Post by LadyWinterWolf on Sept 30, 2004 1:51:22 GMT -5
Posted in the Toronto Star
GeekMan just the fad for a computer lad
Action figure by Toronto geek
Real people being turned into plastic
RAJU MUDHAR
TORONTO STAR
Your computer is making the whir-click-pop sound that is synonymous with death. A hacker is scaling your firewall. That latest worm is burrowing into your inbox. For these emergencies there is only one hero to call ... GeekMan to the rescue!
Blessed with such powers as ungodly coding abilities and the ability to decipher technical acronyms, GeekMan is an action figure to watch over your desk and guard your hard drive from evil. In toystores and sold online, it goes for $19.
Every good hero needs an origin story. What would Spider-Man be without the radioactive spider? Or Superman without the escape rocket from his exploding planet?
GeekMan began as the daydream of Kris Schantz, a Toronto foot soldier in the high-tech revolution. By day, he worked in a cube farm toiling on his computer. By night, he went home ... and toiled on his computer. He was a geek and he knew it. When the tech bubble burst and techies were thrown out of work, the idea came to him for a hero unlike any ever seen.
"The dotcom boom/bust was a wild ride, but its ending (in 1999) was pretty abrupt. I had a lot of friends who were laid off and had seen their bank accounts rise, surge and crash like you wouldn't believe. So I kind of figured we needed some help," says Schantz.
"I mentioned my idea to my fiancée at the time, now my wife, and her response was, `Are you out of your mind?' But she came around pretty quickly."
Then came two years of designs and drawings, and use of a sculptor to develop prototypes. Eventually, Schantz set up a company, Happy Worker Inc., as a not-so-secret headquarters for GeekMan.
"We didn't base the figure on one person. We had all these ideas and put them into a blender and came up with this "every geek" feeling for GeekMan," he says. Bill Gates was an obvious model, but even Schantz himself bears some similarities to our hero.
Meanwhile, the world of action figures was evolving. Canadian Todd McFarlane and his company McFarlane Toys reinvented the market with highly detailed figures taken from every aspect of entertainment from music to sports. In the era of reality TV, the reality-based action figure has gained a foothold.
Real people from history are being immortalized in six-inch plastic collectibles. There are figures of Albert Einstein, Ché Guevara, Mozart and Beethoven. There are action figures of U.S. presidents Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy and George W. Bush.
For Canadians, there's even a Sir John A. Macdonald figure, created by Montreal's Nefakh Technologies Inc.
The intention is "to tell the stories of Canadians who have done something in our past," says Sonia Nefakh. "Next will probably be Sir Wilfrid Laurier. Then we'll likely move into different avenues. Explorers, musicians, artists. It all depends on what people are asking for."
Among people asking for GeekMan is Heather Leson, who works in Internet customer services in Toronto.
"I'm not really into the toys," she says, "but this one was too perfect. I've worked in the land of geeks and it just fits."
Except Leson wondered where GeekGrrl was. She e-mailed Schantz at Happy Worker with that question, and was asked to send along her suggestions.
Not a problem. "She would be a little bit of Velma and a little bit of Fred from Angel," says Leson. "She'd have horned rimmed glasses, a short skirt and a white T-shirt. She would have a cell phone and RIM (PDA), and a bag full of stuff, because as soon as she left the house, she'd be gone all day, because she's got stuff to do."
Whether Happy Worker gets around to GeekGrrl remains to be seen, but there are two new heroes coming in the fall. One of them is still secret, but the other is Moneyman, who will come complete with piggybank, paper shredder and his own set of powers.
GeekMan just the fad for a computer lad
Action figure by Toronto geek
Real people being turned into plastic
RAJU MUDHAR
TORONTO STAR
Your computer is making the whir-click-pop sound that is synonymous with death. A hacker is scaling your firewall. That latest worm is burrowing into your inbox. For these emergencies there is only one hero to call ... GeekMan to the rescue!
Blessed with such powers as ungodly coding abilities and the ability to decipher technical acronyms, GeekMan is an action figure to watch over your desk and guard your hard drive from evil. In toystores and sold online, it goes for $19.
Every good hero needs an origin story. What would Spider-Man be without the radioactive spider? Or Superman without the escape rocket from his exploding planet?
GeekMan began as the daydream of Kris Schantz, a Toronto foot soldier in the high-tech revolution. By day, he worked in a cube farm toiling on his computer. By night, he went home ... and toiled on his computer. He was a geek and he knew it. When the tech bubble burst and techies were thrown out of work, the idea came to him for a hero unlike any ever seen.
"The dotcom boom/bust was a wild ride, but its ending (in 1999) was pretty abrupt. I had a lot of friends who were laid off and had seen their bank accounts rise, surge and crash like you wouldn't believe. So I kind of figured we needed some help," says Schantz.
"I mentioned my idea to my fiancée at the time, now my wife, and her response was, `Are you out of your mind?' But she came around pretty quickly."
Then came two years of designs and drawings, and use of a sculptor to develop prototypes. Eventually, Schantz set up a company, Happy Worker Inc., as a not-so-secret headquarters for GeekMan.
"We didn't base the figure on one person. We had all these ideas and put them into a blender and came up with this "every geek" feeling for GeekMan," he says. Bill Gates was an obvious model, but even Schantz himself bears some similarities to our hero.
Meanwhile, the world of action figures was evolving. Canadian Todd McFarlane and his company McFarlane Toys reinvented the market with highly detailed figures taken from every aspect of entertainment from music to sports. In the era of reality TV, the reality-based action figure has gained a foothold.
Real people from history are being immortalized in six-inch plastic collectibles. There are figures of Albert Einstein, Ché Guevara, Mozart and Beethoven. There are action figures of U.S. presidents Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy and George W. Bush.
For Canadians, there's even a Sir John A. Macdonald figure, created by Montreal's Nefakh Technologies Inc.
The intention is "to tell the stories of Canadians who have done something in our past," says Sonia Nefakh. "Next will probably be Sir Wilfrid Laurier. Then we'll likely move into different avenues. Explorers, musicians, artists. It all depends on what people are asking for."
Among people asking for GeekMan is Heather Leson, who works in Internet customer services in Toronto.
"I'm not really into the toys," she says, "but this one was too perfect. I've worked in the land of geeks and it just fits."
Except Leson wondered where GeekGrrl was. She e-mailed Schantz at Happy Worker with that question, and was asked to send along her suggestions.
Not a problem. "She would be a little bit of Velma and a little bit of Fred from Angel," says Leson. "She'd have horned rimmed glasses, a short skirt and a white T-shirt. She would have a cell phone and RIM (PDA), and a bag full of stuff, because as soon as she left the house, she'd be gone all day, because she's got stuff to do."
Whether Happy Worker gets around to GeekGrrl remains to be seen, but there are two new heroes coming in the fall. One of them is still secret, but the other is Moneyman, who will come complete with piggybank, paper shredder and his own set of powers.
