Does Stars of the Media exist in real life?

So for the final Stars of the Media entry, I explore the question of if the toys or anything else on page six exist in real life.

I expected this to be a short post where I  just mention the Bill Clinton Corkscrew figurine (which has a functioning corkscrew coming from the President's crotch) and move on (I couldn't find any figures or dolls of Monica Lewinksy).

And then I did a search for an OJ Simpson action figure....

So it turns out there's a collector's market called "murderabilia" for people who collect memorabilia from mass murders. And apparently with the advent of the internet, business is good. I found several sites, the most extensive of which had a link that said, "Click here to view our amazing serial killer merchandise." Yeah, I only wish I was kidding about this. 

So among this "amazing serial killer merchandise" is:

• an auction of letters written by serial killers from some guy's private collection 

• a magazine devoted to serial killers "chock full of rare interviews, articles, letters, death certificates, documents, artwork, trivia and much more." Serial killer trivia?!?!

• books containing the complete FBI Files of a particular serial killer, including one volume on the complete files of the Columbine killers

• DVDs on each killer containing interviews and news footage. The one on John Wayne Gacy includes "uncut raw video taken by the Chicago Police in 1978 while they dug for bodies in Gacy’s house." And the last volume in the set? You guessed it... "Carnage in Columbine."

And, yes, among the merchandise is a figure of OJ Simpson and it's not done in satire or irony. This is OJ the night of the murder with his shirt soaked in the blood of his victims. And if that wasn't enough it's part of a set. Oh, yes, you can also get figures of serial killers Jeffery Dahmer, John Wayne Gacy, Ted Bundy and Ed Gein

The figures are sculpted by some guy who was looking for a way to make some money and found it in appealing to murderabilia collectors. ABC News' website ran an article on him that ironically noted: "He says he has seen his sales climb from approximately 100 figures in December to 'several hundred' in February, which he considers remarkable because he has no advertising outside of media coverage."

How does he justify making money off murders?

"Yeah it's a pretty shameful thing to do," he said in the article. "I'm making money off these grisly murders. But these guys were shameful before I got a hold of them. I seem them on (Channels such as) A&E, Discovery every other day. People write books about them all the time and are making money off of them."

And he's gotten requests to do figures on the Columbine killers, which he was asked if he had plans to make. 

"I live in Denver," he said. "It wouldn't be too safe for me if I did … people take exception enough as it is with what I do. Besides I knew people who were affected by Columbine."

Well, thank goodness, at least we won't have a Columbine two pack.

So apparently if I set my story in 2013, Psychoboy would've needed a bigger room.

I love free speech in this country, but I also wish people could think of better ways to use it sometimes.