Collectables

Things we’ve been playing with this month

1 In need of some unmissable ID for your hold-alls? Check out this colourful range of Lego Batman luggage tags (FPI price £9.99 each; product codes H1535, H1536, H1537, H1533, H1534). They’re satisfyingly tactile in a deeply primal, rubbery way. You get to choose from Batman, a goggleeyed Robin, the Joker (digging his little skull buttons), Harley Quinn and Kimono Batman, who’s a bit of a swinging Bat-chelor (looks like he keeps the mask on, laydeez).

2 You learn a lot of things in this job – like how to say “melamine plate set” in Italian. “Servizio di piatti in melamina”, it says here, for this set of Deadpool logo plates (FPI price £7.99; product code F5586) clearly has pan-European appeal. Made of sturdy plastic, they’d make a good impromptu throwing weapon if you’re ambushed mid-picnic. Did you know that the logo’s evil-eyed look came about by accident? Artist Mark Brooks drew the Merc with a Mouth’s belt buckle from memory, but got it wrong!

3 SFX usually sups its butterbeer from gigantic steins, so we’re not convinced these Harry Potter large glasses (FPI price £7.99 each; product codes H2035, H2036) – 20% smaller than a pint! – justify the name. We’d be happier with “reasonably sized”. But we’re actually losing more sleep over the Voldemort glass, which boasts a Death Eater mark and, on the reverse, a “He Who Must Not Be Named” slogan. Isn’t that technically a name?

4 No sizing grumbles when it comes to this pair of Harry Potter glasses (FPI price £9.99; product code H2037). Not sure about the wording, though –

Muggle Studies is fair enough, but “Don’t let the Muggles get you down”…? As Muggles ourselves, we find that mildly offensive. We’re a lot of fun too, you know.

5 Keen followers of these pages will remember that in issue 286 we moaned about a BB-8 teapot whose only real resemblance to the droid was its colour scheme. No such problem with this BB-8 salt and pepper

shaker (FPI price £8.99; product code F5598) – it so looks the part that you can spin his head and pretend there’s a porcelain astromech on your kitchen table. What a shame, then, that one of his two main payloads is salt, a substance which we all know is even worse than the Dark Side.

6 “Diane: 12.02pm, the offices of Future Publishing. I am holding three small plastic toys. Each came in a box describing them as Twin Peaks

Pop! vinyl figures. Quite what that means is unclear. With them is a piece of paper of equally mysterious import. On it are the words ‘FPI price £9.99 each; product codes H1224, H1225, H1228’. One figure resembles Audrey Horne; she is smoking a cigarette. The second is Margaret Lanterman, aka the Log Lady. The third appears to be the man Ronette Pulaski described as Laura Palmer’s killer. The purpose of these sinister simulacra remains unclear; perhaps they were created for some strange ritual. The box illustration also depicts figures of Leland Palmer, the body of Laura Palmer, and myself. Clearly they are the product of a disturbed mind. This warrants further investigation.”

7 Following the release of the second film, Star-Lord and co take a break from saving the universe to become the guardians of your bedroom! This series of Guardians Of The

Galaxy hero plushies (FPI price £11.99 each; product codes F6348, F6349, F6350, F6351) includes Star-Lord with his shiny helmet, Baby Groot with and without a space suit, and a super-cute Rocket Racoon with suitably mangled fur and bushy eyebrows (please don’t tell him we called him cute). Being a soft toy is a plush gig…