Posted by fústar in 
Oh passionate fans of bootleged tat, please forgive me. It's been six full (or empty) months since I brought you any Manky Toy badness. Six full (or empty) months in which you've all, no doubt, wailed yourselves to bitter (fitful) sleep – tortured by memories of the good old (i.e bad) days. I've let you down. I'm sorry. Blame the baby.
Today, by way of a small apologetic gesture, I bring you – WAR! That much-maligned human activity/phenomenon that's good for absolutely nuthin' (Huurgh!). Well, almost nothing.
For without war we young fellas of the 70s/80s would have been starved of Action Men (Mans?), cheapo replica (rat-a-tatting) machine guns, and the humble plastic soldier. These things may (on the minus side) have served to normalise gun violence and indoctrinate us into a world where militarism (and warmongery) was admired and fetishised – but, y'know, at least we weren't bored.
Though the humble plastic soldier occupied a lower rung of the war toy ladder, there existed, even here, significant variations in quality. Those that came housed in boxes like this…
…tended to be pretty classy: well-sculpted & historically accurate. They looked (plasticity aside) like real regiments involved in real campaigns in real wars.
The same could not be said for those that usually came stuffed in a clear plastic bag with a thin piece of cardboard stapled to the top. Lacking the polish and finish of their boxed comrades, these chunky, wonky, misshapen plastic grunts reeked of shabby amateurishness. They were mercenaries. Militia members. Feral deserters driven mad by the deprivations of war.
Today's (2 Euro) gang definitely fall into this latter category. They're a shouty, aggressive and highly strung lot. Here we see their Commanding Officers barking out their crazed orders.
And here some of the grunts lounging untidily beside a ruined gate.
Snooty Matchbox soldiers would be pretty horrified by the rag-bag lack of discipline on show. Yer man on the left? No helmet, maverick slicked-back hair, and untamed eyebrows. His pal on the right? Deserves a closer look…
Cross-eyed (and boggle-eyed) from drink. His gun cocked wildly. He's got "war crime" written all over him. The mangy and ravenous cur in the foreground (above) only adds to the atmosphere of depravity and despair.
Then there's this guy. Ready to snap, crackle and pop at any moment.
The things he must have seen, man. Entrails dangling obscenely from hollow eye sockets. Dying tongues flopping uselessly in the sand. Eyeballs on fire in pools of sick. He was once a man…
As was his (broken) bazooka-wielding pal…
So what's the message? War as dehumainisng hell? War as the ultimate degradation of the soul? Perhaps, but then there's the puzzling inclusion of a "Map of Africa" emblazoned with the up-beat (propagandic?) legend "Enlightened Children on a Brains" (see above). And this flag…
And then there's the fact that the doorways the boys are guarding are about "3 feet" high (too small for even the mad dog to crawl through). Tiny (unseen) natives, an all-white militia, enlightened children, brains – what does it all mean?
What is it good for? Huurrgh?
Today’s (2 Euro) gang definitely fall into this latter category. They’re a shouty, aggressive and highly strung lot. Here we see their Commanding Officers barking out their crazed orders.
Wow – it’s Shell’s thugs out at Rossport…
It’s not that the gate is tiny… the soldiers are giants! They were subjected to top-secret experiments in the Nevada desert, but it all went wrong, they mutated horribly and now they’ve gone rogue.
EWI, Rossport. Of course. I knew I’d seen that flag flying somewhere before.
Ms Avery, The government of course, denies all knowledge. “We maintain that these rumours of massacres in Africa are totally unfounded. We also maintain that the pictured gates are, in fact, tiny. We base this conclusion on hard science. Making a big soldier is way harder than making a small gate”.
No no, they’re electricians driven mad by their union commanders. Those doors are access hatches to fuseboxes.
The scale is difficult to judge. If the soldiers are indeed giants, and the gate tiny only in comparison to them but otherwise on a normal human scale, where does that leave the dog? His body is longer than that of the (presumably giant) soldier. Even on all fours and crouching, he’s almost up to the soldiers’ waists. If he reared up on hind leags, he could headbutt one of them with his freakishly large wet nose. A normally sized human could get a thundering, possibly life-ending whack around the head from his tail. And what if he tried to hump your leg? War, it ain’t nothin’ but a heartbreaker, indeed.
I’m fascinated by the paint work. It’s almost impossible to believe it was done by a machine and yet there is clear evidence of a machine intelligence in the not-quite-random-but-very-nearly-insane patterns.
Sloppy, yes, but not the work of mortal hands.
Fergal,
The dog has the look of an Alsatian from a medieval engraving. As done by an artist who’d only ever heard about Alsatians through third-hand reports. Plus, it seems to be wearing lipstick. Which either lends the scene a jolly or decadent air – depending on your tastes.
Copernicus,
It’s definitely a machine job. Albeit a machine operating on its “Junior Cert Art Class” setting. It does feel oddly improvised though. As if the machine had decided to throw off the shackles of its programming and have a stab at creativity. Fail!
Ah…the Matchbox Afrika Corps. Mini plastic German heaven.
http://www.plasticsoldierreview.com/Review.aspx?id=370
They don’t make ‘em like his anymore. Atlantic’s 1977 “Outlaws and Sheriffs”. Complete with guy dangling lifeless from a tree after lynch mob justice!
http://www.plasticsoldierreview.com/Review.aspx?id=537
“Here you go, son. I’ve bought you something extra special for your birthday, Something much more fun that silly old soldiers. I give you…Airfix Set 01706…civilians!”
http://www.plasticsoldierreview.com/Review.aspx?id=366
The plastic soldiers site is wonderful. The Airfix HIGH CHAPARALL set features some of the most bow-legged cowboys ever seen. Assuming that I had ever had the time or inclination to build model railway sets, I would have loved to include bow legged cowboys, Tarzan, spacemen and ancient Britons amongst the figures waiting on the platform.