Poe’s note: I’ve got a special treat for you all today: an interview with my one and only, Dr. Mrs. Ghostal. What can I say about my lovely, understanding wife that I haven’t said on this blog a dozen times already? Brilliant, beautiful, geeky, and more than I probably deserve.

Code name: Dr. Mrs. Ghostal, DMG, DottyGale
Specialty: Biochemistry, Knitting
Base of Operations: Brighton, MA.
History: Born and raised in SoCal as a child of the 80s, but was more into TV and books than toys. Got pulled into the world of action figures when I started dating Poe 5 years ago, and have had a house full of plastic men, women and creatures ever since.

1.) What were your favorite toys as a kid?

Like I said, as a kid I wasn’t all that into toys.  I had a lot of stuffed animals of various sorts.  My mom says that I was a “social doll player” in that if someone else wanted to play with the Barbies or the Cabbage Patch Kids I would play, too.  I think the toys I really remember the most fondly were these little animals that my sister and I collected.  They were plastic, but furry, and wore tiny doll clothes.  We had bears, rabbits, little baby moles.  I can’t remember what they were called, but we sure had a lot of them.

Perhaps the funniest thing I can remember is that when my friends, my sister and I played with toys, the story lines were really influenced by the TV my babysitter watched, which included a good share of talk shows and soap operas.  I’m pretty sure that Barbie’s Dream Wedding was interrupted by a mysterious stranger with a scandalous past!

2.) What toys do you collect now?

The line I like the most right now is the Futurama line.  Great show, great figures (so glad it’s coming back!).  I think we’ve got them all except for the alternate universe ones (but seriously, if alternate universe Leela doesn’t come with a diamond scrunchie, what good is she?).  I really, really need a Professor Farnsworth, though.

On the same shelf are my female action heroes, an fabulous bunch including April O’Neil (from TMNT), Storm, Raven, Jane Austen, and Dorothy (of course!).  I also have a bunch of the superhero Barbies, which are awesome and have pretty hair.  There is something satisfying about having things which are both very, very geeky and very, very girlie.

3.) Which figure(s) of Poe’s do you most like?

Judging by how often I’ll pick up a toy if it’s sitting around, I’d have to go with Clayface.  I love the squishy arms.  There is also a special place in my heart for the various figures that decorated the tables at our wedding.

The far easier question concerns the toy I least like, which would be the Balrog.  So large, so ugly.  The best part is that when I asked Poe where he was going to keep it, he said “I was thinking on the TV”.  On the TV?!?  I’m not having that thing staring me down in my own living room!

4.) Is there any particular character, in any franchise, that you’d really like to see made as an action figure?

Not really.  My current favorite cartoons (Futurama, The Brave and The Bold) already have action figures, and I’m not a huge fan of figures based on real people because it’s so hard to get the likenesses right.  What I’m most into now are comic and video game related knitting patterns.  Green Lantern baby sweaters, Super Mario Brothers afghans, that sort of thing.  There’s even a full pattern for a Wonder Woman outfit.  The very best thing would be if they published the patterns of the knit Heart of Gold crew from the Hitchhiker’s Guide movie (there’s one quick scene where everything turns knit).  That would be completely awesome, and I would make them ASAP.

5.) When you first got to know Poe, what did you think of his toy collecting?

Poe and I had our first conversation about toys when he lived right across the hall from me.  He called me into his room to show off his Superman, which he had hung from a shelf using fishing line so that it looked like Supes was flying.  He was really proud, but I gave him a funny look.  I think he thought I was judging him because of the toys.  Really, I just thought that using fishing line was kinda obvious (it’s clear and strong, what else would you use?)

I think that there are people in this world who are “stuff” people, and other people who are not.  I come from a stuff kind of family, so I’m used to a lot of stuff around the house. Toys make pretty good stuff because they’re fairly cheap, and often come with funny cartoons.  Plus, as I’ve said before, if I don’t say anything about the toys, he can’t say much about the yarn.