Don’t call them misfits

MARK TROUP readily admits he’s addicted, and not to the usual suspects. The objects that preoccupy his mind, shatter his impulse control and empty his wallet have names like Qees, Trexis and Dunnys. They are created by street artists such as Okkle, Honk and Da TeamBronx. They are known as “designer toys.”

In the four months since Troup got his first Panda-Z bear, the 37-year-old video game artist has gone thousands of dollars and 100 pieces deep into toy collectibles for adults.

“I wasn’t a collector at all until I got hooked on these,” said Troup, of El Segundo. “Now it’s almost junkie status.”

Lured by their playful edginess and retail prices that rarely top $150, Troup isn’t the only grown-up to drop his first bill on one of these new art pieces only to be irretrievably sucked into the alternate toy universe. Over the last couple of years, the market for the art form has quietly burgeoned as a growing number of independent design studios work with underground art stars to transform their two-dimensional canvas, comic-book and graffiti characters into limited-production, 3-D vinyl that doesn’t look like anything you’d see at a Toys “R” Us.

There are smoking bunnies and three-legged girls, Cyclops kittens and militant bears, bleeding robots and mutant ducks -- toys that aren’t playthings so much as an alternative entry point for collectors of lowbrow art.

“A lot of people can’t afford originals. You can buy the print, but [toys are] just another option,” said Patrick Lam, who co-owns the Chinatown designer toy temple Munky King with his wife, Chanda. “It’s another way to experience that artist’s work, and to see it in 3-D is very accessible because you can touch it and position it and look at it instead of it hanging on the wall. It adds another element of sensory perception.”

Generally speaking, designer toys range in size from 3 to 20 inches tall. Produced in quantities of as little as a few dozen or as many as a few thousand, they retail for $5 to $150, though rare toys and one-of-a-kind, hand-painted pieces on pre-made forms can cost thousands.

Collectors tend to be men in their 20s and 30s -- with disposable incomes (or at least enough room on their credit cards) and tolerant romantic partners. The artists: A mix of the underground’s up-and-comers and established who are tickled to see their art exposed through not only a new medium but also one that is affordable and accessible to new and existing fans.

Los Angeles is home to a thriving community of artists and collectors who support them, and is widely acknowledged as a hub of designer toy activity, along with New York, London and Hong Kong.

The comic book stores Meltdown Comics & Collectibles in Hollywood and Giant Robot on Sawtelle Boulevard were the first L.A. stores to get in on the game, but new shops dealing exclusively in designer toys have been popping up online and around town -- such as Kidrobot in Santa Monica, Mixi-Bang in Pasadena and Munky King, which will branch out with a second location this spring on Melrose Avenue.

“Eight years ago, it was still like, ‘What do you mean you can make a toy? It’s impossible. How do you make a toy?’ You think research and development in the millions [of dollars] and three years to take a toy to market, but it’s totally accessible,” said Gaston Dominguez-Letelier, co-owner of Meltdown.

Dominguez-Letelier owns a second company called Necessaries Toy Foundation with business partner Long Gone John, owner of the record label Sympathy for the Record Industry. The two tested the designer toy waters in 2000 with an Enid doll, based on the popular character by comic book artist Dan Clowes. Now the company releases two toys a month, working with fashion designers (such as Dr. Romanelli), comic book artists (including Roman “Lenore” Dirge) and, most recently, Disney. Designed in Meltdown’s in-store studio and manufactured in China, each toy takes about 90 days to produce, from when it’s first modeled in the wax-clay hybrid Castilene until it comes floating back over the Pacific. If a toy is small, the whole shebang can cost as little as $15,000 for a run of 300.

Dominguez-Letelier has never been to China. Nor has his sculptor Nathan Cabrera or most others in the growing numbers of stores, comic book publishers, independent design studios and individual artists who are taking advantage of China’s manufacturing dominance, and improved software and limited mass production technologies, to make toys themselves.

Made in the same factories that churn out hundreds of thousands of dolls Happy Meal-style, designer toys are not overtly promotional. Rarely are they produced in quantities exceeding a few thousand. More often, the runs are significantly smaller, numbering only in the dozens.

THE result has been a collecting frenzy. Galleries and stores that showcase hyped-up new releases often draw crowds hours before opening and sell out shortly after unlocking their doors. On the Web, fan sites such as rotofugi.com buzz with -- and crash from -- throngs of collectors looking to buy the newest and rarest pieces from the hottest artists. Both have given rise to “flippers” and a lucrative secondary market. White-hot toys purchased for $75 one day often fetch more than double the next.

That’s what happened when L.A. artist Joe Ledbetter released his Mr. Bunny toys in October. Only 550 were made -- 50 in a black version called Lava Bunny, 100 of a blue version known as Sno-Bunny and 400 of the regular Mr. Bunny in yellow.

