Getting Lucky

Something crazy lucky happened today. 

I think. 

More on this story if and when it officially arrives.

In response to a comment in the previous post: I have been a model horse hobbyist since 1978, a comic book reader since before I entered grade school, and have attended all manner of conventions since the mid-1980s. My favorite Golden Age SF author is A.E. Van Vogt, my favorite kaiju is Gamera, and my family has seen every single Star Trek film ever made in the movie theatre. Even the one where Kirk picks a fight with God!

Today is not the day I write my opus about the model horse hobby being a subcategory of Science-Fiction Fandom. But as someone who’s lived the life, and met several others who have done likewise, I’d like to think that I can write it with a measure of both authority and persuasion when I do. 

Now, back to the Model Horse Nerdery, and the topic of getting lucky: 

I’m not sure how this happened, but I’m taking it! Since I do not consider myself especially lucky, my mind immediately went to several different rationalizations as to why and how I actually got drawn for this opportunity. 

It was only open to VIP ticket holders: okay, there were fewer entries to choose from. That helped.

The fact that it happens on a Wednesday, and a lot of people already have their plans in place and could not accommodate the date: sure, that is definitely a factor.

The cost: yeah, this could be a budget-buster for some folks. Been there, done that: I get it. 

And finally, the cost-benefit analysis: I am not one of these people (obviously!) but if there’s no money to be made at an activity, a lot of hobbyists simply won’t do it. 

I’m a little bit short on extracurricular activities at BreyerFest this year: some of the things I could do I want to save for my future “Redneck Family Roadtrip Redo” either next year or the year after (Derby comes first, and then a still undetermined international location!) And most of the alternate excursions are either not viable schedule-wise or (in at least one instance) ethically questionable.

So the Hillcroft Farm Tour was a perfect fit for me. And I actually get to go!

Whether or not there will be any added “benefits” to the package aside from what’s already been mentioned, I have no clue. This is new territory: this feels more like the farm tours that Reeves used to facilitate at BreyerFest rather than the farm tours that come with Exclusive Event experiences.

But we really have no way of knowing what it will be like, until it happens.

I am going into this experience with that thought in mind. Anything extra that comes out of it is just extra.

Test Color Bears and Other Dreams

Believe it or not, I’ve seen a surprising number of Test Color and Oddity Bears (including a lovely White one at BreyerFest this year!), so the latest Test Color offering isn’t that much of a shock. I’d love to have him, of course, but I am under no illusion that I will picked for it. I’ve got other things to pay for, anyway.

I had a few spare moments yesterday (work was… more stressful than I anticipated) so I thought I’d Google “Breyer”, “Science-Fiction” and “Worldcon”, and this is what I found:

https://file770.com/meet-the-2022-national-toy-hall-of-fame-finalists

A discussion about Breyer on a Science-Fiction Fandom news web site!?! If some of the names are not familiar to you, Cat Rambo was President of the SFWA from 2015-2019, and Cora Buhlert just won a Hugo for Best Fan Writer.

And proceeding to do a deeper dive, I found these obscure YouTube gems:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yp42r0TKP0Q

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeyBUMvHN34

More proof that the model horse hobby is, indeed, fanac. 

So my childhood fantasy of someday being nominated for a Hugo Award is not completely out there? And the possibility of a Science-Fiction or Fantasy-themed BreyerFest is also not quite as crazy as some may think? 

Sweet. 

Line and Form

Today was not a good day, and I would very much like to crawl under a rock. 

Aside from everything else that’s going on, I thought I’d take my live show paperwork to work to finish it during break and lunch. Not only did that not happen, I didn’t discover until I got home that had left it all at work, so now I won’t be able to work on it at all today at home, either. 

So now I can’t finish it until tomorrow, when I had planned on getting to bed early and catch a couple extra hours of sleep, since I am not going to get much on Saturday because of the scheduling conflict I mentioned before. 

That’s just awesome. And pretty much par for the course this week.

