Toys By Zimotco (All Photos By Gail)

OMG. Of all the trade shows making their way back after a million billion years of Covid, no return to the land-of-the-living has thrilled me more than that of Five Points Festival — the Mother of All Toy Shows — because Five Points just plain rules! If you failed to make that scene, here’s just a smidgeon of what you missed. Losers.

Art By Nate Bear

Five Points Festival took place this year in a new venue, Zero Space, as its previous home, the Brooklyn Expo Center, closed to become — wait for it — a fucking gym! Lame City! Fortunately, Zero Space was very welcoming to all the freaks and geeks like me who love designer toys, horror movies, and things that are cute and nerdy. So, change is good!

I met up at the venue with my pal Ken, and we proceeded to spend the afternoon having all kinds of crazy fun. Please enjoy my photo highlights from Five Points Fest 2022!

You know that you are among your Tribe when the one of the first things you see is a Sucky Panther Mug. This one ($40 = cheap) was being sold by Electric Anvil Tattoo, who were also on site – you guessed it – tattooing people. Sucky Panther for the win!

OPN Heart Limited edition sculpture by Jason Naylor.

Poster artist and designer Tara McPherson was there, selling dozens of her signature cool posters and lots of her Stellar Dream Scouts vinyl mini figures. She’s been making these little guys for a few years and they are super popular. I like the Pink Angry Mountain the best.

Turtle Caps is a customizable, blank vinyl figure that lets you create a unique work of  art in your own style.

This one has been given a Fruity Pebbles look, and the artist also staged him atop a bowl of real Fruity Pebbles that he set-in-place with white glue to look like milk — clever!

While no actual Turtle Caps figure was used in the making of this tiny ice cream truck replica with a sundae-themed mini Turtle Caps on its roof, you can see that the creative possibilities are endless. Turtle Caps sell for about $40 — very affordable!

We found so many fun items at the booth for Reputable and Trustworthy Playthings. Click on the above photo to enlarge for details of their Rejected Handheld Video Games (Glengarry GlenRoss, anyone?) which are a true collectors item at just $75 each.

Any movie fan especially would enjoy their Foreign Movie Title Prints (just $20) such as this one, promoting the 1996 film Swingers by the title it’s known by in other parts of the world. So ‘Money!’

While am not a Baseball fan, I did Google the above statement for my own edification. Limited Edition George Brett Figure: $200.

I enjoyed meeting so many cool people at the show, like David of Brucaroni Toys n’ Thangs (slogan: Release Your Inner Child!). David is holding one of his original creations, Chubby Ghost, who is perched atop a Pez Dispenser. Oh, the cuteness.

David is a graphic designer who only recently started making toys and he was super excited to be exhibiting at his very first Five Points Festival! His stuff is great and we wish him lots of success!

This is artist Rick Sans (right) and his associate in their booth, posing by a display that got my attention immediately.  Rick received a large donation of colored, transparent and tie-dye vinyl records, and proceeded to paint each with a one-of-a-kind design. There was a pop culture icon to please everyone! Let’s zoom-in for a close-up.

What a great, original artwork to add to any collection!

Color me very impressed with the booth for From Beyond FX. As Stefon from SNL would say, “This Place has Everything”: Latex monster masks, action figures, jewelry, hilarious pop culture-referencing t-shirts, stickers and a very cool artist, Jasce manning the booth.

Jasce is holding a character mask called Skeletomaton, which is so crazy and Darth Vader-esque. He told me the character’s backstory, which I will try to repeat here, but of course I can’t tell it as good as him:

‘In the future, astronauts wear life-sustaining spacesuits which will allow their biological functions to continue while they are in space. Hundreds of years pass, and a lone astronaut returns to earth. Although he has died, his skeleton is being kept alive and mobile by this suit, which has basically integrated with his body.’ Insane, right? I could have talked to Jasce for hours about horror movies and special FX, but it was time to move on. Check out more scary masks below.

Very Scary!

Five Points is an event where you are going to find lots of  limited edition and one-off toys and figures, like this custom-painted Cyclone Musculoid figure (with extra weapons!) created by artist Frank Russo. I hope he went to a good home!

This custom painted Ghost of Halloween Past figure is by Sam Heimer.

There is so much to unpack with this figure by Cherry Moth Cake that I wish I had taken the time to pose it against a plain background before taking this photo. Sorry.