So, it’s already been reported here at AFi (here and here), as well as some of the other toy sites, and speculated about on various forums, that David Vonner (who has worked on fan-favorite lines like Marvel Legends and Marvel Universe in his time at Toy Biz and Hasbro) is working on a new project. What is it? He’s not saying. But, he’s sure been hinting a lot through Twitter.(...)
Read the rest of A Valiant Vonner Victory? Or More?

Well, Toy Fair 2013 is in the history books.

For me, this was one of the better Toy Fairs of recent memory. Well, part of the reason was technically outside of Toy Fair proper and that would be the unveiling of the Four Horsemen’s upcoming Power Lords revival at their Toypocalypse event.

I am so stinking excited for this line, it’s hard to describe.(...)
Read the rest of Toy Fair 2013 Highlight #1: Power Lords Unveiled!

But, Doctor Who is turning 50 this year. Amazing. 50 years and still going strong. Sure, it had a bit of a break there in the late 80s/early 90s as far as televised adventures go. But, the Doctor still traveled through time and space on the printed page and in audio adventures during the television downtime.

I love anniversaries. Especially significant ones. Doctor Who celebrating it’s 50th Anniversary this year comes with all the expected hoopla and merchandise and I am really excited by it all.(...)
Read the rest of Who’s Turning 50?

Marvel Comics recently launched their Marvel NOW re-branding (“it’s not a reboot!”) of their publishing efforts. Being a pretty dyed-in-the-wool trade-waiter I’ve not read any of these yet. However, thanks to various online comics sites such as Newsarama and Comic Book Resources I’ve seen many of the new looks that the various Marvel characters are sporting. Some are terrific, while some are scratch-your-head, “what in the world are they thinking?” bad…and, frankly, most important to me, many would make great toys!(...)
Read the rest of Marvel Universe in 2013?

In a few hours we fall headlong into a new year. 2013. Still no sign of flying cars.

2013 has been a year of change for me and my family. We’ve had a major shift in the focus of our lives, which led to a move cross country from the Columbus, Ohio area to Portland, Oregon.

2012 also showed a marked decreased in toy collecting for me for a variety of reasons. A combination of just not having the money to spend on toys, preferring to spend what little disposable income I had on tabletop games like Warhammer and Warmachine, and some pretty poor toy distribution all added up to a lack of new figures on my shelves.(...)
Read the rest of That Time of Year…Again…

I cannot even begin to describe the hours of entertainment that came out of the famed Hanna Barbera animation studios over the years. The powerhouse teaming of William Hanna and Joseph Barbera produced a wealth of fantastic cartoons for kids of all ages since the studios inception in 1959.(...)
Read the rest of Hanna Barbera Toyline On The Way?

Hey! Have you heard that Mega Bloks will be producing sets based upon the super-successful MMO World of Warcraft by Blizzard Entertainment? Yeah, I may have mentioned it once or twice, or more ’round these parts.

Well, our friends at Mega Bloks are running a contest to rev up the buzz before the sets are released to retail. The contest is called “Channel Your Inner Thrall“.  Thrall, of course, is the iconic orc…former Warchief and current shaman and one of the most popular characters in the Warcraft universe. To enter all you need to do is go to the website (using either the link or the image above) and upload a pic of yourself either a) posing with Thrall, b) posing like Thrall, or c) posing as Thrall.(...)
Read the rest of Channel Your Inner Thrall

Now, to be fair I need be mindful of the fact that the American International Toy Fair is for the entirety of the toy industry, not just the small category of action figures. So, I think it’s safer to say, for me, the action figure showings at this Toy Fair were lackluster, if not downright disappointing.(...)
Read the rest of Post-Toy Fair 2012 Wrap Up

But then along came Unimax. Seemingly out of nowhere the Crysis 2 figures started showing up in Targets around the country. Nicely sculpted and articulated they caught the attention of a lot of 1:18 scale figure fans like myself. While I’ve been a fan of Unimax for a few years now with their Bravo Team, Dino Warriors and Ages of Action lines, I couldn’t get myself to pull the trigger on any of the Crysis 2 figures. No fault of Unimax’s, I just didn’t care at all for the look of the Crysis characters. At all. So, I passed on the assortment.