The Lava Bunny retailed for $75 when it was released. Bids in an ongoing EBay auction for one had reached $510 Wednesday afternoon.

“Sometimes I feel a bit taken advantage of,” said Ledbetter, who received only a percentage of profits off the Mr. Bunny toys. “I really don’t make any money for the amount of time and effort I put into making my figures.... It’s the exposure, and because I’ve always wanted to do it, and because I love it, is really what keeps me doing it. It’s all for the fun of it.”

The designer toy phenom is still at the level where it seems as if most involved are in it for the fun, not money. A successful designer toy can often elevate an artist’s career, as it did with Ledbetter, but because the toys are produced only in limited quantities, the economies of scale simply aren’t there to bring them huge profits.

“They’re not mass-produced for easy consumption and to be thrown away,” said Lam, whose Munky King store will begin manufacturing toys this spring, beginning with a “Possessed” toy from Monterey Park art darling Luke Chueh. “These are collectibles that people hold onto and that gain in value too.”

LAM would know. In addition to selling designer toys, Lam has about 100 pieces in his personal collection. The pieces date to the earliest days of what was then known as the “urban vinyl” movement, when, in 1997, artist Michael Lau showed up at a Hong Kong toy show with GI Joe action figures that he’d reworked to look like hip-hop street kids. Vintage Lau pieces now fetch about $10,000. Not bad for a 12-inch slab of molded vinyl.

Although urban vinyl quickly took off in Asia, it was slower to catch on here because most of the artists were foreign, and the websites and publications devoted to the genre weren’t written in English. The real upswing in the U.S. began just a few years ago, when independent design studios, retail stores, magazines and websites began cropping up this side of the Pacific.

Kidrobot was among the first. The New York designer toy company, which operates retail stores in New York, San Francisco and Santa Monica, went online in 2002. Now visited by 160,000 unique users each month, kidrobot.com hosts a number of message boards for fans to find out about upcoming figures and events, and to talk with artists and other collectors. It also sells toys of its own design, as well as those by other manufacturers.

Kidrobot’s latest entry is its L.A. Dunny series, a collection of 17 mini figures designed by some of L.A.’s best-known underground artists, including Gary Baseman, Shepard Fairey and Tim Biskup. The figures will be available tonight at a release party, where many of the artists will also be present to sign them. The series officially goes on sale Friday.

The company’s first city-based series, the L.A. Dunnys -- so named for Kidrobot’s popular, bunny-like form that serves as a canvas for artists’ designs -- are testimony to L.A.’s “incredible art scene,” which is influenced by everything from graphic design, anime and graffiti to cartoons, comics, illustration and fine art, owner Paul Budnitz said. “There’s a certain sort of graffiti-like style that’s creeping in with illustration right now, and it’s really coming to fruition in California.”

The L.A. Dunnys will retail for $5.95, but some will no doubt eventually trade for much more. The designs were produced in different quantities -- 200 to 9,600 per artist -- making some more collectible than others.

Like many miniature designer toys, each 3-inch figure in the series comes in a blind package, meaning the box does not say which artist’s design is inside. But it does indicate the buyer’s chances of happening upon each one. The Shepard Fairey Dunny, for example, is among the most rare. Buyers have only a 3% chance of getting one.

But one L.A. Dunny comes with only a .25% chance, and the artist isn’t even known. Kidrobot won’t reveal who it is because “that’s part of the fun of it,” Budnitz said.

The artist’s identity and design can be revealed only by the buyers, who are likely to go online and flaunt their finds -- and possibly sell them to the highest bidder.

THE element of surprise is key to the designer toy scene. Not only does it heighten the excitement, it keeps the scene true to its core fans while capitalizing on a key facet of the collector mentality: the desire to own something rare or unique. That’s why many of the smaller designer toy manufacturers often work with fan sites such as myplasticheart.com and skullbrain.org to do exclusive toy releases, and often release them in batches, doling the toys out one shop at a time. It forces collectors to stay on their toes if they want a piece of the action.

Even so, there are signs the scene is going mainstream. This month, the American International Toy Fair in New York is launching a section called “Urban Bazaar” that will feature a number of designer toy manufacturers.

“They appeal to a little bit older market, which is one of the things retailers are saying: How do we attract the older market, so we can have two sales -- a kid sale and an add-on adult sale,” said Reyne Rice, a toy trend specialist with the Toy Industry Assn. in New York.

And Disney is now working with Necessaries Toy Foundation on a series of “Alice in Wonderland” Cheshire cats. Available this spring, each of the six designs will be produced in quantities of fewer than 2,400. Eventually, Disney will also invite artists from Los Angeles and New York to do their own versions of the cat, which will be released in runs of about 1,200.