Since I never got around to my Chicago Worldcon report (those notes are also with the live show paperwork. Like I said, not a good day), I want to at least highlight one of the things I bought there: a tiny piece of art I bought from a dealer who had purchased the archives from the estate of Virgil Finlay. 

I wasn’t comfortable buying one of the dealer’s more expensive pieces, but I thought this item – a cover proof from his time illustrating astrology magazines – was both very affordable, and so very, very on point for me, as a horse person attending The Science Fiction Convention in Chicago. The spot colors were also a plus: a very Breyer-esque Blue and Yellow!

I may get it framed some time in the future, but for now it’s just going to reside in my ephemera archives.

Virgil Finlay has always been one of my favorite science-fiction illustrators, and the dream would be to own one of his originals. The dealer had some sketches of horses (not full-on, finished artwork) that were a temptation, but maybe another day, or another lifetime.  

Some of his artwork was on display in the Korshak Collection room at Worldcon – in addition to works by Frank R. Paul, Hannes Bok, Emsh, the Brothers Hildebrandt, and so many others – but the piece that really caught my eye there was Stanley Meltzoff’s cover illustration for the paperback edition of Robert Heinlein’s The Green Hills of Earth. It had a beautiful, painterly quality to it that reproduction just cannot capture. If there was one painting in that room I could have stolen, it would have been that!

(Just being in that room was one of the many highlights of Worldcon.)

The Inherent Danger of Shiny Objects

The past four days have been an absolute nightmare that ended with me in Urgent Care this morning with an eye problem. 

This is an entirely separate problem from the exhaustion thing, which had led to me spending most of my interrupted weekend in bed, which then led to my back giving out and even more time in bed because I couldn’t get out of it.

Everything seemed fine by Monday morning, I thought. 

Then I woke up with something in my eye Monday evening right before I went to work, and it’s still there.

I just woke up a couple hours ago and it’s quite apparent that whatever they tried to do at Urgent Care did not work, so even further medical intervention may be necessary on Wednesday or Thursday if the situation does not resolve itself on its own by then.

So needless to say, model horse stuff is on the backburner until this is fixed. It’s more irritating than painful, but I’ve had it with my week of sickness and anything involving my eyes makes me nervous and I don’t have the patience to deal with this anymore. 

I have a live show in a week and a half and I haven’t even printed out anything to start assembling my show string. I was just going to treat it as a “fun show” anyway, but it’s like the Universe is attempting to make even that low bar a challenge.

Why can’t I have just a little bit of fun without dire consequences? Must karma always bite me in the butt? 

Here’s a little bit of actual model horse content to keep you entertained while medical professionals prepare to drop more mysterious liquids into my eyes:

It’s the Stardust I had Peter Beagle sign! As far as I could tell, I was the only person who brought a Unicorn to be signed, which surprised me a bit because if you were at Worldcon itself, you would have noticed that it was very… unicorn-flavored. Reeves probably could have done well with a table full of Unicorns in the vendor area. 

 

(FYI: Unicorns taste like cake batter. I recommend the Kroger Unicorn Oreo Knockoffs!)

I chose the Stardust because he was the most readily available Breyer Unicorn that I had, and he’s one of my favorites anyway, with his darling little space pants. Photographs were taken of the occasion (not of, or by me.) I also told Mr. Beagle that he had many fans in the model horse community and that we’d love to see him someday if he’s willing and able. 

A Very Brief Report From Your Ambassador to Another Planet

Here is the extremely condensed summary of my Chicon 8 report, in the style of Grant Morrison’s All-Star Superman:

• Made friends.
• Forged alliances. 
• Plotted the destruction of my enemies.
• Partied like a rockstar. 

I had a wonderful time, and I wish (more of) you could have made it. A bigger and better report of the trip will be posted in a couple of days, after my ears stop ringing and the laundry gets washed.

(And also: I will neither confirm nor deny that there may be video of me dancing somewhere on the Internet.)

One Perfect Day

Even though I had publicly committed to the idea of attending Motor City Comic Con this year, in private I was still apprehensive. The live shows I was attending were private events with familiar folks, but Motor City was… huge. And unlike a live show, it would be utterly anonymous and (essentially) alone.