But, that little Gamestars logo up in the corner got me thinking that maybe, just maybe, Gamestars would prove to be an over-arcing brand encompassing multiple video game licenses. Sure enough, that’s exactly what came to be. Soon we found out about Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, and Red Faction: Armageddon with Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon yet to come. What fantastic news! I really dig the Assassins Creed line, and from pictures I’ve seen Red Faction looks pretty sweet, too. It just hasn’t shown up at any stores around me yet.

Recently, online retailer Big Bad Toy Store posted some product listings for upcoming Gamestars assortments. Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon is still on the way, but it seems we can also look forward to some assortments based on a couple of upcoming Capcom properties: Dragon’s Dogma and Asura’s Fate. Plus, there’s more Assassin’s Creed coming, which I’m excited about.

But, the big one that took my breath away? Starcraft II. I played the original Starcraft back in the day, and loved it. I love Blizzard Entertainment and the worlds and games they’ve created. Starcraft would make an excellent, excellent toyline. Now, I did a little checking and the BBTS listing may be a bit premature, but from what I understand, Unimax and Blizzard are wrapping up negotiations for the license. I’ve got my fingers crossed all goes through as planned.

What I’m really hoping for, and there’s no signs of this happening – so this is just rampant fanboy conjecture – is this new found relationship between Unimax and Blizzard (again, assuming all goes well) could maybe, just maybe, lead to a 1:18 line based on World of Warcraft. Now, that would be truly awesome.

I’d also love to see Unimax tackle a 1:18 Gears of War line. The NECA figures are beautiful, sure, but they refuse to do smaller scale figures.

But, all wishlists aside, we’ve got some great stuff coming from Unimax and their Gamestars lines in 2012. I can’t wait!

Frankly, the toyline is a huge question mark. I’ve no idea what to expect. Are we to judge the output of The Bridge Direct based soley upon their Zhu Zhu Pets and Justin Beiber products? Is that fair? Only, I suppose, if the same people who worked on those are working on the Tolkien lines. But, we don’t know that. Likely it’s a different brand manager, different sculptors, etc. The Bridge Direct has said they want their work on these products to put them on the action figure industry map. They must have done something to wow WB Consumer Products and be awarded the license in the first place.

What am I hoping for? C’mon. You know what I’m going to say. I want a solid 4″ line based on the new movies and the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. Yes, Toy Biz did some amazing work on the original figures and I understand fans would like Hobbit toys to be compatible. I get that. But, I still hope for an extensive 4″ line. We know they are planning Basic Figures and highly-detailed Collectors Figures, so maybe there’ll be 4″ and 6″ figures and everyone’ll be happy.

I just pray they’re good!

One of my favorite lines going right now is Hasbro’s Marvel Universe. Marvel characters in my favorite scale. Doesn’t get much better than that.

So, it is with great anticipation that I look forward to what David Vonner and the rest of the intrepid Marvel Universe team is going to unveil at Toy Fair 2012. I’m trying to manage expectations, ‘though. If memory serves, there hasn’t been very much shown at Toy Fair the past couple of years, with a much bigger splash coming in the summer at Comic Con. However, there’s bound to be a few surprises. But, what?(...)
Read the rest of Pre-TF2012: Marvel Universe

It’s the 1st of February, and that means that Toy Fair 2012 happens this month!

Every year, it seems, the Big Dance of the toy industry is a mix of elation and disappointment. But, for even the most jaded collector there is always something to look forward to.

So, every weekday between now and the start of the show on February 12th, I will be looking at some expected items that I am optimistically looking forward to.

