Love letter to… Legos. Illustration by: Matt Fabrizio
Legos have always been a huge part of my life and I love collecting them. I probably have over 50 lego sets from various different themes.
The three types of Lego sets that I collect are DC Comics Legos, Star Wars Legos and Harry Potter Legos. I probably have more DC Comics Legos than either of the other two. However, I have lost track of a lot of the sets because they were either destroyed by my brother, or hidden in a bin that I had to put them all in.
Not all of them, but a majority of them were taking up half the space in my room, so I had to put a lot of the sets in my basement.
I sometimes like to go into my basement and just see how many Lego sets there are and think to myself “Wow, either this was a problem or just really creative.”
Honestly, I think Legos made me and my mind a lot more creative. Legos have no limits in terms of what you can or cannot build. You can make anything you want out of Legos just by using your creativity and imagination.
I have made several structures such as houses, boats, planes, dragons, snakes and I’ve even attempted to build human heads from Legos. A lot of them were bad, and all of them were creepy looking.
This might sound weird, but I was a kid so it counts, but I would take the Lego minifigures and voice over them. Call me Mel Blanc because I was a master at voicing the Lego characters.
I had Batman down pact, and the Joker was my favorite character to voice over because all I had to do was laugh maniacally. I would also do sound effects for fighting, driving, cooking, walking, basically anything.
Legos have also become more diverse and more unique as the years have gone by. My uncle told me that when Legos first came to the U.S. in the 1960s, the minifigures had no arms or legs. They didn’t even have faces.
You had to use your imagination back then and pretend like they had moving arms and legs, and pretend that they had faces that could talk.
Legos quickly evolved and soon after they became extremely popular in the 70s, Legos started to upgrade the quality of the sets and minifigures. Movable arms and legs became a feature for minifigures, as well as faces and different hair/hat pieces.
It is so cool to see the new minifigures of different franchises being revamped too and getting new face pieces, hair pieces and even clothing pieces. It makes the character more accurate to who it’s based off of.
I have been a massive fan of the Lego minifigure blind bags since they first came out. I love collecting them and feeling the shiny plastic bag for the exact minifigure I wanted. The only minifigure series that I have the full set to is the Looney Tunes series, which I was so happy and excited for when it came out.
Ever since I was 12, I have wanted a Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck Lego minifigure. I don’t know why but I just wanted to see how Lego would mold their head shapes and craft other Looney Tunes characters.
One of my favorite sets that I have bought and built is the Daily Bugle from the Spiderman comics. Now, I know I said I collect mainly DC Comics, Star Wars and Harry Potter, but when I saw this Daily Bugle set, the journalist in me had to buy it.
Luckily, Spiderman is my favorite Marvel superhero, so it worked out!
I also love the Hogwarts castle set collection that I have. I don’t have the huge 6,000 piece set, I instead have the four different sets that connect together and make one larger set. It was so much fun to buy all the sets separately and put them together to make one massive set.
I think that Legos help with thinking creatively and using your imagination to simply just have some fun. Again, you can do so much with Legos and the possibilities are endless. Just have fun and make something extraordinary!