibles, apparel, accessories, and also runs HalloweenCostumes.com, the world's largest online-only costume retailer.

- Lee Ward. Lee is quite possibly the longest serving independent of 1:6 figures in the UK.
He heads up The Good The Bad & The Robots online store and has enjoyed serving his customers since 2007.  He strives for the best service and recently earned 5/5 on Trustpilot….

The store mainly deals with preorders but stock is available occasionally……

He’s a huge fan of everything Star Wars/Marvel/DC and 80’s movie.

- Other retailer judges include Jim Palmquist (Hellraiser Designs), Michael Hickmott (Apogee Comics), Steve Loney (Toynk), Steve Anne, Kit Chen (OneSixthKit), James L Parker, Elias Ortiz, Adam Stinson (Capstone Comics), Troy Emmi (Fanboy Collectibles).

Collectors:

In the end, it's the buyers that decide what gets made and what doesn't. They vote with the money in their wallet, and smart companies and retailers listen.  I selected 28 collectors that I feel are opinionated, respected, and experienced.  Some are collectors of very specific lines, while others buy just about anything, but they all know the industry well.

- Monte Williams. Monte collects, customizes, and photographs action figures. He seldom updates his @geek_creek account at Instagram.

- Will Ripamonti. Will is a 6" scale collector, for most part focused on superheroes and Star Wars, he has a pretty decent Batman collection he's very proud of. For most part he's a low end/domestic collector, occasionally he flirts with import figures. Will lives in Italy, in a nice little house in the woods... where no one can hear you scream.

- Kevin Hawkey. Kevin is a 40-year-old life-long collector from Philadelphia, PA. Kevin specializes in Hot Toys, Marvel Legends, random TMNT and Horror offerings and a little bit of everything else. His most anticipated 2023 figure is the Hot Toys Pattinson Batman.

- Adrian Faulkner. Adrian is former Editor- In- Chief and owner of Action- Figure.  He has written for ToyFare, Memorabilia Magazine and Action Figure & Toy Collector.  Adrian lives in Wiltshire, England and has been collecting Star Wars and GI Joe action figures for over 40 years.

- Kevin Clarkson. Kevin is a collector from the UK, who much like many kids of the 80s cut their teeth on a staple diet of Hasbro, Kenner & Mattel offerings during a decade of inspired merchandise based toys, such as Star Wars, MOTU, TMNT and Transformers.

It wasn¹t until the early noughties in adulthood when he started collecting again, buying 6” figures that interested him and Gentle Giant mini-busts and statues. These days his collection and focus are primarily 1/6 scale articulated figures from high end companies such as Hot Toys. But being a father of two children means his eye has recently been drawn once again to the entry level end of the market. Kevin is a well-established member of many 1/6 social media groups/forums, and enjoys showcasing his collection using photography.

- Paul V Rudolph. Paul was obsessed with toy collecting at a young age, eventually turning his passion into a blog called Toy Bender and then later Robots Pajamas. He's now shifted to running the table top gaming company Table Cat Games, but he still collects a lot of toys. Way too many toys.

- Daemon Bintz. Daamon “GeneralZodLives” Bintz started actively collecting comic books and toys in grade school in the early 80’s.  His collection has evolved over the past few decades to include comic books, art prints and giclees, celebrity autographs, action figures and statues of every scale, custom prop replicas/statues, and even a Star Trek: The Next Generation pinball machine.  After being active on several collectibles forums over the years, he now runs a small collectibles forum called BanishedtothePhantomZone.com.  Throughout the year, he travels the country attending several comic book conventions including SDCC, NYCC, Planet Comicon, and others while taking thousands of pics to share with other collectors.

- Thomas Wheeler. Thomas, known to some parts of the collecting community as "GI Trekker", is a freelance writer and photographer (and definitely for hire!) who has maintained an extensive action figure collection since G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero arrived in the scene in 1982, and as a child, counted Captain Action, Major Matt Mason, and a host of very varied Megos among his prized possessions. Today his collection features everything from G.I. Joe, to Masters of the Universe Classics, to Star Trek, to DC Universe Classics, to Gundam, and much more. He has written reviews on a wide range of action figures for various sources, and contributed file cards to the 1997*- 98 run of G.I. Joe for Hasbro.

-  Other Collector Judges include Jeff Parker, Jason Chirevas, Terry Rosler, Joseph Dunnigan, Josh Long, Amanda Burns, Robert McCloud, Thomas Arashikage Brandt, Brian Ashmore, Steve Woolner, Mike Kelley, Jason Jerde, Nathan Dewitt, Kenneth Yu, John Morey, Matt Guzy, Greg Iacono, Alex McPhee, Chris Karukas, Chris Lawrence.

And there you have the 146 judges for 2022!  I'll be looking to expand this group of judges in 2023, so if you or a colleague are interested, please drop me an email.