Mattycollector Panel News & Discussion Post (Updated w/ MOTUC)

July 13, 2012 | Poe

Watch the Mattycollector panel live.

Yeah, I know I always use this pic, but I just love it so goddamned much. Sudden thought: would people be interested in a T-shirt with this image? Or maybe this one?

Anyway, the Mattycollector Fan Panel is due to start at 12pm Pt (3pm ET). I’m not sure I’ll quite be able to live-blog the event, but I’m sure Twitter will have live updates, so just keep an eye on my Toy Geeks Twitter List and you’ll get all the info as it happens. (more…)

Mattel Unveils (Some) SDCC 2012 Exclusives

April 27, 2012 | Poe

From Mattycollector.com…

Masters of the Universe Vykronâ„¢ ($30)

If clothes make the He-Man, then this pitch prototype for the 1982 lineup is destined to be the star of the MOTU 30th Anniversary celebration thanks to a choice of three outfits: barbarian, spaceman, and military warrior! You’ll get him in-package dressed as a barbarian only at SDCC , but you can find him here at MattyCollector.com after the show packed as a spaceman or military warrior (all three outfits are included regardless of where he’s purchased). Want to know more about this multi-purpose warrior? Set includes one “buck,” or figure, with three different outfits/helmets to interchange between space, military and barbarian looks. Check back for the history of Vykronâ„¢, soon to be disclosed… (more…)

Draego-Man, Thunder Punch He-Man, Ghostbusters Rookie, Yellow Lion & More at Mattycollector

April 16, 2012 | Poe

It’s yet another Mattycollector Sale Day. (This time last year, the big sale item was Sy-Klone.)

All in One Sale Page

The new items this month include Draego-Man, Thunder Punch He-Man, the Ghostbusters Rookie, and the Voltron Yellow Lion w/ Hunk. There’s a ton of other stuff too, including Tri-Klops, Orko, Man-E-Faces, Peter Venkman, Hordak, King Hssss with his reversed shoulders and so on. (more…)

Odds ‘n Ends > Futuretro, Toy Fair, Matty Subs, Snout Spout/Stay Puft QC Problems, & a Plastic Granamyr

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.

Odds ‘n Ends > Mattycollector News, G.I. Joe Photo Covers, FOC Dinobot Pics

December 21, 2011 | Poe

  • Mattel has announced the January Mattycollector sale, which includes the Sorceress and Fearless Photog, as well as the “Ready to Believe You” Peter Venkman. More interesting is the news that they will now have He-Man, Skeletor, Battle Cat, Panthor, and 6″ Peter Venkman and Ray Stanz on permanent sale throughout 2012. It only took them four years.
  • I have to pick a winner for the Arkham City contest–I’ll do that tonight. Apologies for the delay.
  • I’m intrigued by IDW’s photo covers of G.I. Joe toys for their comics (here’s one, and here’s another one). On the one hand, it’s awesome that they’re paying tribute to the comics’ toy origins. On other hand, the covers are pretty uninspired. A brief Flickr search will come up with better pics (check out Geek Creek and Ed Speir IV, for example).
  • Power Pal Joe Amaro sent along this touching video of James Sawyer of motucfigures.com reviewing the Wind Raider with his son. As a toymaker himself, Joe says “this is the sort of thing that makes it all worthwhile.”
  • Joe also sent along these awesome pics of the Dinobots (via Tformers.com, though they could have originated elsewhere for all I know) from the upcoming Fall of Cybertron videogame: Grimlock, “Slug” (Slag’s new name, apparently? Yuck. Damned trademarks), and Swoop. They all look awesome, and we had better get toys of them. (Preferably not assembled by sweatshop laborers–more on that later.)

Happy Wind Raider Day!

December 15, 2011 | Poe

[Here’s the link to the all-in-one page.]

With Demo-Man delayed, I think we can all agree the real reason everyone’s hitting Mattycollector today will be for the Wind Raider. I’ll be interested to see how quickly it sells out. Personally I don’t find the Wind Raider to be all that interesting a vehicle–I’d much rather have gotten the Battle Ram or even the Attack Trak first–but it does look lovely, and the stand is a nice touch.

So just to clarify, everything will ship right away except Demo-Man. If you order Demo-Man, anything bundled with him will have to wait until he arrives at the warehouse in early January. If you want your stuff to ship right away, don’t order Demo-Man. On the other hand, this is your only chance (as far as I know) to actually order him–he won’t go on sale in January when he arrives. So yes, this is kind of a pre-order, amusingly enough.

Then there’s the controversial Battleground Evil-Lyn repaint and the Legion of Super-Heroes 12-pack is on sale again, as is the brand-new Vigo from Ghostbusters II.

So, what are you getting?

Odds ‘n Ends > November 2, 2011

November 2, 2011 | Poe

  • Yesterday Warner Bros announced they had extended their master toy license deal with Mattel. Hardly a surprise with Dark Knight Rises and Man of Steel on the way, but good news for those of us who love Four Horsemen sculpting on DC toys. Speaking of, I sincerely hope the Horsemen will be working on the DKRises Movie Masters toys. Not sure if that’s been confirmed yet.
  • BigBadToyStore has the next (and final?) wave of Batman Legacy figures up for preorder. Enchanted Toy Chest should have them soon as well.
  • Pics of the upcoming G.I. Joe Zombie-Viper surfaced yesterday. (And some guy named Edwin “Lifeline” Steen.) The zombie looks incredibly awesome. This is how it’s done, Todd.
  • I hadn’t even heard about this until yesterday, but NECA is offering an incredible in-scale Da Vinci Flying Machine from Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood. It doesn’t come with an Ezio figure, but if you have one it will fit in the machine. It’s only available via preorder from Gamestop.
  • Due to NYCC, I forgot to submit a Q&A to Mattel for November 1, but you can see a roundup of the rest of them here. I didn’t find any answers particularly earth-shattering, but it’s interesting to see they’re committed to continuing Ghostbusters past 2012. The prop replicas are selling out and are apparently pretty cool, but the figures seem to be tanking.
  • The fully-painted “Infinity Edition” of Outer Space Men phases three and four will go up for preorder on 11/11.

Happy Icarius Day!

October 17, 2011 | Poe

Link to the all-in-one sale page.

My NYCC write-up is coming soon (probably tomorrow), but in the meantime, we can celebrate/discuss the arrival of Icarius. As discussed at the Mattel NYCC panel on Saturday, the name “Icarius” was used for the vintage figure in Europe because the name “Flipshot” didn’t translate well. When it came time to name the Classics figure, the team chose Icarius because it was, well, cooler-sounding than “Flipshot.”

I have to say I think he’s a great-looking action figure, and I can’t wait to get mine.

Also available in today’s sale is the massive Legion of Super Heroes 12-pack for $180. I’m not a Legion fan and I can’t afford that thing anyway, but it looks awesome.

This is a big sale; there’s also the prop replica Ghost Trap and Battle Cat is back, along with Mer-Man, one of the finest MOTUC figures. Finally there’s Ray Stantz w/ Slime Blower and a number of DCUC figures available. I’ve got Icarius coming by subscription, so the only thing I might pick up is Ray.