>>10362999Very well said anon. Down to even the point of the future of these bootlegs being jeopardized by the further collaboraion between the U.S. and Mexico. The early days of these knock offs remains a bit murky, but even I as an outsider looking in am aware of the Homer wave kicking things off. Im surprised you hadnt mentioned the various paintings of Homer dressed as historical and pop cultural figures which inspired the Homer bootlegs to begin with.
At the very least, even if copyrights become an issue, the manufacturers can continue to make generic stuff (vehicles, luchadors, blow molded "dinosaurs" (imperial godzillas, jumbo animals) and skirt the line of copyright with legally distinct toys. Even if Mexico had modern day U.S. copyright they could probably still get away with making shit like Predakong just by not calling them that. I could see 3rd Party companies even arrising in Mexico that exist solely to release figures through this means. Same goes for their bootlegs of old toys. They're still making knock offs of the Marx Toys Universal Monsters and Marvel Superhero figurines from the 60's! And that's not even getting into the nitty gritty of things like the classic plastic luchadors which have been modified into just about every conceivable character in history or the countless MOTU bootlegs which have undergone the same transformations over the years.
Really at this point my greater concern is the lack of archiving damning alot of these toys to complete obscurity. The very Ben 10 figures I mentioned earlier used to litter google images in the late aughts. Now you'll be hardpressed to find virtually any results for them that arent from the last 5 to 7 years. You have to really dig to find some. Worse yet is some just arent even online. Ive had to scrub through tianguis hunting vids to spot uncataloged or previously unseen Ben 10 figures. Now just think about how the same issue will affect the legions of FNAF, Bendy, etc toys 10 years from now.
