With perhaps equal parts creativity, determination, ingenuity and planning, Steve Hardinger has significantly extended his reach. “I dress up as characters from TV shows, movies, books, games, or I create my characters,” Hardinger, of North Jackson, explained.
Hardinger opted to dress in a character he created – more to the point, “Doctor Octopus,” a fictional character that appears in some Marvel comic books — for Saturday’s second annual Super Toy show at the Canfield Fairgrounds’ Event Center0.
An estimated 250 local, regional and out-of-state vendors packed the building to sell a variety of new and vintage merchandise during the six-hour gathering. Items included numerous Marvel and other comic books, action figures, model cars, vintage figure-eight race tracks to assemble, trading cards, Star Wars and Star Trek figures, playing cards, board games, compact discs and videocassettes.
Hardinger, who enjoys doing cosplay as a hobby, said it took him about eight months to create his huge Doctor Octopus (also known as “Doc Ock”) outfit, which was made largely with hard plastic, for which he used 3-D printing. Watching certain online videos gave Hardinger some ideas, especially for the costume’s frame, he explained.
Also walking the aisles and extending a long arm to greet customers was an 8-foot character known as “Bumblebee,” who appears in the 2018 science fiction action film “Transformers.” Among those the slightly over-the-top, bright-yellow character reached out to was Josh Good of Columbiana, who held his 6-month-old son, Kasetin, in one hand while extending a courtesy to Bumblebee with the other.
“This is awesome. I can’t wait for (Kasetin) to be a little older so he can walk around and pick stuff out,” said the infant’s mother, Kasey, who also expressed interest in buying merchandise related to “Friday the 13th” and other well-known horror films. Josh Good said he had bought a toy elephant for his son’s nursery and also was searching for Pokemon trading cards.
“I sell retro video games, and I’m big into wrestling too,” Michael Rickard, who owns a nine-year-old Niles business called Wild Card Video Games, said. “Wrestling has been a hobby of mine since I was 7 years old.”
For Saturday’s Super Toy gathering, Rickard had a table filled with mainly WWE action figures. In another section of his space, he had a variety of autographed items that included 8-inch-by-10-inch photographs of various professional wrestlers.
At one point, Rickard talked to David Webster of Akron about the wrestling figures, though Webster said his primary shopping expedition had been about finding collectibles from the “Teenage Ninja Turtles” series, as well as vintage videocassettes. As a result, he had a bag filled with items from the films, including a 3- or 4-ounce glass crafted in Europe.
“I also found VHS tapes from when I was a kid,” Webster said, adding that he got his first ninja turtle in 1988 and has collected the items for about seven years. Those who cherish old-school board games were greeted with a variety of favorites, such as “221B Baker Street,” “Name that Tune,” “Don’t Upset the Llama,” “13 Dead End Drive,” “Battleship,” “Bonkers,” “Stratego” and “Toss Across.”
