Starroid Raiders

When it comes to Star Wars rip off figures, there is no more blatant than the wonderful Tomland's Starroid Raiders. These guys usually sold for a buck (far less than a SW figure) and had GREAT names, from left to right we have Zang, Tango, Wahh, Zbu, Aton and Dado. Like a lot of their stuff, these little fellas came on a multitude of different cards sometimes they were "Space Fighters" or "Space Raiders", it all adds to their cheap charm.

Tomlands/Combex did all sorts of fun figures that blatantly skirt licensing and are now highly collectible. The UK based company used others to do their distribution in the states and were actually in the Marx family of companies. According to some UK trades I have, they were doing quite well.

Expect more on this stuff in the near future.

If you're into Starroid Raiders or almost any figure line that is 3 3/4" inches tall then you should really check out the Kevin Lentz's 3 3/4" Archive sometime. He's compiled a ton of child hood favourites from the 70's and 80's into a one fun web site, there are even a few foreign figures that might surprise you.