Since some of this got spoiled this week, we’re going to start off with products based on this year’s sure to be blockbuster motion picture: The Dark Knight Rises!(...)
Read the rest of Pre-TF2012: Mattel’s The Dark Knight Rises

And, like any good little toy collector…one of my first thoughts, come the new year is…

…Toy Fair is next month!!

What are you looking forward to?

Oh, and by the way…HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I don’t have any empirical sales data to back this up, but based upon extensive local observation it seems that the best selling movie toys of this past summer was The Smurfs from Jakks Pacific.(...)
Read the rest of The Best Selling Summer Movie Toys?

I was recently turned on to a relatively new card game called Summoner Wars produced by an equally new company, Plaid Hat Games. I’m not usually one for card games, preferring miniatures games by far, but Summoner Wars is a fast and fantastic game with loads of options yet not tons of rules to bog things down. I had the opportunity recently to chat with the Head Hat of Plaid Hat Games, Colby Dauch about his experiences starting up his own game company and bringing products to market.(...)
Read the rest of A Chat with Colby Dauch of Plaid Hat Games

Nope, I’m talking about the new, full-length hardcover novel Pirates of the Caribbean: The Price of Freedom which hits bookstores on May 17th.

Popular genre author A.C. Crispin has crafted a tale of a much younger Jack Sparrow. In this tale of the sea, Jack is about 25 years old. He’s already had a past of pirating, but because he broke the Pirates Code, he’s an outcast from Shipwreck Cove, the Brethren Court and the ever mysterious Teague, the Keeper of the Code (not to mention, as we saw in At Worlds End, Jack’s papa).

When we first encounter Jack in the novel he’s the First Mate on the Fair Wind, a merchant vessel of the East India Trading Company. Jack is doing his level best to be a respectable seaman. But, you know what they say about best intentions.

The Fair Wind is attacked by pirates, and it’s captain dies, setting off a chain of events that leads to Jack being given his own ship, the Wicked Wench, by a young Cutler Beckett who is trying to make a name for himself in the East India Trading Company. Thus is born Captain Jack Sparrow.

(...)
Read the rest of Book Review: POTC: The Price of Freedom

As I’ve mentioned previously, I am a huge fan of Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. For the new movie, On Stranger Tides, JAKKS Pacific was awarded the Master Toy License. Included in this license was the rights to produce games based upon the movies. Of interest to gamers would be the Pirates of the Caribbean: Master of the Seas Strategy Game. I recently had the privilege to interview Ken Malouf, Senior Director of Marketing for Games & Puzzles at JAKKS about this new game which is due in stores any day now

(...)
Read the rest of Will You Be the Master of the Seas?

Sort of.

Being responsible with our environment is an important topic to me. It’s more than a topic, it’s a way of thinking and a way of living. My family and I live on a small 5 acre farm. We raise our own chickens (we have 17 egg layers, and generally raise about 60 for meat per year), pigs, and dairy goats. We actively recycle as much as we possibly can. Where we live you have to pay extra for that, so we do what we can on our own. The animals help with that. There’s a lot of food stuff that can go to the chickens or, especially, the pigs rather than into the trash.  Fortunately, we have a recycling facility in town to which we take our paper products, glass, cans and plastics. Two years ago our trash can was full to overflowing each week when we put it out. Now, there’s barely anything in it. It’s fantastic.

So, where does Mattel come in?

Over the past few years Mattel (and, to be fair, other companies as well) have been getting very elaborate with their packaging, especially with convention exclusives. But, even their standard retail products as well. And, frankly, it’s been frustrating me because it’s just a huge waste. It’s a waste of resources on their part, and it’s a waste on the consumer end as most of that packaging then ends up in landfills. I remember getting action figures as a kid, whether it was Kenner’s Star Wars or Super Powers or whatever. The packaging was a small backing board, and a plastic blister containing a loose figure. No plastic backer vacuu-formed to the shape of the figure. No twist ties holding the figure in plastic (or, in Mattel’s case, a figure-warping action pose). It was all pretty minimalistic. And, I miss it.