Not only did I feel unprepared, I could think of so many other things that were better uses of my time that weekend: my garden, working on a Diorama Contest entry, listing my mountain of unsold stuff on the Internet…

But then I got news of Liz Bouras’s passing a couple days before the convention, and that’s when I knew I had to go. Although it was purely a coincidence, it didn’t feel like one.

As many of you may have surmised by now, I have had an… interesting life, to say the least. And some of the more interesting stories have involved me in comic book fandom. One of those stories has me at a Motor City Comic Con in the early 1990s with my fandom friends Ken and Mercy. 

This might have been the first time we met in person; that I cannot remember. What I do remember was that one of the first things they told me when I met up with them was: Liz and Paula are here.

That would be Liz Bouras, and Paula O’Keefe. It’s a long story, but they had been friends for a while, but through the comic book side of things. It was something I only found out about after I “met” Ken and Mercy through the pages of the APA Interlac a short time before.

I never did get to see Liz or Paula that day, but it was strangely comforting to know that other model horse people were present.

You see, when I first entered the hobby in the late 1970s, I was concerned I wouldn’t fit in. I felt that I wasn’t your average horse girl: I like other, more nerdier stuff too, and most of the horse girls in my area balked when I started talking about comic books, old movies, cartoons and Star Wars.

But when I opened up my first issue of The Model Horse Shower’s Journal – the September 1978 issue, to be specific – I learned that I had nothing to worry about. There were lots of people in the hobby just like me. That I found this place was no coincidence: it is where I belonged. 

Although I wouldn’t consider Liz a close friend, our paths crossed many times, and we had several friends in common. I entered the hobby just as she was coming into her own in it, as the hobby was transitioning from its earliest, wildest days to something a little more formalized and organized. 

It wasn’t until early last year that I was able to acquire a custom of hers – a vintage piece from that very era – in a body box lot. She was able to confirm it was hers on [this very] blog, and needless to say, he will be with me always. 

Through a different mutual acquaintance, I also ended up becoming the caretaker of a portion of her hobby papers a while back. It was not long after I made a commitment to collecting not just the history of model horse manufacturers, but of the hobby in general. I had no idea that she had been doing much the same. After her passing, I felt I like I was now carrying a part of her katra.

But anyway, back to the Comic Con. I hesitated to buy tickets ahead of time, so I found myself standing in the shorter line to buy tickets at the opposite end of the building. I was minding my own business when someone who had just picked up their prepaid wristbands walked up to me.

“Would you like a free wristband? Someone in our party couldn’t make it, and we have an extra.” 

I was verklempt. Of course I would. In the not-very-short walk to the other side of the building, he asked me what brought me to the convention this year. I told him a little about Liz, and of course about the Breyer Lafayette I had stuffed in my messenger bag. William Shatner was one of the marquee guests this year, and I got the crazy notion several months earlier of having him sign it for me. 

When I got to the end of wristband line, I parted ways with my unknown benefactor. After a moment or two to compose myself, I struck up a casual conversation with the very talkative gentleman in front of me. (As one does at any convention, really.) 

After a few minutes of talking, I realized that… I knew who he was.

I won’t go into the details, because even though some of you are nerds of the highest order, I suspect most of you won’t know who Kim Metzger is or what he’s famous for. He actually apologized for it (he didn’t need to!) 

And again, it felt like kismet: I doubt anybody else in that line that day would have known who he was. At many comic book conventions nowadays comic books have become almost secondary, so the fact that two “old school” fans could find each other, and talk about comic book things at what was ostensibly a comic book convention was… all that I could ask for.

Even if the convention offered up no other delights, the experience had already been totally worth it. 

While I didn’t get to do everything I wanted to do that day (I didn’t get a signed copy of Danny Trejo’s cookbook, or meet Freddie Stroma), I did see what I wanted to see, and attend most of the panels I wanted to attend. And I did get Shatner to sign my Lafayette!