“Sometimes it’s good for your brand, good for your image to create a buzz,” said Dennis Green, senior vice president of global creative for Disney consumer products. “If everybody has it, that doesn’t make it cool. If only a few people have it, that makes it cool. We’re just trying to say Disney can play both games.”

At first blush, it may seem that a mainstream company’s involvement would end the designer toy party. But some say Disney is playing the right game -- getting involved with toy designers with credibility and keeping the toys’ production limited. It’s when a major retailer or toy manufacturer gets involved and starts altering the rules that the scene could crumble.

Regardless, many believe designer toys are here to stay -- that they’re not a fad but a vibrant art form that will evolve along with the artists who make them.

“The driving force behind the scene is the collectors and also the artists,” said Miranda O’Brien, editor of the designer toy magazine Clutter. “It is art for art’s sake.

“Collectors buy into it because it is artwork, and not only that it is artwork on toys. No one ever wants to grow up.”

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IN DEMAND

L.A. artist Joe Ledbetter, left, released only 550 of his Mr. Bunny toys, priced at $75 each. Prices have soared in the resale market. Below, a yellow bunny.

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Collect yourself

You won’t find designer toys by underground artists in a big-box store. Here’s where you will:

Giant Robot

Both local retail extensions of the hip Asiaphile magazine carry a healthy collection of designer toys -- from Critterbox to Kubrick to Qee and others -- and art books featuring works upon which the toys were based.

* 2015 Sawtelle Blvd., L.A. (310) 478-1819, www.giantrobot.com. Hours: 11:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. Mondays to Saturdays, noon to 6 p.m. Sundays

* 4017 Sunset Blvd., L.A. (323) 662-4752. Hours: 11:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. Mondays to Saturdays, noon to 7 p.m. Sundays

Kidrobot

This well-stocked and colorful shop is smack-dab in chain-store tourist land, but its wares are anything but. It carries a wide range of one-of-a-kinds and production pieces from artists and designer toy manufacturers, big and small.

* 1407 Third Street Promenade, Santa Monica. (310) 576-7766, www.kidrobot.com. Hours: 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sundays to Thursdays; 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays

Meltdown Comics & Collectibles

The co-owner of this comic book emporium is a major player in designer toys with his side business, Necessaries Toy Foundation. Meltdown’s Hollywood shop not only carries a wide selection of toys but also houses a workshop. Recent projects include toys by local artist Camille Rose Garcia and coming Disney releases of the Cheshire Cat and Mickey Mouse Runaway Brain.

7522 W. Sunset Blvd., L.A. (323) 851-7283, www.meltcomics.com. Hours: 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily

* Mini-Melt, 3151 Los Feliz Blvd., L.A. (323) 558-1212. Hours: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily

* Mini-Melt too, 1613 Colorado Blvd., L.A. (323) 258-2300. Hours: noon to 7 p.m. Sundays to Tuesdays, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Wednesdays to Saturdays

Mixi-Bang

Tucked away in an Old Town Pasadena alley, this airy store’s stock of designer toys is rounded out with art books and framed art pieces.

* 36 W. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena. (626) 507-8095, www.mixi-bang.com. Hours: noon to 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays to Thursdays, noon to 8:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, noon to 7 p.m. Sundays

Monkeyhouse Toys

Primarily an alternative toy store for kids, 25% of the space is devoted to designer toys for adults. In addition to do-it-yourself Qees and Munnys, it carries popular series such as Scarygirl and Tribes of Monsterism.

* 1618 1/2 Silver Lake Blvd., L.A. (323) 662-3437, www.monkeyhousetoys.com. Hours: noon to 6 p.m. Tuesdays to Saturdays, noon to 5 p.m. Sundays

Munky King

Set up to look like a toy temple, this Chinatown shop offers a great variety of one-of-a-kinds, production pieces and do-it-yourself toys. This spring it will begin manufacturing toys, starting with a series from local artist Luke Chueh; it’ll also open a second location on Melrose.

* 441 Gin Ling Way, L.A. (213) 620-8787, www.munkyking.com. Hours: noon to 7 p.m. Sundays to Thursdays, noon to 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays

Span of Sunset

The store’s name isn’t on the outside; its location is marked with a jet-black helicopter above the door. Featuring off-color and off-the-beaten-path toys from companies such as Bounty Hunter, this tiny shop appeals to hard-core collectors and “rich punks,” the owner says.

* 7527 W. Sunset Blvd., L.A. (323) 512-3807, www.spanofsunset.com. Hours: noon to 7 p.m. daily

-- Susan Carpenter