LJWorld.com

• Email
• iPod-friendly
• Print

His friends call him "Toy Boy."

One look inside the master bedroom suite at Greg Seuferling's northwest Lawrence home reveals the madness behind the moniker.

Greg Seuferling is a longtime collector of action figures. The Lawrence resident now has more than 5,000 of the figures set up in his house.

More than 5,000 plastic action figures line wooden shelves along the walls and down the center of the room. Heroes and villains from "Star Wars" and "Star Trek" and hideous extraterrestrial killers from "Alien" pose near comical characters from "The Simpsons" and "Shrek."

"I probably should be in therapy," jokes the 26-year-old Seuferling, who's been collecting replicas of movie, television, comic book and video game characters since he was a child. "They started out, when I was a kid, as toys to play with. As I got older, I started getting them to display just because they're really cool."

And, as is the case with most genuine obsessions, Seuferling can't explain his mania.

"Maybe I'm just trying to relive a part of my youth subconsciously," he says.

Sentimental value

The distinctive smell of plastic lingers here.

Seuferling sometimes wonders just how gargantuan a glob he could create if he melted down every member of his collection. But he quickly retracts.

"I probably won't try that," he says.

After all, the figures hold a lot of sentimental value for Seuferling. He and his brother used to spend hours playing with the old-school, 1970s versions of Han Solo and Princess Leia that now occupy space on a shelf amid more modern figures from the new Star Wars films. Han and the Princess are so dear to Seuferling's heart, in fact, that they earned a spot atop his wedding cake.

The fact that his wife, Lynette, allowed the sci-fi cake topper is just one example of how she's accommodated Seuferling's hobby. She also gave her husband the master bedroom as a display area.

"She got the rest of the house; I got this," Seuferling says.

Lynette Seuferling, a self-described artist who works in multiple media, said she admired the action figures for their artistic merit.

"I appreciate the way they look, how they're put together," she said.

The fact that she has her own "abnormal" collection 14 swords also increases her tolerance for her husband's quirky trove.

Not in it for the money

Just about every inch of the collection room overflows with figures that stand anywhere from three-fourths of an inch to a few feet tall. Greg Seuferling even positions life-size cardboard cutouts of some characters behind and between shelves. He's plastered the walls with calendars and posters sporting photos and graphics of the figures in action.

Though he catalogs each item in his collection by description, date and price, Seuferling has no idea what his collection is really worth. He takes the figures out of their packaging the minute he gets them home. He's not in it for the money.

"I'm not planning on putting my kids through college with them," he says.

But Seuferling does have to be mindful of how much he spends as he continues to accumulate figures. One perk to working the graveyard shift stocking shelves at Wal-Mart is that Seuferling gets a discount and a heads-up on when new toy lines will hit the shelves.

He's had his eye on toys for the next Star Wars movie, which will be released May 16, since they began arriving in the Wal-Mart stock room. The merchandise can't be sold until April 23.

"I'm just sitting there staring at it ... drooling," Seuferling says. "All this water and not a drop to drink."

Besides waiting to snatch up new additions, Seuferling says the only downfall to maintaining a collection of lightweight, plastic people is keeping them on the shelves.

"There's always something lying on the floor," he says, surveying his collection. "It's hard to believe I've accumulated all this crap."