That was when I believe I reached Peak Nerd. There I was at my first Motor City Comic Con in years, wearing a Kingdom Come Superman shirt, waiting in line to have Shatner sign the Breyer Lafayette I had stuffed in my Hello Kitty messenger bag. The only thing that could possibly be missing was a lightsaber or sword. (Though to be honest, I did briefly shop for one!)

(He smiled and said “Thank you”, by the way. I’m pretty sure I was the only person who actually brought him a horse to sign that weekend. I wish I could have said something in return, but like always, I found myself speechless.)

I walked out of the building that day and marveled at how everything had fallen into place to make this experience a reality: I could not have asked for a more perfect day. I was so glad I said yes to what the Universe had in store for me.

People always tell me that I’m brave to do some of the things that I do, like traveling cross-country alone. I don’t necessarily see it as a matter of bravery, but necessity. Life is meant to lived, for as long as you have it: when an adventure offers itself, sometimes you have no choice but to take it.

Peak Nerd

Had a great time, wish you were there:

So there I was at the Motor City Comic Con, in my Kingdom Come Superman shirt, waiting in line to have Shatner sign the Breyer Lafayette I have stuffed in my Hello Kitty messenger bag, and the thought occurred to me: have I achieved Peak Nerd?

I came to the conclusion: probably not. I think I would have needed either a sword/lightsaber, or a full-on cosplay to complete the superfecta. But considering that I had been wavering about going all week, I think I did alright.

I had wavered because, well, I have a lot on my plate right now: I have to finish getting my garden in, I haven’t even started my BreyerFest paperwork, and there’s a live show this weekend I haven’t done much to get prepared for yet. 

But the news of Liz’s passing made me realize how important these kind of events are for my mental and emotional well-being: although I am not the most social person in the world, from time to time I need to be in the presence of people I don’t know with whom I can have long conversations about nerdy things. 

It’s been nearly three years since the last in-person BreyerFest, and I don’t know how long since my last visit to the Motor City Comic Con. It was time. I had to be brave. I had to go. 

I won’t go into the details of my experience today – maybe I’ll save it for the Sampler? – but it turned out pretty magical. One of the very first people I had a conversation with, for example, wasn’t a stranger at all. And I wouldn’t have had that chance meeting if someone didn’t gift me a free ticket right there in the parking lot of the Suburban Collection Showplace.

(I was seriously verklempt.)

But anyway, I’ll probably be pretty scarce for the rest of the week because that adventure really did put a kink in my plans. (I’ll deal. I always do.) 

Be excellent to each other while I’m away, okay? All we have is each other, you know. 

The Signature Issue

It looks like the decision about BreyerFest Live has been made for me, which is actually fine: I’m already signed up for two other live shows this year and possibly a third, and I’d rather get a little more experience under my belt before I tackle something that big, anyway. So next year it is, maybe? 

I’d also rather focus on my more immediate needs, like socializing and selling. And unlike a lot of other hobbyists for whom BreyerFest Live is the only show they either have access to or are comfortable attending, I have more options.   

Breakables is still a possibility, of course. The resin show is not: I only own one resin – the 2011 BreyerFest Store Special Sorcerer’s Apprentice – and honestly I’m too afraid of breaking him to even take him out of the box, except for the occasional photograph.  

I still have a little bit of lingering resentment from when resins first became a big thing, too: some the early adopters were not the least bit nice to us OF Breyer enthusiasts, and I have a hard time forgetting. 

I’d rather not rehash the old arguments, though. Our worlds rarely intersect nowadays.

I’ve finally – well, more or less – finished unpacking from the show last weekend. This week I’ll be working on mostly nonhorsey things, like my taxes, some early gardening prep, and an applique project (some vintage Dresden Plate blocks that I found at the local Salvation Army, years ago) that’s coming along a little more quickly than I anticipated.

Oh, there is one model horse related thing I should probably put to a community vote: guys, should I get Shat to sign a horse for me?

Normally I am not a signature-oriented person at these conventions: I go to shop, people watch, and attend panels and stuff. For those of you who do no conventions outside of BreyerFest, just imagine BreyerFest without the horses or the room sales. 

