February 15, 2012 | Poe
- A few other things that caught my eye at Toy Fair:
- Mezco’s stylized Universal Monsters figures. OAFE reviewer and occasional PGPoA contributor Rustin Parr could not possible be more excited for these–he’s planning to get two of each. I’m in for the Gillman, of course, as he’s my favorite UM. They’re due out around September (according to at least one site). Pics at Battlegrip.
- Jay Cochran of TNI seems concerned about the future of Bandai’s ThunderCats toys; there was nothing new at Toy Fair this year, and the staff wouldn’t comment on its future. The cartoon show has been a moderate success and reportedly renewed for a second season, and from my own observation the toys seem to sell decently, so I’m a bit surprised by this.
- There will be Play Arts Kai Mass Effect figures, starting with Shepard, Ashley and Garrus. Garrus is great, but Shepard is less exciting since everyone creates their own character, and Ashley? Why no Miranda? Miranda was way more interesting. And–ahem–hotter, for a CGI character anyway. BBTS has these up for preorder.
- Of course there’s also PAK’s upcoming Arkham Asylum figures. I note that Phil Reed of Battlegrip made sure to get an upskirt of Harley Quinn (prediction: that will be my most-clicked link today. You’re welcome, Phil!).
- I have to admit to being kind of excited by Mezco’s Mars Attacks figure. I just hope it has decent articulation. It appears to have hinged elbows and knees, but the real question is whether the hips/thighs are ball joints. I’m guessing not the thighs at least, since the feet don’t appear to be articulated.
- TNI has more pics of the classic Turtles, including the packaging, which is wonderfully nostalgic. They’re due in stores in August at about $15 apiece, so it’ll cost you $60 to put together your Fab Four.
- In non-Toy Fair news, Poester Chris Pearce sent me a note regarding his blog Teachable Moments, which has been running a series of posts called Thrift Store Finds. He’s reviewed a number of vintage MOTU items recently such as children’s books, coloring books and magazines, all of which you can check out using this link.
- PGPoA art director Mecha-Shiva pointed me to this neat YouTube video of a self-proclaimed “Greatest Toy in the Universe.” It’s created by a UK company called Wow Stuff, and it looks rather like the vintage MOTU toy Spydor. I dislike radio-controlled toys, but I’ll admit that thing is pretty neat.
- Finally, I just want to thank JediCreeper again for helping out with the Toy Fair coverage this year. Maybe we can get him a real press pass next year…
February 14, 2012 | Poe
- The Four Horsemen tweeted the following regarding Frosta’s face: “Please spread the word. Paint job was a quickie so we could show her at Toy Fair. Tweaks are being made DDR.” I don’t know what DDR is…down da road?
- To establish just how much I wanted a MOTUC Spikor, back in 2008 I was the one who started the official thread for him on He-Man.org. Four years later I finally get him. Note my concern for QC issues–and this was before we even got He-Man or Beast Man!
- For the record, it has not yet been confirmed what figure(s) will come with the MOTUC-ized Keldor swords and Man-At-Arms Millennium-style arm cannon. There was speculation one or both would come with Snake Man-At-Arms, but Scott Neitlich shot that down.
- But speaking of weapons, there will apparently be a third Weapons Pack in the fall. It’s possible the Keldor swords/arm cannon will be included in that (along with Draego-Man’s shield), though we’ve never seen original sculpts in a weapons pack before. If those three items were included, would certainly make for a bestselling pack.
- The Wind Raider will return sometime around SDCC. I guess the hope is they sell well enough to convince management to greenlight something like the Battle Ram. Two thing on that: 1.) Fans will already be spending money on the SDCC exclusives, so, like last year’s Christmas release, people will be low on money when this expensive item comes out. Why not re-release during a month where, I don’t know, hardly anything is coming out–like mid-August, maybe?
February 9, 2012 | Poe
- Just a heads-up–for a variety of reasons, I won’t be attending Toy Fair next week like I did last year. I will, however, be offering my usual armchair coverage, and I will have someone representing PGPoA–JediN8–who will be taking photos and tweeting from the Mattel and Hasbro collector events, as well as the Fair itself.
- I also won’t be able to attend the Four Horsemen’s now-annual show, this one called Toypocalypse II: Futuretro, on Friday night at Toy Tokyo in NYC. It’s looking to be quite an event, though. In addition to the Horsemen and Outer Space Men creator Mel Birnkrant, there are three visiting artists: Sucklord, who may already be familiar to many of you; Abdi Farah, who won the first season of Bravo’s “Work of Art: The Next Great Artist,” and Kymia Nawabi, the winner of the same show’s second season. As I understand it, all of them will be presenting their own Outer Space Men customs. Speaking of OSM, they will also have a set of four OSM with new paint jobs designed by OSM creator Mel Birnkrant himself, signed by Mr. Birnkrant and the Horsemen, as well as a print of the above painting by the superb Nathan Baertsch (you can get the whole shebang–figures and print–for $125). It looks like it’s going to be an awesome time, and I’m hatefully envious of everyone who gets to go.
- Speaking of Toy Fair, Paul Nomad of the blog Idle Hands is doing his usual thing where he gets all the pre-Toy Fair scoops through whatever mysterious black magic (or maybe just blackmail?) he employs. There’s lot of interesting stuff there, so be sure to check it out.