This has been bugging me for a while. Backer cards started getting ridiculously huge in proportion to the figure it held. The amount of plastic being used seemed to be more than the amount of plastic used in the figure itself! The Comic Con exclusive packaging has been raising my ire for several years now, and then I saw the trend at retail start to move towards excessive packaging, too. The 4" figures from James Cameron’s Avatar had packaging that was so disproportionate to the product being offered that it was ludicrous.

And I thought, enough was enough.

(...)
Read the rest of Less is More

2011 is shaping up to be a fantastic year for me action figure-wise. Two of my favorite properties are not only making a much anticipated return to toy store shelves, but they’re both doing it in the 4" scale. Better yet, they’re coming from the same company: Jazwares (which is rapidly becoming a favorite of mine)

I’m referring to, of course, Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat.

(...)
Read the rest of Round One: Fight!

My last blog, in which I wrote about our local theater here in the little town of Delaware, Ohio, got me reminiscing about my favorite theater back home in San Jose, California: The Century Theaters (with their unique dome shape) on Winchester Avenue. Specifically, it’s Century 22 that holds a special place in my heart.

(...)
Read the rest of Movie Theater of the Century

It used to be, for the big blockbuster-type movies, I would want to see them at the big chain multiplex with the biggest screen and the best sound system. But, that’s changed.

About 3 years ago my family and I moved to a rural area just outside Delaware, Ohio (about 20 minutes north of the northern edge of Columbus). Delaware is a small town, and an old town. There’s a little movie theater in town called The Strand. The Strand just celebrated it’s 95th birthday, having first opened on April 10, 1916. And, even cooler, it has been in continuous operation for those 95 years.

It has only 3 screens. A main auditorium and a smaller side theater downstairs, and a balcony theater upstairs. While the side theater screen is fairly small, the main and balcony screens are of decent size. They’ve recently upgraded their sound system, so the sound is actually pretty darn good.

But, with only 3 screens The Strand often has to juggle what they’re showing. Sometimes they won’t be able to show a film the day it opens simply because there is no screen on which to show it. That presents a challenge to them, but they handle it well.

Since moving here The Strand has become our theater of choice. There was even a time recently we were headed off to see a movie (I don’t recall which at the moment) that we didn’t think The Strand was going to be getting at all. That’s pretty much the only time we’ll go to the big multiplex. While my wife and daughter were getting ready, I was on the computer checking Facebook and just saw a post from The Strand with their schedule for the next week. They were getting the movie we were just about to go see. We changed our plans on the spot. Didn’t go to Rave and waited until the following week and caught the flick at The Strand.

(...)
Read the rest of Big Movies, Little Theatre

Sonic the Hedgehog is something of a big deal in our household. I’ve written about this before (right here), but 2011 is something special: the 20th Anniversary of Sonic!

First off, wow. Does that make me feel old! It’s hard to believe that Sonic has been a part of my life, not to mention the pop culture landscape for two decades now. That’s crazy.

I haven’t heard much about Sega’s plans for the 20th anniversary, but I know that Florida-based toymaker Jazwares has a slate of 20th Anniversary-themed toys planned for 2011 and I’m super-stoked!

(...)
Read the rest of Pre-Toy Fair: Sonic’s 20th Anniversary

Well, by now we’ve heard and read eulogies to the passing of Wizard and Toyfare magazines ad naseum. Regardless, I felt remiss in not sharing my thoughts on the matter.

Basically, I find that the cancellation of these two magazines saddens me. Quite a bit, actually.

The ironic thing is that I hadn’t read either one in years.

(...)
Read the rest of The Passing of Wizard

Avast, me hearties! This is fair warning to you that over the next several months you’ll likely be seeing a lot of blogs from me concern Pirates of the Caribbean (or other thusly related topics). I’m a huge fan of the movies (or, as my 6 year old daughter likes to exclaim, "Daddy’s Pirate Crazy!") and am giddy with anticipation for the upcoming fourth installment, On Stranger Tides.