Motor City Comic Con has been my go-to comic convention since the late 1980s, when I have had the time or inclination. There have been a few times I’ve (almost) run into model horse people at the Motor City Comic Con, but that’s more of a “nerds being nerds” thing than a “me being weird” thing. 

There’s always been a lot of overlap between those two worlds: an enterprising soul could probably get a pretty good research paper or thesis out of it, but I am not that person.

But back to the signature issue. Signatures on model horses, by and large, don’t add a lot to the value of a model, unless the signer is someone who is historically important outside the world of model horses. It never hurts the value though, and if it has a personal or historical meaning to the person getting the signature, monetary gain is irrelevant.  

And that’s where I’m at with this. Value is not that big a consideration for me, except where it becomes so high that it impedes my ability to buy something I want or love.

As awkward as it is sometimes, I love it when my worlds collide. A memento of that collision might be worth the price. I also think Shatner might enjoy the possibility of signing something that’s horse-related for a change, as well. 

(I may have to get a signed copy of Danny Trejo’s cookbook too, because how dope a Mother’s Day gift would that be for Mom?)

The Forgotten Generation

Star Wars tickets were successfully purchased, with a minimum of drama. And why yes, I am super-excited about the SPACE HORSES.

The connection between the model horse community and the science-fiction one is long and well-documented, so I will be very disappointed in you guys (waving hand at entirety of the model horse community) if I don’t see any Orback customs by BreyerFest at the latest. Get to it, everybody!

Anyway.

I only just skimmed my issue of Just About Horses (it arrived yesterday) so I’ll leave that for another time, other than to express the sentiment that I am sure is on the lips – or in the thoughts – of many model horse hobbyists: an injection-molded Akhal-Teke, at last!

No, what I want to discuss today is my annoyance at some of the early 70th Anniversary merchandise, like this Journal here:

(There’s also a blanket and a beach towel.)

Conceptually, these products should appeal to me as both a quilt designer and a Breyer historian. And at first glance, they did.

But then I took a closer look at it, and realized that… this was not terribly well-thought out or well-executed.

I think they started out with the idea of seven different models for each of the seven different decades, but started taking some liberties with it when they realized there weren’t that many horse molds released in the 1950s.

And by the end of it, it looks like they just decided to use whatever silhouettes they had on file.

Not only that, there are a number of historical errors in it. The Family Arabian Stallion probably debuted in 1959; the Family Arabian Mare debuted ca. 1960, not 1958 – that was the Old Mold/Proud Arabian Mare; the Running Mare was probably released in 1962, not 1961; and of course, the Zippo Pine Bar was a 1999 release, not a 2007 one.

(The graphic for Zippo obviously being cribbed from the 30th Anniversary BreyerFest graphic without being properly edited, I presume.)

I am also not thrilled that, like the generation that grew up on them (frantically waves hands) – models from the 1980s were largely ignored. Only four models from that decade were included, but three from the last two years – Bristol, Hamilton and Georg – were?

Not cool, Reeves. 

While it may be true that the 1980s were considered the least artistically successful decade in Breyer History, many of those molds are still in active use today. I’d consider some of them more historically significant – at least, at this moment in time – than newer releases like Latigo or Desatado.

Phar Lap (1985) was used for the first BreyerFest Celebration Horse Dr. Peaches; Buckshot (1985) has appeared as a BreyerFest Raffle Model, Prize Model, and Live Show Benefit Model (Winchester, Pele and Reno, respectively); Roy (1989) was sculpted by the legendary Francis Eustis and recently used as a BreyerFest Celebration Model; and Secretariat (1987) was Chris Hess’s last official sculpt for Breyer and also Secretariat.

So I would have swapped out a few of the 2000/2010 models with a few of those, and maybe included the Fury/Prancer and one of the Nonhorse molds (Boxer or the Brahma Bull) from the 1950s to even things out a bit.

But what do I know, right?