- Mattycollector.com has added the long-awaited subscription manager to their website, though be aware that it won’t really work yet, since–as was explained months ago–February subs can’t be combined. Be aware that (as far as I can tell) you actually shouldn’t have to take any action to combine your subs. That should happen automatically. However, if you want them separate, you have to adjust that in the settings. You can also update your credit card info for each subscription from this new section.
- It seems that Snout Spout‘s foam trunk may have a tendency to break or tear. Of course this is unsurprising, and again, I don’t get why Mattel couldn’t just use the hard rubber from the vintage figure of twenty-five years ago.
- In addition, it sounds like the foam giant Stay Puft Marshmallow Men are turning yellow. Mattel’s response was “Yes, totally aware of this issue and we have the CPI team looking into it. We hope to have an update soon.” This, after they just answered in December that “[a]ll of our figures, no matter what the material, go through extensive internal simulated aging and humidity testing. If product does not pass, we do not ship it.” Nonetheless, I give credit to Mattel for admitting to the problem, though I have no idea what they can do about it. Unless there’s a really easy fix for it, the only thing they could do would be to offer a refund, and I have a hard time seeing that happening.
- Anyway, all of this QC/foam stuff led fans to create a thread on He-Man.org pleading for Granamyr to be made of plastic and not foam, to which Scott Neitlich replied that Granamyr would not be made of foam and would be made from the same plastic as Tytus and Megator. So, some good news there.
- He-Man.org has posted the first part of an interesting interview with Nathan Bitner, the boy who invented this month’s MOTUC 30th Anniversary figure, Fearless Photog.
February 3, 2012 | Poe
February 2, 2012 | Poe
- In addition to the pics from yesterday’s MTV Geek exclusive about the TMNT Classic Collection, you should also check out this video interview with a Playmates brand manager (I’m assuming). It’s got some nice shots of the figures, and the manager spells out that these are definitely based on the 1980s cartoon, that they’re intended for collectors and that the line could expand deeper in the cartoon as well as the movies and comics if it sells well.
The video also shows that their shells open up as a storage area for weapons, which seems like an unnecessary but unobtrusive feature. (The brand manager also refers to them as “ten- to eleven-inch figures” which is odd, since they’re clearly 6″ and are right next to him.) It turns out the video is poorly edited, and the two previous sentences refer to the 10″ TRU-exclusive figures based on the new cartoon, not the Classics figures.
- I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Playmates is also doing a full 3 3/4″ scale line for the new Nickelodeon cartoon, including an absolutely massive sewer playset.
- Out of curiosity, what do people think of the format for my recent MOTUC reviews? Do you prefer the older style with the separate sections for each aspect (sculpt/paint/accessories etc.), or is this more conversational style okay?
- If I were a wealthy man with money to burn, I would buy this in a heartbeat. I’m almost tempted to start some ridiculously selfish PayPal donation drive just to get one. But that would be better spent on creating and producing a run of Poe figurines a la OMFG…(he asked slyly, raising an eyebrow in curiosity to see what the response was).
February 2, 2012 | Poe
February 1, 2012 | Poe
January 31, 2012 | Poe
January 30, 2012 | Poe
January 26, 2012 | Poe
- Mattel has posted pics and bios of Kobra Khan and Draego-Man on their Facebook page. Who’s the Great Black Wizard…? Scott also added this commentary: Draego-Man really filled out the package. The wings are detached as is the tail to fit inside the blister, but they all easily snap in. He comes with the flame on sword. We are working on finding a home for the unreleased sword and whip accessories, perhapes with a future figure. The massive wing span and all the deco hits he needed forced us to reduce a few accessories to keep him as a $20.00 figure. We would rather remove the shield than have to remove the wings or tail! The all new bio [is] based on the Horsemen’s backstory! The shield art was also supplied by the Horsemen from their concept sketch sent to our design team! Draego ships in April as part of the 30th sub (not the main Club Eternia Cub) with some limited day-of stock for non sub holders.
- Bandai Japan’s S.H.MonsterArts line is my new obsession, so I was happy to hear the latest news that Moguera will be released in late May, and the SpaceGodzilla special effects pack featuring crystals and an articulated Baby Godzilla will ship in June. The Moguera will cost $87, which is more expensive than any SHM figure to date (lots of theories as to why, but it’s probably just due to all the accessories). Given this line’s obsession with accuracy and devotion to depicting these kaiju as fully as possible, I strongly suspect it will be able to split, especially since, to the best of my knowledge, no previous Moguera toy has been able to do that. The crystal/Baby Godzilla set will cost $44, which is actually cheaper than any accessory kit thus far. The better news is that there may be a U.S. distribution for one or both items, which should bring the prices down.
- DC Direct is doing 6″ Dark Knight Rises figures, meaning that they will once again be competing directly with Mattel; first the Arkham games, now DKR. DCD pretty decisively won the Arkham battle, but if the Four Horsemen are behind the DKR Movie Masters and Mattel actually puts a little money into the production side of things (a big if there), they could win this battle…especially since the DCD figures appear to be pre-posed a la DC’s World of Warcraft and God of War figures. (Via Toynewsi)
- In the same article, DC also announced series 3 of Arkham City, due in September 2012 and consisting of a regular Batman, Ra’s Al Ghul, Clown Thug, Azrael, and the Penguin.
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