Inside the home of the city’s most dedicated Funko Pop collector
Featuring roughly $12,000 worth of comic book, film and TV characters—all in adorable cartoon form
When Funko Pops were first released in 2010, Allan Martinez was immediately hooked. The collectible vinyl toys depict popular characters from franchises like Star Wars and superhero movies—with cartoonish oversized heads. “I thought they were cute and well-designed,” Martinez says. “It’s cool to see characters I love in that form.”
His first Funko Pop was a Spider-Man he bought from the comic book store Planet Hobby for $10. It quickly spawned a full-blown obsession. Within a year, he’d acquired around 50 Funko Pops of his favourite characters, including Captain America, the Hulk, Batman, Green Lantern and the Flash. At the time, Martinez was dating his now-wife, Christine Kerver Martinez, who loved Disney characters. So Martinez added Disney princesses and various Mickey Mouses to his collection.
Related: Inside the apartment of the city’s most dedicated Barbie collector
In 2017, after he and his wife moved into a townhouse in Milton together, Martinez reached a breaking point. “We hit over 800 pieces,” he says. “The boxes were stacking up, and we had no place to store or display them.”
He did a mindful purge, keeping the toys that brought him joy and offloading the rest to a reseller on Instagram. He also reduced his yearly acquisition of new toys from 100 to 80; currently, he has around 400. “Looking at our collection, I feel grateful to be able to afford these things and to have a house to put them in.”
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When Funko Pops were first released in 2010, Allan Martinez was immediately hooked. The collectible vinyl toys depict popular characters from franchises like Star Wars and superhero movies—with cartoonish oversized heads. “I thought they were cute and well-designed,” Martinez says. “It’s cool to see characters I love in that form.”
His first Funko Pop was a Spider-Man he bought from the comic book store Planet Hobby for $10. It quickly spawned a full-blown obsession. Within a year, he’d acquired around 50 Funko Pops of his favourite characters, including Captain America, the Hulk, Batman, Green Lantern and the Flash. At the time, Martinez was dating his now-wife, Christine Kerver Martinez, who loved Disney characters. So Martinez added Disney princesses and various Mickey Mouses to his collection.
Related: Inside the apartment of the city's most dedicated Barbie collector
In 2017, after he and his wife moved into a townhouse in Milton together, Martinez reached a breaking point. “We hit over 800 pieces,” he says. “The boxes were stacking up, and we had no place to store or display them.”
He did a mindful purge, keeping the toys that brought him joy and offloading the rest to a reseller on Instagram. He also reduced his yearly acquisition of new toys from 100 to 80; currently, he has around 400. “Looking at our collection, I feel grateful to be able to afford these things and to have a house to put them in.”
[caption id="attachment_645411" align="alignnone" width="2000"] “I’m what you’d call an ‘out-of-the-box’ collector,” says Martinez. He estimates he’s spent about $12,000 on his trove[/caption]
[caption id="attachment_645412" align="alignnone" width="2000"] He drove an hour to a GameStop in Brantford to buy the big Boba Fett on the left. “It sold out very fast. The only reason they still had this one was because it had a ding on the box”[/caption]
[caption id="attachment_645413" align="alignnone" width="2000"] Kerver Martinez’s favourite character is Sorcerer Mickey from Fantasia. “It’s special because he’s on a hill with waves below him,” she says[/caption]
[caption id="attachment_645414" align="alignnone" width="2000"] Martinez has a few larger Funko Pops, including this 18-inch Harry Potter[/caption]){kind=link}