What is the Mego Style

[Mikey]

Mego style is making something super accurate and other things super inaccurate on the same figure for no apparent reason.

Gi Joe with pink clown pants would be Mego style

[Hedji]

For me it's the printed bodysuits. Especially for Joker, Penguin, or Dracula. Rather than layers of tailored clothing, you approximate the look with a printed bodysuit.

That, and oven mitts.

[JediJaida]

Well, layers and layers of clothing on a figure that small just would NOT look good at all!

You'd lose all poseability with all of that cloth in the way of the joints.

While the printed bodysuits were a better choice, some of them were just TOO cartooney, if you know what I mean.

And the knit fabric, what was up with that?

My Wonder Woman's bodysuit got would get filthy from the amount of playing, and me like an idiot, I used hand soap and a nail brush on it to get the dirt out.

I got it clean, but eventually it faded from so much washing and scrubbing.

And it never occurred to me to turn the suit inside out to save the paintjob.

[BlackKnight]

BK Says a lot of ****, But it doesn't Matter What He says 1st and Foremost.

To The Topic, ... To me , Mego Style is More so Mego Like , which could be considered Anything 8inch with Clothes And Assessories ..., Some of the Comments in this Thread, Make me think People are confusing these Terms with That of MegoEsque, which is more so a Phrase used to Describe a Custom or a Figure that Perhaps looks as if Mego the Company Made it in 1970 whatever.

If we are Creatively Debating Here ..., It's Just silly to think that if Mego Woulda Still been around Today, and Never quit the Game, that the Figures woulda still looked like 1970 "Megoesque" , which Most Re-Mego try or try'ed to capture. There mighta been a 35Anniversary line ...., or other Inspired nonsense ..., But Come On Man ..., Look At Star Wars, Transformers, Barbie, 12inch Figures , Joes and any Kinda Figure..., Evolution Happened.

Evolution Already Happened in the WGSH Line before It's Demise, with Many, Many Different things.

[Scousebadger]

BK Says a lot of ****, But it doesn't Matter What He says 1st and Foremost.

To The Topic, ... To me , Mego Style is More so Mego Like , which could be considered Anything 8inch with Clothes And Assessories ..., Some of the Comments in this Thread, Make me think People are confusing these Terms with That of MegoEsque, which is more so a Phrase used to Describe a Custom or a Figure that Perhaps looks as if Mego the Company Made it in 1970 whatever.

If we are Creatively Debating Here ..., It's Just silly to think that if Mego Woulda Still been around Today, and Never quit the Game, that the Figures woulda still looked like 1970 "Megoesque" , which Most Re-Mego try or try'ed to capture. There mighta been a 35Anniversary line ...., or other Inspired nonsense ..., But Come On Man ..., Look At Star Wars, Transformers, Barbie, 12inch Figures , Joes and any Kinda Figure..., Evolution Happened.

Evolution Already Happened in the WGSH Line before It's Demise, with Many, Many Different things.

I have to agree with this. If Mego had survived to today then it would have developed and evolved in many different ways. Otherwise it would still have gone under.

If this thread proves anything, is that people have their own reasons for liking Mego figures, and that "Mego like" means different things to different people.

[PNGwynne]

I think BK makes a valuable distiction between Mego-like (to me, a broad genre of figure) and Megoesque (a term I use often--a style). For me personally, I (like Scott A & others here) aim for a Megoesque quality in designing my customs.

That's because my customs are purposefully intended as line extensions of existing Megos, circa 1975. I am limiting myself to a retro style.

But I feel Mego-like means 1/9 scale, cloth removeable clothing, and a low-to-moderate level of plastic accessories. I do concede that Mego evolved, so increased articulation like swivel necks or biceps are plausible.

I think, barring scale, that the new R2 Captain Action sets are both Mego-like & Megoesque lol.

[hedrap]

Thanks for all the input. Very helpful.

I think Mikey and Hedji hit something, Printed bodysuits can be very accurate, while at the same time, very odd. To me, it's because we're looking at comic art pretty closely transposed to a 2d printing, but then placed on a 3D figure. In a box, it works because it like an embossed comic panel. But free standing, it takes on its own aesthetic, which most would recognize as Mego.

So as JJ said, layered clothing would have killed mobility, but as BK, T3 and others have shown, those layers with hyperposability can function. Again, I come back to Famous Covers and how the body designs are overall very good, especially the last incarnations (Spidey Origins and Signature Series), but the FC fabrics and molds are way more hit-n-miss than Mego ever was.

And the description of Django as mini-Hot Toys is dead-on. I saw it as if McFarlane attempted Mego scale.

[ctc]

>in terms of longevity, I think it's life span was cut well short because those factors were not considered beforehand

Possibly; although for most toy lines it's assumed they're only gonna last a year anyway. Anything more is gravy. The Retro stuff lasted a little longer, didn't it? So it's possible the Mattel guys don't consider it a failure; just not enough of a win to continue. They'd have to do SPECTACULARLY well to see the line continue.

