I seat here
now in front of a blank page to write without a predetermined theme, no special
figure to comment, no interview to share, only the urge to write. I like to
write it’s one of greatest pleasures I have in life. Writing without knowing
where it will take me. Or you. My English is mediocre since I’m not a native
speaker nor did any course on the language. My English comes from my passion
for games (how to finish a Zelda game without knowing no English at all?) and
music. I was fortunate that at the time they had a magazine that translated the
lyrics of the music to Portuguese, what turned out to be a great source of
learning. As you can tell I’m not American or British, I’m Brazilian and live
on Brazil, though I had a brother who lives in US to whom I send all the
figures I buy then I ask any relative who goes to visit him to bring one if they
can. Generally they cannot because US is buying paradise for Brazilians so they
already come full of their own goods having no space whatsoever to bring me my
figures. But once in a while somebody brings me one. My brother is a really
good guy so, when he comes to visit us he brings as many figures as possible.
Unfortunately, though, he brings generally the anime/manga figures I collect but
no statues at all, since they would take the place of one of the two luggage he
can bring to Brazil. So he has this basement full of figures, my figures (that
his wife hates, by the way) and I cannot see them, touch them, appreciate them. It’s
a bit frustrating, but it’s the only way to avoid the extortive price and taxes
of sending them by mail to Brazil. I would pay probably more than double the
price of the statue and I can’t afford that (customs here charge 60% over the price of the product plus the shipping!). Add to this the fact that I don’t
have a proper space to display them here. I only have my bedroom but it is not
arranged in a way I can exhibit them. I have to do a reform to do so, but
reforms takes a lot of money and I’m still saving to do it. Here in Brazil they
don’t sell these structures appropriated to display figures you so easily find
abroad, so I’ll have to have them manufactured in order to display my
collection. I hope within the next five years (at most!) to have everything
settled and my room remodeled to display my dear figures.
I’m 39 and
am already retired for reasons I don’t think convenient to tell. Therefore,
even though I have some weekly appointments I need to go, I have plenty of free
time. So for one of those things that comes out of nowhere I decided to start
this blog about statues, in English (how pretentious of me) because I love the
subject so much that it takes a huge part of my thoughts and time. I confess I’m
a bit addicted to it as almost everyone who’s possibly reading this is. I can’t
quite remember what came first: the blog or the discovery of the Facebook
groups dedicated to our hobby. I know I started to write and share my posts with
the community and the community – you – started to read. When I saw that I was
having many more hits than I ever imagined I stayed in awe. It was like a wild
dream coming true, to write about the thing you love the most and been read. I
didn’t know why but you read my posts and it was, as it is, a great joy, maybe
the greatest joy I could have. Of course a girlfriend and have all my figures
here at display would be – and will be – greatest joys than this but for now,
you guys help me to turn my life all that more interesting and exciting. I have
a sense of accomplishment I didn’t have since I stop working. A sense of doing
something that matters to someone else. It’s a great feeling. And that feeling
just got a lot bigger when I began interviewing people from the industry.
It was a
week before SDCC 2016 and everybody only talked about it obviously. That’s when
I thought “I wish I could go the other way around and interview Randy Bowen,
the man who turned all of this possible but is out of the Market for quite a while,
someone who built with his own hands – and clay – the path to all the companies
that would be on SDCC”.
So I’ve
searched Randy on Facebook and found him. Then took a deep breath, opened the
private messenger and asked to make an interview with him, what he promptly
accepted and we started one of the most pleasurable conversations I had in my
whole life. It was very intimidating at first, since he is “the man” behind it
all, but it turned out he was a very cool guy and that sentiment of talking to
one of my greatest idols slowly faded so that, by the end of the interview, I
was dealing with him as I would deal with a friend. It was a very cathartic moment
to me and set the stage for the series of interviews I’ve being pursuing ever
since.
During this
work I was amazed at how accessible and humble the people from the industry are
and that dissolute all my anxiety (well almost all of it, it’s always a bit
intimidating to interview somebody you admire so much). Of course some are more
difficult to reach, some takes a long time to reply, some are still studying
the possibility of an interview (I’m talking about you, F4F!) but overall they’re
really willing to contribute. I’m having a much harder time trying to interview
people from the customs Market; not only because they don’t want to expose
themselves but just because they’re not as humble and accessible as people of
the big companies. They are oftentimes harsh and others don’t give a damn for
me. It’s being a much harder work to amass the interviews to the series I want
do about the customs market than it was to interview Erick Sosa, per example.
And Erick Sosa is a very busy man, the guy is unstoppable working machine, but
always apologize every one of the various delays in giving the interview. How
could I imagine that this was going to happen sometime in my life? The great
Erick Sosa, a world-renowned artist among collectors asking apologies to me?
Who am I? I’m a nobody with Microsoft Word and an internet connection, from
Brazil, who decided to write a blog about his hobby in my poor English to the world.
Yet Mr. Sosa was very polite with me every single time we talked and, as
promised, finally found time to grant me the interview.
Yes, doing
this blog, was the best thing I could do in my life, I put all my passion and
care to deliver the best for the readers and am very grateful with the response.
I guess turns out that I’m writing all of this nonsense to say just one thing:
thank you so very much! To you who reads it, to the interviewed, to everyone
that one way or another has contributed with, supported, and motivated me to seat
in my chair each day trying to deliver the best info I possibly can. To deliver
what I wanted to receive if I was in your place. I think it’s upon that this
text is all about: gratitude. The gratitude for motivating me to do my best and
have lots of fun and pride doing it. Thank you, thank you, thank you! I can’t
thank you enough for turning my life so much better and interesting and
challenging, to give me a sense of direction, of goal, of accomplishment. I don’t
know if, with my blog, I make some difference in your life for the better but
doing it makes a huge difference for the better in mine. Darn, how it does. And
I am forever grateful to all of you for that. And sorry for my broken English!
;)
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