Comments on: Book Review > “Mastering the Universe” by Roger Sweet & David Wecker

By: Ghosthy

Ghosthy — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 07:54:40 +0000

Omg – this guy invented He-man and you are all still sitting down?!? Roger Sweet – im your nr 1 fan!

By: Motorthing

Motorthing — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 14:19:00 +0000

Mattel's own book would come out with a lead cover, misprinted pages in Uzbek and almost as much self-serving myth-building as Sweet manages.

Strange that the Company seems to have actually gotten worse in it's whole business ethic since his time – with corporate survival being so Darwinian these days you wouldn't have thought such a thing possible.

An interesting read to be sure, but you really wouldn't wanna be on a long car-journey with the guy without a 12 Gauge way to shut him up.

By: Philip Reed

Philip Reed — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 08:57:26 +0000

Concept drawings and photos would have made this an amazing book. Mattel should have access to all of the old material and could create their own book.

By: Drunken Fist

Drunken Fist — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 02:32:22 +0000

Actually, there aren't any! I reckon he just didn't have access to any.

By: clark

clark — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 01:13:12 +0000

Is this book at least full of concept drawings and prototype images, or is there just a few here and there?

By: Drunken Fist

Drunken Fist — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 00:09:44 +0000

I bought the book when it was released, and had pretty much the same opinion of it. The most interesting part of the book was the section that described the history of the development of the toy industry in general, and the modern action figure in particular. There was a good bit of information there that I hadn't known before.

By: griffin

griffin — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 22:35:50 +0000

Does Sweet discuss any inspirations, like Captain Marvel, Superman, and Conan or does he claim he just made it up out of whole cloth?

By: Jim

Jim — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 22:24:46 +0000

@Monte: oh my point to that story…if mattel **cks with their customers as much as they do, I'm not surprise if there are a bunch of disgruntled employees currently working for them.

By: Jim

Jim — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 22:23:13 +0000

@ Newton Gimmick: Very Very True as always Mr. Newton Gimmick!

@ Monte: I read that guy who made up the 1st four mini comics wasn't too happy about Mattel either.

As for current employees…not sure but check facebook out. Some guy claims that after Mattel send his figure to the wrong address and after Mattel received the figure back, Mattel had said that they would not refund the guy OR send back the figure to him.

Don't know if it's true or not but Mattel seriously needs to fix their "REFUND/RETURN/REPLACEMENT" system. They're HORRIBLE.

Better Business Bureau actually has an "A" for them! How did that happen? lol

By: Newton Gimmick

Newton Gimmick — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 21:34:57 +0000

To be fair to Sweet, when compiling a book of that nature and no doubt dealing with so much stuff in a license, you tend to forget things. Granted those things probably should have been fact checked and fixed, but even I have occasionally wrote things down completely wrong just because I've had so much information running around in my brain at the same time.

Memory can be a funny thing. Read three autobiographies of three people who were at the same place at the same time and you'll probably have three different stories of the events.

I've always wanted to read this book though.