The ABOUT page is devoted to some service communications, giving you some news about this site, its purposes and contents. None of them is necessary to browse the Marvel Statues Museum, of course, but I think it is a good idea to point out some issues and to make them clear for all possible guests.

My name is Sandro. I am an aeronautical engineer, working in the field of technical and scientific research (specifically, computational aero/hydro-acoustics and fluid dynamics). I was born and live in Rome, with a wife and two daughters. My love for Marvel Universe dates back to my adolescence when, at the beginning of the 70s, an Italian publishing house (Editoriale Corno) started to publish the exciting adventures of the many characters created by Stan Lee and his co-workers. For many years I read any type of Marvel Comics (although I only collected the series devoted to the Fantastic Four) and, as many of you, I grew up by empathizing the problems of Peter Parker and Norrin Radd, admiring the genius of Reed Richards or Tony Stark, dreaming of the skies of Asgard and the depths of Atlantis, applauding the deeds of Steve Rogers, having fun for the irony of Ben Grimm... Nowadays, all these characters represent some old, very dear friends whom I spent exciting and unforgettable moments with, and when I found out the existence of statues devoted to them, it was almost natural for me to become a collector! After all these years, my passion for these collectibles is fully unaltered, although I have drastically reduced my purchases: the available space is literally over and, at present, I need to select any possible new entry very carefully. Furthermore, this hobby has deeply changed and appears to be constantly evolving. In the era of the global connectivity and digital photography, in fact, thousands of collectors may share their passion on social networks, while the availability of powerful 3D modeling tools is revolutionizing the way of conceiving and making sculptures, by exploiting the talent and creativity not only of professional artists, but of passionate fans around the world too. Nowadays, many different Companies work in this field: the number of statues has been notably increasing and the market offers a wide variety of collectibles devoted to a lot of characters of the Marvel Universe.

In essence, this website has three aims. The first (and most important one) is to share my passion with all other fans of Marvel statues. And to share means to give you the chance to have a look at what I collected in many years with a great enthusiasm, to describe both the weak and strong points of the different statues, to take and show pictures of them and somehow to explain the reasons of my choices. Obviously, any collection is the result of a very personal feeling, revealing the sensitivity and tastes of who build it, day by day, with his own passion. For this reason, in these pages you will find pieces you will love and pieces you will hate, something that will fascinate you and something that will leave you totally indifferent! This is exactly what I expect and, please, keep in mind that everything here just represents my own point of view on this exciting hobby and has no claim to be either objective or absolute. In any case, I think the availability of a large database, with a lot of photos and descriptions of the different statues, may be pleasant for all fans and (why not?!) helpful to better understand what you really like and... to go hunting! The second is simply to have fun. I love to hang out with my pieces and also to play with pictures, by adding backgrounds, taking photos of statues' groups, cartoonizing the images or creating evocative photomontages. Broadly speaking, this could be considered a sort of hobby into hobby! For many years I did all this on collectors' forums and social networks, but often my efforts were focused only on a few pieces and, the worst thing, they ended up being lost in the meanders of my computer or the Web. Then I thought it might be a good idea to structure the work, make it more congruent and related to the entire collection and also to save it in a designated area. The third (last, but not least) is to have an ordered catalogue of my statues, where I can easily recover all news about any piece. Time goes by, the number of pieces increases and it is more and more difficult for me to remember who sculpted what, the year of release for each statue, the corresponding edition size and so on. Now instead, it is sufficient to sit in front of a computer and to click on a mouse to have any information available... Not bad!

I am NOT an expert of web-design and my knowledge of the many topics related to the development and realization of websites is strictly limited, to say the least. Nevertheless, nothing is precluded when a great passion guides your mind! Then, some basics of HTML, a bit of ASP, a sprinkling of Java, so much work and patience... and any project can be realized! The structure of the site is quite simple and I think you can browse it and/or find what you are looking for very easily. The site was developed and tested through Firefox, by using a video resolution of 1920 x 1200 pixels, which presumably represents the best resolution to read and look at the pages. Honestly, I did not care much about the compatibility with other browsers, formats or possible devices (like smartphones, for instance), but these technical aspects would have required a competence well beyond my interests and capabilities. I am well aware the site could be conceived better and built in a much more professional way, but this is just for fun and, after all, I am satisfied with the final result. Obviously, Italian is my native language and it has been a long and hard work to realize the website in English completely! On the other hand, I thought it would have been a pity not to make it comprehensible to all fans and collectors spread around the world. Then, I apologize in advance for all mistakes and errors that, no doubt, you will find in these pages: I hope they do not prevent you from understanding the text or enjoying the Museum!

Please note: the site has NO COMMERCIAL PURPOSES. As is evident looking at most of the pages (like the one you are reading!), I used a lot of images freely downloaded from Internet and just to make the site more attractive. Actually, tons of images are daily shared on many websites and social networks, so that due to the nature of this site, I think no particular copyright problem should arise and nobody could feel harmed by this work. In any case, if such a remote circumstance occurred, please contact me by email (sandro.ianniello@fastwebnet.it) and I will remove the image(s) immediately.