There’s been a ships hold full of merchandise based upon the hit franchise thus far, but one thing that has been sorely lacking is novels. Oh sure, there’s the Jack Sparrow series of kid novels, along with the Legends of the Brethren Court series. But, those are for young readers (which hasn’t stopped me from reading them!). But, I’ve been wanting a good, full-length novel featuring these great and colorful characters.

Well, this May that wait comes to an end with the release of Pirates of the Caribbean: The Price of Freedom by A.C.Crispin and I couldn’t be more excited.

(...)
Read the rest of Pirates of the Caribbean: a Novel Concept

For the past couple years Mattel has been the company from which I was most excited to see their new products for the year. But, not this year.

In fact, the world’s biggest toy company has, this year, become practically a non-entity to me. I think the only things I am looking forward to seeing from them this go round are the Young Justice figures and what they’ve got planned for the 3-3/4" segment of the Green Lantern line.

(...)
Read the rest of Mattel Who? Toy Fair 2011 Thoughts.

Also, be sure to check out the just announced Galactic Holiday edition OSM figures decked out in special holiday colors! ‘Tis the season, indeed!

(...)
Read the rest of Street Fighter: Closer to Reality

Happy Thanksgiving, AFi Readers!

As you may have read on AFi’s front page, Jazware’s is returning to the Street Fighter license. Street Fighter fans may recall a few years back Jazwares produced a line of 6" Street Fighter figures that were sold at Toys R Us. Most of the figures were based upon sculptures designed by SOTA.

Now in 2011 Jazwares is re-entering the fight with a new line of 3-3/4" scale Street Fighter figures, and I couldn’t be happier!

I’ve long been a fan of the franchise. I remember playing the original arcade game in the late 80s at my local arcade (Golfland on Blossom Hill Road in San Jose, CA) and dug it. But it wasn’t until Street Fighter II hit the scene a few years later that I really got into it.

Blanka, Guile and Ken were always my favorite characters from the franchise and still are. Whenever I play the game I play with one of those characters almost exclusively.

When Hasbro introduced Street Fighter action figures as a subline of GI Joe I was excited and disappointed at the same time. Sure, the characters were there but most were just kit-bashed off existing molds with a few new parts.  A short time later when the infamous Jean Claude Van Damme movie hit theaters (1994..and, yes, I saw it in the theater) a few of the figures got redone with new parts. They weren’t the best, but I think I got all of them. I still have most of them, too.

SOTA’s line was great while it lasted. Marvel Legends was in it’s heydey and SOTA admitted to patterning their Street Fighter line after ML in terms of scale and articulation. They produced some fantastic figures. The line suffered later by changes within the company and the demise of several specialty retailers such as Media Play.

NECA took a shot at the license in the 7" scale, but as cool as some of the figures looked I was afraid that NECA wouldn’t get around to some of my favorite characters and passed altogether. It seems I was right. I was tempted to pick up Ken and Guile….but with no Blanka on the horizon the line would forever seem incomplete to me. Plus, I didn’t care for the scale.

So, Street Fighter and me go way back. I’ve played the games in the arcade and at home. I saw the movie and watched the anime. I read the comics (even the crappy Malibu one).  I’m super excited about this upcoming line from Jazwares and can’t wait to see what they’ve got planned. From the press release we know there’s single packed figures, two-packs and "comic book battle packs".  Hopefully we get a lot of characters. Jazwares has been doing right by me with their Sonic the Hedgehog line, so I’m optimistic.

And, it goes without saying that the 3-3/4" scale has me extremely excited! 2011 is shaping up to be a most excellent toy year.

(by the way, I’m also very enthused about the upcoming Mega Man line from Jazwares as well, but I’ll save that for another blog)