Poe Plays Favorites 2010 (The Awards Post)

March 8, 2011 | Poe


Wow, am I late with this thing. Frankly the only reason I’m even doing it is to placate my obsessive-compulsiveness–there must be a PPF for every year, even if it takes me three months into the following year to do it.

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Bastards of the Universe > “Other Interests”

March 7, 2011 | googum


If you haven’t read the Grifters by Jim Thompson, well, you probably should. It’s also a throwaway line in a Vertigo comic called Finals: “A sack of oranges makes for a quick confession and a tasty breakfast.”

Toy Aisle Trolls > Low Point

March 7, 2011 | Poe

Toy Aisle Trolls is a feature highlighting acts of vandalism to in-store toy items. If you find a ruined package, a stolen figure, a swapped-out figure, or any other such acts, take a photo (cell phone photos are fine if they’re not blurry) and email them to poe AT poeghostal.com.

Poester K. sends in this sad commentary on some of the people in our hobby.

Writes K.:

At my local Walmart in Lockport, IL, which is rated by the company as one of its top 5 stores in the country somehow, I am constantly finding these horrible swap outs. I’ve brought them to the store’s attention and different managers many times. I am pretty sure it is the same troll that has been doing this to at least 30 figures I’ve found since the Rise of Cobra line came out.

Yesterday’s find of the just-released vhtf Low-Light was particularly horrible and I had to take a picture before I turned him over to the Toy Department Manager.

For some reason, this one just out-and-out pisses me off as an example of blatant theft. I’m not even going to make fun of the creepy shirtless dude in the helmet. I’m just going to wish the worst upon the human being who did this, no doubt created when an irradiated sperm met a gangrenous egg.

But I commend K. for actually taking some action this time–if he reads this post, perhaps he can let us know whether the manager actually took the thing off the shelf?

Ten Classic G.I. Joe Icons That Require a Pursuit of Cobra Makeover

March 4, 2011 | Monte

Monte Williams returns to Poe Ghostal’s Points of Articulation to counter the cloying Mattel love with some praise and speculation for the world’s greatest toy company, Hasbro.

Ten Classic G.I. Joe Icons That Require a Pursuit of Cobra Makeover

Or

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Start Loving Small-Scale G.I. Joes

The Pursuit of Cobra series features the most awe-inspiring figures Hasbro has ever produced under its many G.I. Joe banners. Like Mattel’s Masters of the Universe series of 2002, Pursuit of Cobra takes classic character designs and increases their dynamism by roughly three hundred-percent… and then adds stellar articulation and a dizzying array of accessories.

Thus far, Hasbro has treated Joe fans to Pursuit of Cobra updates of Destro, Spirit, Firefly, and many other classic G.I. Joe characters.

So who should they update next? (more…)