>It's Just silly to think that if Mego Woulda Still been around Today, and Never quit the Game, that the Figures woulda still looked like 1970 "Megoesque"

True; although we're right around the point they would have done a "classics" line, to cash in on nostalgia. (And you KNOW they'd still have the molds. Hell; they'd probably have used the Bruce Wayne head SOMEHOW for their "Game of Thrones" line....) It's an interesting pondrance: would Mego have maintained the "they're just toys" attitude they started with, or.... had they and the 8" format persisted, would they have succombed to the "No! They're collectibles!!!" attitude of the 90's?

Don C.

[johnmiic]

I think James Brady struck the right balance in his Star Trek sculpts. The resemblances were spot-on yet still MEGO style.








The costumes by DaveMC were not necessarily printed but sewn w/some layers.



I think this is the right balance. I would love to have seen James tackle other non ST subjects:

http://www.megomuseum.com/custom/jamesbrady.shtml

Doc, still hoping you make more of James's ST sculpts officially in the ST line.

[hedrap]

Yeah, I can agree with that.

His Michael Ansara/Kang Klingon and Mark Lenard/Sarek are awesome.

This discussion made me reevaluate how I was going to approach my customs. I never considered the softness of the heads as detrimental to the level of detail, but it makes sense. It makes me look at the FC heads, as bad as some sculpts were and appreciate what the attempt. As BK has pointed out before, the generic yelling FC face is gawd awful for most choices, but it didn't dawn on me until closer inspection that it was all some strange attempt to swipe the Image style for Marvel characters. The whole face has that constipated Liefeld look.

[ZICA]

. . I don't know if there's a way to gauge how 8" Sideshow-like stuff would fare. So far, other than the Jango line, have we seen anything that really goes that far? . . .

[THE MEGO]

If I would have known or had a bad feeling, "MEGO" was going to go down,...I would have bought as many of them as possible. But no,...I didn't listen to my gut feeling.

Mitch

[megowgsh]

I didn't want to put this out there until I had a chance to re-read some older threads, because I've really been caught in this loop the past few weeks. Maybe it's because a spent a few college years in debate/argumentation courses, but I'm really trying to figure out (eat that pun) what is the criteria for "Mego Style".

BK put it in one thread as "8-Inch Cloth", which does work at the most basic level. But Mego did some really, really specific things that for me are hard to discard.

Take Iron Man for example, he's a later figure and one of their most detailed. Yet the face is about as bizarre an interpretation as one can find. I assumed it was due to the old "Dr. Doom" legend because it was a logical conclusion. But when I found that characterization of Iron Man - visible eyes, nose bridge - existed in comic form, I had to accept it was deliberate. The problem, is it only existed for barely a year in the mid 70's and predominantly in Avengers issues. This was certainly not the license look Marvel was using for IM before, during or after.

Then I look at Cap and his black "A" forehead, Thing and his yawning mouth, Green Arrow's visible eyes, Whoexactlyisthat Shazam, Elven Aquaman, and I realize so much was based on one misinterpreted image and not the more universal traits of that character. For example, Toho has a bible that all licensors must follow for Godzilla that stipulates the spiked spinal column, the feet, hands, tail and any deviation from that baseline can revoke the license. Emmerich's Godzilla did the bare minimum to meet the requirements which is why Toho disowned it almost instantly.

So because Mego either wasn't given one, or no one cared, we have character anomalies from start to finish. Now, to be truly "Megoesque" wouldn't you have to hold to the same pattern?

As screwy as that sounds, wouldn't a Mego Silver Surfer be all white with some black areas, because the Mego artists apparently didn't understand shading, as we can see with Cap's head. Wouldn't Namor be in his Black Manta Ray costume, since that was his garb for during this time? How about Black Goliath, Yellowjacket and Tigra instead of Hawkeye, Giant Man and Wasp?

I guess I find it interesting how everything splits between Megoesque and Flatt, but the Megoesque are more faithful to the iconic look than Mego, while trying to invoke, what, Mego aesthetics? So what are those?

All replies welcome.

I live my life with the quest of capturing the Mego-style with each and every custom I create so I feel compelled to answer.

Simply put mego-style, or megoesque, is the customizing style that achieves symmetry between your customs and 8" Mego action figures regardless of the line (WGSH, POTA, Trek, etc.).

In other words, the goal of a customizer who strives for the megoesque style is to hear the words, "Yeah, Mego could have made that", from everybody who looks at their customs. I want people to look at my Justice League and not be able to tell whether my Black Vulcan or my Martian Manhunter are customs or original Megos like my Superman and Batman. Now, experts will of course know, but laymen will not and therein lies the "rub".

Two of my favorite customizers of all time are tbolt and blackknight, and with all due respect, I could never display their customs with Mego 8" action figures and have people not know there is a difference. Their styles are completely unique, completely fantastic and completely not megoesque. It would be like displaying Famous Covers with Mattel Retro Heroes: similar, not the same.

And another thing, I try not to over-think these customs by asking myself what would Mego do now. I try to make them as if they were made back then and that Mego really did close shop in 1983. (Even if I am doing a character that came out after their demise)
For what its worth...

[jimsmegos]

Completely agreed.