And one of my fondest and favorite memories from my childhood is a small and weird series called Monster in my Pocket. I am not sure wath collectible of the series came first, but for me, the item that made me aware of the name was the NES game from Konami.
Not only it had a kick ass cover art, but i loved the idea of having soo many monsters from myths and literature together in a single game. The game was basically a plataformer like Magemana but much more easyer and fun and the scenarios where everyday places from a home, like the kitchen, the bedroom, the countyard, with an invasion of tiny monsters of all kind: mummys, witches, chimeras, wendigos.....
The game let you chose between the vampire and the monster and can be played with a second controller as well. I used to play it a lot with my uncle, but all by myself this was the very first videogame i ever finished and i played the hell out of it when i was six or seven.
One cool detail is that it came with a monster figure, all in orange plastic, this Blemiyae creature was supposed to be in scale with the monsters of the game, wich made me fantasy a lot how would it be to have all this monsters in this size, inside my pocket.
It was a blast when i later discovered the Monster in my Pocket trading cards. They all have this weird art of the monsters on it, mixing realistic style with cartoon anatomy and the look of an old painting. It was a blast to see the characters of the videogame with great and realistic detail and the back of the card had the story and stats of each monster. Of course, back then i didnt knew english at all soo i skiped all that info. The cards also came with a puzzle stcker that lets you build a giant monster island.
But the best was around the corner since a little bit of time later, the candy company Sonrics decided to bring the Monster in my Pocket to Mexico at grand scale and in superior quality than the original USA release. Of course then i learned this i was shocked.
Everyday school was over i ran to the nearest store before going to home and use my left oer money to buy a "SonricsLand Box", a little carboard box with Monster in my Pocket artwork and lots of candys inside. Of course, i didnt care too much for the candys, but my inetrest was focused on the extra prize inside: a set of five cards and a surprise item.
The mexican version of the cards were bizarrely superior to the USA original version, not only it had all the text traslated to spanish and i was able to read every single card at last, but the print colors was more intense and vibrant and the cards also had glow in the dark painting that shine beautifully in the darknes, you could see the silhouette of each monster or the moon or his eyes glowing.
They also included a set of special cards made with transluscent plastic. This set was beautifull looking and the most rare cards to find to the poin until a year ago i was still missing 3. Like if that wasnt enough, they also released the second series that contain monsters i never before seen. I was a very happy kid back then.
The "surprise" item was one of 3 collectibles: the first one being a pin with art of the cards on it. This pin were the rearest and i only got eleven of them and now day they are very expensive.
The second surprise woul be a comic book. the first eleven numbers were activitys for kids and the last nine had the story of the Monster in my Pocket. This last were the best only for the good loocking art tough since the atoryline was very....dumb and campy, even for a kid in 1993.
The thirs option for the susprise was the best of them all and the main center of the collection: a little figure of a random monster in one of 15 colors (in USA they nly had 4). I was soo obssesed with this little guys since now i could recreate the entre game with the monsters in the rigth scale, but i also saw my child dream come true, of having the monsters in my pocket. Seen this characters in 3D and see all the details on theyr back was something else.
Gete half of the collection and you coudl take them to the Sonrices factory and they would give you a big collector with the shape of a volcano. It was soo rad to have the black volcano hanging on the wall with all the monsters on display, life was perfect once you fill each section with the creatures.
Sadly, while i still have the collection complete, my volcano died thanks to the dust, the sun light and weather, the cheap plastic crumbled like glass and i surelly didnt expect that 30 years later this volcano were soo expensive as it is now...
And talking about modern times, i learenda few years ago that there is actually a series 2 and 3 of figures released by Matchbox in USA but Sonrics didnt bring them to Mexico. I am not mad at Sonrics since they did more than enough to bring this characters to Mexico in a great way, but in the last two years i been hunting and collecting this series two monster and now i am missing just one!!
Adn the series 3....it was too expensive for such small figurines with no paint, soo i dont think i will be able to get those, tough i got one of them. Blemiyae, the little guy on the videogame is a monster from the third series and an exptremelly expensive one.
When i was a kid i collected a lot of items that came on the chips bags or promotional stuff from Coca or fast food chains, but the nly collection i care 25 years later is the Monster in my Pocket. I dunno wath it is....i love the idea to have soo many monster reunited in s single collection and how some of them are soo obscure i could never meet them any other way without this series (like Windigo, Cokatrice, Jotun Troll, Nuckelabe, Bloddy Bones...), and there is something both funy and grotesque on the character design too, something that makes each monster silhouette easy to recognize that i find attractive.
Wathever is the reason, they sure knew how to make cool and memorable collectible back in 1990.
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