More Photos from the Slush Pile

Another random picture day. First up, my really handsome Dapple Gray Proud Arabian Stallion:

He’s an earlier variation, obviously, with two airbrushed hind socks just like the *Witez II variation of the Mahogany Bay. And like my *Witez II, he’s almost perfect – just a slight bit of yellowing, and some tiny hoof and eartip rubs. A bit of light restoration and he’d be showring ready.

Hmm. I guess I should get cracking and finally track down a minty-mint heavily shaded early Alabaster guy to complete the trio, eh?

(My guess is that it’ll be another incidental find like the other two: it’ll happen when it happens.)

Next up is something I scanned a bit ago to talk about the hobby really being an offshoot of science-fiction fandom:

Oldsters among us will recognize the name Dragonquest, as in Linda Leach-Hardy’s Dragonquest Studios. She was a local artist/customizer for me (other side of town, though) so I very occasionally run across some of her old customs at the local flea market.

The last time I did it was actually kind of funny; I was looking the model over, and the seller was trying to impress me with “And it’s signed by the ARTIST!” and I came back with something like “Yeah, I used to hang out with the ARTIST back in the 1980s. I even had her do a commission for me!”

(Hey, it was like 7:30 a.m. on a Sunday morning. That’s about as sick a burn as I could muster.)

Here’s that wee custom, by the way:

While’s we’re at it, here’s a scan of the first official appearance of Comet, the Super-Horse, because why the heck not:

I think it was in my reference files because I was thinking about doing a Comet custom for the “Fantasy” division of the Customs Contest last year. Which didn’t happen last year, this year, or probably any time soon, because that giant scary pile of unfinished quilts in the laundry room isn’t getting any smaller.

And finally, here’s a fellow I’ve been wanting to talk about for a while, but I never got around to it for some reason. First, a more recent photo of him:

And the original photo of him, from Marney’s Album:

From the style of the original photograph, it’s pretty obvious that he’s a very early Test Color for the Appaloosa Performance Horse. But is he an actual pre-1974 Test for the Appaloosa Performance Horse?

I’d like to think so: even if the evidence is lacking, the timing is right.

It’s kind of interesting that they were experimenting with different types of roaning just as they were phasing out the old style of “Freckle” roaning, isn’t it? I’ll having to write that topic down for future investigation...

Back to (BreyerFest) work.

Boldly Going

Interesting choice of BreyerFest Celebration Horse this year, don’t you think? I was wondering how they’d bring the "Hollywood" theme: All Glory’s owner is William Shatner. Yeah, the one and only. Sweet!

The story so far is that only his wife Elizabeth will be on hand; man, could you imagine the autograph line that would ensue if he did? I don’t normally get my models autographed, but I’d make an exception here!

I’ve long considered the model horse community to be just one of the more peculiar offshoots of SF fandom. When I received my first issue of the MHSJ, back in September 1978, I was both delighted - and relieved - to discover that so many of my fellow hobbyists shared my other nerdy obsessions.

I was a bit too young to watch Trek in its original run, but my brother and I both avidly watched the animated series in the early 1970s. I received the complete series as a Christmas present a couple of years ago, and was surprised at how well it has held up. (The animation was cheesy - pure Filmation - but the stories were solid.)

This isn’t Reeves’s first encounter with Trek: remember the 2003 Best School Horse Contest Winner #1251 Commander Riker? He only happened to be named after TNG’s "Number One," but it still gave me a bit of a thrill to my hobbies collide unexpectedly.

Come to think of it, I did pick up a Commander Riker in the NPOD last year, among the boxed up warehouse leftovers. And he was in a leftover "Madison Avenue" box. You know, of the Rejoice mold. (Spooky!)

I’m not all that displeased with the mold choice; All Glory may be a Standardbred, technically, but in a photograph on the inside cover of the BreyerFest 2010 supplement he looks almost exactly like Rejoice mold. I think we’ve become a bit spoiled on the "new mold for BreyerFest" idea. I wouldn’t be surprised if a new mold shows up in the Tent Line SRs, or in the NPOD itself.