I’ve seen quite a bit of feedback on the Toy Biz/Marvel Toys panel that I put together at Comic Con this year.   There’s a lot of misinformation floating around about it both from another site that was blogging live from the panel and posting inaccurate material and from people that have only seen the slides posted here and didn’t get to hear the stories behind them. 

 I saw a lot of people saying it was cruel and pointless to do this panel and show the fans what they WEREN’T getting, but that wasn’t the point of it.   I posted this on another forum earlier, but I think it bears repeating here as well what my, and the panelists thinking was is doing this:

I’ve been buddies with most of the Toy Biz/Marvel toys guys awhile.   Some of them I just see twice a year at Toy Fair and Comic Con, some of them more often.  In talking with them and seeing them in their post-"Toy Biz" lives … you can see that they are mourning the loss.   It’s a palpable thing.  They "lost" their dream job.  Sure, some of the are still making toys, but the team work, the collaboration, the family has split up.  And it’s had an effect on all of them.

Talking with Jesse, I had heard the things that up until now he hasn’t been able to say.   It was a decision by the Marvel board of directors to scuttle the toy making arm of the company, it was a business decision, and as much of a drag as it is, the way the world is now it’s maybe not such a bad decision from a stock holder point of view.

I didn’t put this panel together to rub it in anyone’s face the toys that we won’t get now.  I really did it to give my friends some closure.  Even though they saw it coming, the rug was pulled out from under them way too fast.

We loved this stuff, they loved this stuff.   These guys, Jesse, Damon, Eddie, Phil, Steve, Dave and several others… they aren’t marketing guys, or businessmen.. they were toy makers… and damn good ones.  And overseeing it all was Joanne.  She doesn’t get a lot of props or press like the other guys, but as they said at the panel, she was the heart and soul of Toy Biz and she had the vision to let these guys do amazing things. I wish she had made it to SDCC.  She deserved to see the fans, and hear the gasps.

These guys will do other amazing things, but it will be hard for them to do it all together again.  That was like catching lightning in a bottle.

Thanks to everyone that came out to the panel.   I hope it was entertaining and informative. We needed more time to cover everything we wanted to talk about (the panel before us ran long, which didn’t help) We’ll be posting a write up on it soon here at AFI, and will also have some audio and video from it.

Daniel/Julius
 

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So you’ve already bought and installed your DST Flux Capacitor but it’s still not enough to make the chicks come running?   Still have 300 bones to blow on something cool for your car?

I think Gizomdo has JUST the thing for you…. 

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As impossible as it is to believe, my little girl turned 5 years old today…and she not a little girl anymore. 

You started out like this:

But look at you now!

And I’ve loved every minute of it.   Happy Birthday little one.

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becasue there is NOTHING to stop the ape uprising now!

  It’s only a short distance from this to THIS:

And the saddest part… we did it to ourselves. I just hope the cyber-monkeys don’t team up with SkyNet when they enslave us.

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I was in a local Target over the weekend, looking at the new Indiana Jones figures, giggling at the TERRIBLE Hulk figures and wondering why the Dark Knight figures are at any of the Targets in town, and I came across this:  

This picture is untouched and I didn’t move anything.  Look at the JLU pegs!  The Shade, Elongated Man and two Blue Devils right on top…but even that is not the most amazing thing.

The AMAZING thing is that in those four full pegs at that Target, there was NOT a SINGLE Batman OR Superman JLU figure!  Steel, Blue Devil, Vigilante, Shining Knight, The Shade, Huntress?  Yep all there.  Batman and Superman?  Nope!

Simply Amazing!  I hope that is the shape of things to come with the new JLU/Target relaunch. 

PS- Don’t get too excited about that Black Manta on the top peg.  He was the ONLY series 2 figure at the store.  Everything else was wave 1. 

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At long last.  I know many of you have been waiting for this day to arrive after a long, hard winter.  So good luck today and be safe!!

***Warning- this video is NOT SAFE FOR WORK.  Don’t watch it around kids, clergy or anyone else that doesn’t care to hear "the ‘F’ word"** 

HAPPY FIRST OF MAY!

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As I was walking the showroom floor at Toy Fair in NYC back in February I came across a small booth over by the Mezco booth with two guys sitting at a table.   These two guys were working hard, trying to interest passer-by buyers in their invention- The Yule Tool.   They were angling for the moms and grandmas market, but I thought it was something we can ALL use!

Their motto was "Snip, Snip- Here’s your Toy!"

Basically the "Yule Tool" is a pair of wire clippers that has  one of the handles is also a Phillips’s head screwdriver (for the battery compartments).  It also comes with a small retractable exacto knife, which would be even cooler if they could some how attach it by a chain to the other handle so it wouldn’t get lost.  Maybe they can make that happen in version 2.0.

I talked to the guys briefly when they handed me my sample and told them they should include the collector market in there sales plan because NO ONE deals with more twist ties than us!

I’ve got my by my sample one by my photography station and have used it many times already and I love it!

In looking at their website over at www.yuletool.com it doesn’t look like they are quite ready to sell to the general public yet and that they are still collecting orders for manufacturing.  I hope this is something that Wal-Mart is smart enough to pick up and carry year-around in the toy aisles, and not just as a seasonal item.  

They should have final product and possibly a new name later this year.  According to their website:

    We have a little work on the packaging and some quality issues but we are ready to take orders or please contact us and we will let you know when final product packaging is available.  Please check back in Early April and you can see the final package and order for this 08 Holiday season

I would also like to hear about names some suggested that Yuletool was limiting.
Others would be "Mom’s toy tool"  or just "Toy Tool"

I like this idea.  I’ll keep my eye on it and let you guys know when it’s available.  It’s something every collector should have.  I think it will give you back about an hour of your life each year depending on how many toys you buy each year!

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Boy… I hope they don’t mess this up with a bunch of talking and stuff…

Wildly Popular ‘Iron Man’ Trailer To Be Adapted Into Full-Length Film

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I like Star Wars as much as the next fan.   I’ve been buying Star Wars figures since I first sent away for the Early Bird kit back in 1978.  I’ve bought almost every version of every classic trilogy (and some assorted new trilogy) figure since Hasbro fired them back up in 1996.   I like the obscure characters and I LOVE having a Sandcrawler full of droids, a cantina full of aliens and a a Jabba’s palace shelf full of scum and villainy… but I think we may have reached a tipping point with this most recent wave.

I picked up the new 2-1B figure from "Revenge of the Sith" and as I’m looking it over… I notice something odd on the back of the card.   Let’s see if you can spot it too…

(go ahead and click on the image to see the larger version) 

Give up? 

(more…)

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