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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Andrea Yu is a freelance journalist based in Toronto. She reports on a wide variety of topics including business, real estate, culture, design, health, food, drink and travel. Aside from Toronto Life, her writing has appeared in the Globe and Mail, Chatelaine and Cottage Life.