As everyone who reads this magazine by now should know I am an avid
fan of Captain Action and like many Captain Action fans I frequently
visit the
Captain Action User Group.
Un-like the collectors of GIjOE, Dragon Models, SideShow, and Ignite
Captain Action Collectors have been faced with the challenge of
collecting an orphaned product. Its been just about five years since
the last time the Captain rolled off the assembly line, when Playing
Mantis ended production of their remake of Ideal's 1966 Captain
Action. Since then there have been no new commercially available
accessories or costumes.
The key word here is "commercially", there is on the other hand a
cottage industry of artisans and craftsmen who offer a wide variety
of costumes, accessories, and reproduction parts. Their work is just
as good, and in most cases better than the products offered by Ideal
and Playing Mantis. The majority of these artisans have two things
in common their dedication to keeping Captain Action alive and
Rauty's suits.
Who Is this guy Rauty:
Bob
Rautenstrauch AKA Rauty is the owner and operator of
Rauty' Toy Shop
and one of the best suppliers of Captain Action suits and
accessories, If you are a collector of custom Captain Action figures
the odds are that Rauty has made the suit your figure is sporting.
Rauty works with many of these artisans to develop their products
and to supply them with the perfect suit and cape.
Rauty's talents don't end with suits; being a jeweler by trade he
has supplied some really awesome 1/6th scale accessories, a 1960
Batarang, reproduction DR. Evil pendent, and a batman Utility belt
just to name a few. Personally I own about a half dozen of Rauty's
suits including one of his original prototype Batman Year One capes.
Rauty has one other distinction that I need to mention he was the
fist reader to visit Classic Action Figures as a Beta testers and
the first review published in Classic Action Figures was on a
Michael Keaton Batman
that Dale and Rauty made for me.
The
following are some of Rauty's suites and how people have used them
to make their own custom figures.
