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| Monitor Pets | | By Gareth Branwyn for Screenager Central |
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It's been called the "geekosphere," the area around your computer where, inevitably, little gadgets, geegaws, and curios collect. We spend so much time slaved to our desks, staring into our monitors, it's only natural that we'd want to add some worthy distractions to the areas surrounding them. It's fun to go into someone's room or office and look at the "monitor pets" that he or she has chosen as the desktop d‚cor. Here are some of our favorite sources for fun computer companions. |
McFarlene Toys
Obviously, one of the most common varieties of monitor pet is the action figure. Comic book author and artist Todd McFarlene (creator of the Spawn series) has nearly single-handedly revolutionized the action figure market with his incredible McFarlene Toys line. More collector model than action figure, these outrageously detailed and reasonably priced figures, depict everything from sports stars to movie monsters to video game heroes and villains.
Monsterisms
 Some of the coolest monitor pets come from Japan. That's where U.K. artist Pete Fowler's Monsterism line is made. These beautifully painted vinyl figures come in pieces (heads, arms, legs, torsos) and all of the parts can be swapped. He calls them "lo-tech interactive toys." Unfortunately, the Volume 2 "Make a Monster" series of smaller, cheaper Monsterisms are no longer sold through the Web site, but you can still find them at various online stores and on eBay. To see the current line of Monsterism figures and other cool Japanese toys and action figures, check out Ningyoushi, a US seller of Japanese pop. They also carry the popular Kubrick line, the LEGO-like figurines that depict popular characters from Star Wars, the Alien, Marvel superheroes, and Monsters, Inc.
Kikkerland Wind-Ups
 Put one of these whimsical wind-up devices on your desk and we guarantee that everyone who comes into your room is going to want to play with it. Designed by artist Cico Bicalho, these zany critters jump, hop, flip and skitter all over the place. And they just look amazingly cool on your desk or on top of your monitor. Kikkerland also sells other wonderfully bizarre stuff to decorate your desk, such as wacky spiral Post-It Note holders, see-through playing cards, picture frames, and more.
The Robot Store
If you want build-it-yourself monitor minions, take a look at what The Robot Store has to offer. They carry a great line of small, inexpensive robot kits. Most of them come in two varieties: ones that require soldering and ones that require only mechanical assembly. One of our favorites is the Space Wings II kit. It's a futuristic mechanical butterfly that uses "Muscle Wire," a material that expands and contracts when power is supplied, to flap silver Mylar wings. It looks really graceful and...well...butterfly-like, and you'll be proud to tell people you made it yourself. BTW: the Space Wings kit does require soldering, but it's a fairly easy project for the beginner (and soldering instructions are included).
These are just a few of our coveted monitor pets. They really are a question of personal style and self-expression. If you want to add some goodies to your geekosphere, just think about what you're into and then do a Web search. At this point, most TV shows, films, bands, comic books, etc. have some kind of action figures, memorabilia, mugs, or other goodies you can use to show your colors on the desktop. And for pop culture products that are no longer commercially available, don't forget to look on eBay. That's where we got a bunch of our kitschy collectables.
So what's in my geekosphere? A Spider Jerusalem action figure (from the comic Transmetropolitan by Warren Ellis), a Space Wings II, a few hand-painted role playing game miniatures, a pair of 3D glasses (for looking at the cool 3D pics on the NASA Mars Rover page), a Kikkerland wind-up, and a little stuffed "TiVoGuy" (the TV with legs logo for the TiVo personal video recorder). I guess I really put the "geek" in geekosphere!
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