Before I post about more unseen Star Wars stuff, I thought I’d do a bit of follow-up to some that I’ve already shown. One of our biggest heartbreaks in designing stuff for Phantom Menace promotions was getting all the way to prototype on a big Jabba the Hutt beanbag, but having it rejected for cost/size issues.

Keep in mind when looking at this that it was just the initial attempt. We would have had a few more rounds of refinement to get it as close as we could. The one that got made was created by a domestic beanbag maker in the traditional manner, with a sort of textured fabric for Jabba’s "skin" and very simplistic vector graphics (created by Steve Ross, shown next to Jabba) printed on it for the details. Originally we tried to have the fabric airbrushed for a more realistic effect, but this proved to be too problematic to reproduce, and we had concerns about the durability in the long term. This was not our first attempt though.

I’m going to digress a bit here to explain why I am showing this "prototype". A lot of times collectors complain about how paint jobs are off on toys, or they are off-model compared to the source, or the articulation has been put in wrong, or any number of things that they can’t understand how someone missed it. What they don’t realize is that many times these "mistakes" were not there in the original sculpts or paint masters supplied to the factories, but showed up during production itself. Due to the high costs involved and the strict timetables, if it was caught early enough there might be a running change. But most of the time these things are just let alone if it does not greatly impact the licensor or safety. 

The reason for this is that the Chinese engineers and artisans do not see the source material as we see it, at least in my experience. This is the reason I had to actually go live in China and show them exactly what I wanted. I found that they were great at copying a 3D object to another 3D object, but couldn’t seem to make the connection between 2D art and a 3D object. They have fantastically talented sculptors and painters, but they need very detailed engineering blueprints, exploded views, and everything to be perfect in terms of measurements to create what you want. And even then the process needs to be refined a few times to correct for problems in translation. This is why you need line designers who really know what they’re doing, especially when the sculpting is being done at the factory level and not domestically.

So back to the Jabba Beanbag. While I was staying in China working on the Star Wars life-size characters I was also overseeing our other promo items that were in production, like the Star Wars bomber jacket, Lightsaber Flashlight, and assorted trinkets like watches, magnets, and puzzles. Once the Jabba Beanbag got the greenlight to go further, I sent our concept art to the factory to make an initial sample for costing. Their only instruction was to come as close to the concept art as possible (for these types of "never been done before" projects, it’s always good to see what they can do first, before trying to reinvent the wheel). We also included a lot of shots of Jabba from the movie for reference. When I went over to their offices the next week, this is what they showed me:

Yeah, that was my reaction, too. They seriously thought this matched the concept art very well. After a few more discussions, we realized that for this specific project it would probably be better to find a beanbag manufacturer and go from there. Even so, there were a lot of discussions and experiments to get us where we were at the picture at top. But hopefully this helps explain why you really need someone who knows what they are doing to daily communicate with the factories to make sure that they are on the right track. It’s not that the skill isn’t there, but the common viewpoint is sometimes lacking.

I have a few more really crazy examples that I’ll try to dig up, to further illustrate the point, this time with actual sculpts. As an added bonus, here is a picture I took when I was goofing around of our life-size Yoda sporting a pair of Jar Jar eyes. Makes him look kind of a like a Gremlin!

A couple of things about this Yoda; one of the cooler moments of my life was standing around Lucas Licensing at Skywalker Ranch with Karl Myers of Gentle Giant, right after we were given the surprise go-ahead to make Yoda based on the positive feedback from the Darth Maul and Jar Jar prototypes. We asked if they had any reference of his new Phantom Menace look and they walked into George’s office there, picked up the bronze casting of the new Gary Pollard sculpt that was made for George Lucas and Stuart Freeborn and handed it to us and said "why don’t you just cast this?"  So our Yoda was basically an identical duplicate of the actual sculpt used for the puppet. Unfortunately, the puppet didn’t look too much like the classic Yoda (I always thought it looked kind of like Anthony Hopkins) and for the next two films they went back to a look closer to that of his first appearance. Our Yoda was also not really life-size: Pepsi thought that his real height (28") didn’t have enough presence for an in-store display so we scaled it up to 36", which created some headaches in trying to figure out new dimensions for his feet, cane, hands, clothes, etc. But it still came out neat enough for a mass produced item! And Lucas Licensing was awesome throughout the whole process (got to give props!).

So that’s the story More tomorrow! 

Pictures cannot be used without express written permission.

