Hi Julius,
There has been talk on the DC Direct board about pictures showing up in the soft cover version of the Alex Ross Mythology book of a 13" or 14" Superman and Batman. Can you confirm that DC Direct is going ahead with this?
Thanks, Alan

Oh no.

I can't afford a DCD 13" Alex Ross Batman and Joker...

If this is true, it's gonna sting...

Wow I never heard of this... .. . I can't imagine how much it'll cost!

I'll see what I can find out but that's not what I was told would be next.

D.

Thanks Julius,
I'm curious what they say. Now you have peaked my interest though on who they said is next after Lex Luthor.
Alan

I'm dying to find if those Alex Ross figures are going into production. I think the 13" DC line is the best DC Direct has ever done.

If anyone is getting the 13" Superman can you pose them next to other 12" figures(sideshow etc) if you have any?

"JSA" Jim Beard, who has a connection at DC Direct, just posted this info over on DCD's own boards.



Sorry if I'm stepping on any toes here Julius.

Thanks,
I just read the same thing on the DC Direct boards and you beat me to the post. I can't wait to see the 13" (non- Alex Ross) Batman.
Alan

A few years back, according to a contact of mine, there was a collaborative effort between Alex Ross and Mike Hill, the British sculptor. My loose understanding is that Alex had commissioned head sculpts from Mike and then had him and maybe another artist put together 12" Ross style clothed figures of his DC characters.

There was talk of pitching these to DC but the most likely scenario was that Ross had these commissioned because:

1) Because he often has smaller scale models/toys customized to use as models. Can't keep live models around 24 hours in your studio! Witness the custom KC Batman figure photo that had showed up in the hardback.

2) Because he can. Ross is a collector and who wouldn't want nice 12" figures of his characters if they had scads of cash and knew how to get hold of Mike Hill who had already released 3 different Ross Batman sculpts to the garage statue/model market that were every bit as good or better than Bruckner's sculpts.

Anyway - I have a friend who knows Mike well and had told me all of this years ago (but never got me pictures) and has just told me that the pics in the new paperback Mythology are those figures.

Does that mean that Ross 12" figures are still going to get made by DC? Probably not. The other part of this story is that Alex had taken them to DC years ago and that this was the whole spark for what would become these horrendous, non-standard scale generic 13" dolls that they are now doing.

So of course you'll get the "We thought of these. It has nothing to do with dolls Alex talked to us about years ago. We will screw it up and release one overly expensive doll in a too-big scale about once a year. Then we will quit before 5 and blame the fact that they aren't selling well after the shock that preorders on a $40 bad looking villain figure were low."

Alex had a LOT of input into the 13" figure line and was a big proponent of them them being that new, larger scale.

D.

So it's HIS fault!

Then he was just as misguided as the rest of them. Pardon me for assigning their usual marketing naivete to just them. A super, revamped 12" body would have been great. What they did was not. The Lex will tank and we will not get anything like seven main JLA figures.

I love his art as much as anyone. And I buy into the "iconic jack kirby philosophy" stuff that he spews a bit as well. But making real life versions of superheroes that wear shiny disco spandex can only fo so far before it becomes offensive.

I can repaint a plastic Aquaman's horrible factory painted satin green pearl legs and add the black trunks if I want. Or repaint Flash with a non-cheesy Ben Cooper halloween suit. Lots of people can. But there's very little most of us would be willing to do to change an $80 (or even $40) figure that has gymnast performance satin blues and greens in a sewn outfit.