No surprise to see so much Batman merchandise at last week’s Toy Fair 2011 at the Javits Center. But Mimoco, manufacturer of the mimobot line of “designer” USB flash drives, showed off a novel Batman piece, part of its new wave of Batman flash drive designs also featuring Robin, Catwoman and The Joker mimobot flash drive characters.
The Batman mimobots are the result of a venture with Warner Bros. Consumer Products on behalf of DC Entertainment, home of Batman‘s giant comic books publisher DC Comics. The Batman-related mimobot designs are based on recent comic book appearances, but there’s also a limited edition grey and black-clad vintage art deco Batman mimobot, styled after the icon’s first appearance in Detective Comics #27, in May 1939.
“We call it ‘an art toy with a digital soul,'” says Mimoco rep Jessica Smiley, speaking of the mimobot in general. “It’s an extension of the vinyl toy industry: We took the idea to the next echelon by adding digital.”
In the trade, vinyl and designer are terms used to designate limited edition toys and collectibles created by artists and designers, often fashioned in vinyl.
Geared to the toy collector, mimobots offer “a personal way to store personal data,” says Smiley, who contrasts them with the faceless “bleak, black matte square” standard flash drives.
“This is an art toy that’s collectible and can stand alone,” she continues, adding: “We have two levels of consumers–the dedicated collector, who has one of every mimobot on the shelf, and the 13 year-old girl who needs a flash drive for school and carries it on her cell phone in a mimobot keychain hoodie pouch as a fashion statement. It’s an original branded accessory, and we sell to a lot of boutiques as well as comic book stores.”
Mimoco currently has approximately 50 different mimobots available, including a line of 18 Star Wars characters. Other lines feature Hello Kitty, Wish Come True, Tikidoki, and Base Man toy designs, with more DC Comics’ characters, including Green Lantern, Superman and The Flash, forthcoming in the near future.
“It’s all about creating a sense of magic and fun–collector art and technology,” says Smiley.
Mimobot, incidentally, stands for “memory robot.” Each bot is preloaded with MimoDesk character-specific content including wallpapers, avatars, screensavers and MimoByte sound software.
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