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Over the past 15 or so years every new superhero toyline that springs up has been anointed as "the new Super Powers" by someone or other. I’ve always argued against it in every case, or just plain laughed it off. While Super Powers might not be able to compare to today’s manufacturing techniques that allow more detailed sculpts and paint jobs, and single figures might pale in comparison to a single modern sculpt, as a whole the line has never been surpassed in my eyes.

Because the whole line has always had as its key strength one characteristic that has been unmatched since: consistency. Consistency in scale, consistency in style, consistency in features and articulation. More than most line, you immediately know when you see a Super Powers figure just what collection it is part of.  And then you have the fringe benefits of the line being well thought out: every character can easily stand on it’s own, the action features make sense and are hidden, and pretty much every major character was included before the line’s untimely demise. Top it off with the added bonus of no variants and all new crazy characters added to the mix, and Super Powers was the proverbial lightning striking.

And as we all know, lightning doesn’t strike the same place twice. And up until now, no other line has come close to matching these criteria. Yes, I said up until NOW. But now, after all these years, I finally do think we’re seeing the true successor to Super Powers: Mattel’s DC Universe Classics. True, Mattel has stumbled around with the DC license for the past few years (they’re really stretching out that learning curve!) but after finally landing the master toy license they seem to have hit their stride. Although we won’t discuss the JLU line, which people somehow equate to Super Powers greatness based on depth of character alone. But I digress…

So why DCUC? Well, a huge part of the reason is the sheer greatness of the driving force behind the line: the Four Horsemen. We all already know that the Horsemen do a great job on everything they touch, but this line looks to be their crowning glory. How much of the direction being taken is their doing, and if Mattel plots out every little detail or just stands back and gets out of their way I don’t know. And to be honest, I don’t care as long as the direction seen so far stays that way! In any case, even if we didn’t know that the Horsemen were huge Super Powers fans, their work surely tells us this fact: the versions of Lex Luthor and Brainiac that have been released in the earlier Superman line are sporting their Super Powers togs. And of course we know that Mattel’s DC man on the scene, Scott "ToyGuru" Neitlich keeps a Super Powers checklist at his desk for comparison. And really, that new Hal Jordan Green Lantern figure sealed the deal for me. The Super Powers Green Lantern has always been (in my mind) the perfect realization of a comic character in figure form. It just stick outs from the pack for some reason. But the new DCUC Hal is just…awesome. If the final product looks like the prototype, it may be my new favorite figure.

And speaking of the character selection, with 15 characters down and only 19 more to go they are nearly halfway through the Super Powers roster with only the first 3 of 5 waves for 2008. And it’s doubtful that they can/will make Samurai, Golden Pharoah, or Cyclotron due to licensing issues so they really have only 16 more characters until they match exactly the Super Powers line-up. But outside of that line-up they’ve already produced iconic versions of many, many characters that Kenner never came close to touching, like Clayface and Etrigan. And dare I hope one day the Horsemen are given free reign to insert their own characters into the line from time to time? Probably not. But by the time the license expires in 2012 (if it isn’t renewed for some reason) we’ll have seen 150+ unique figures in this line. All in scale. All in the same style.

All completely consistent.

And that, my friends, is why for the first time I look forward to having a unified display to rival the only one that has been near to my heart for almost 20 years. God bless you, Four Horsemen. God bless you, Mattel. Now hurry up and fix JLU, you bastards!

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So I got this book not too long ago as a gift: Boy’s Toys by Jed Novick. It’s a kind of odd book, wanting to be a primer of the popular toys of the 60s & 70s, with a bit of the 80s thrown in. What it comes off as, though, is one person’s memories of said toys…with maybe a quick trip to Wikipedia to fill in the gaps. No toy line gets more than a two-page spread (and these are tiny pages) so the information is very scattershot. Couple that to having BAD information and the fact that many of the pictures are of wrong items or out of date ones (example: a 1996 X-Wing supposedly being a 1978 one) I can’t recommend this book to pretty much anyone. And since a picture is worth a thousand words, etc., just take a look at this page to see a representative example of the whole book. Note: Marvel Legends figures aren’t mentioned once in the entire book. (Click on pic for bigger image).

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In addition to books and toys, I buy a lot of DVDs. Mainly old movies, because I’ve already discovered that they don’t always stay in print for long, and then command crazy insane prices on eBay once they’re out of print. Plus, the past few years have been great as far as the rarer films are concerned, with studios realizing that if they do a good job with restoring this stuff it will sell, and at a premium price.

Unfortunately, the marketing dept. in these studios seem to think that buyers need some kind of bribe to get them to purchase these sets (they also eschew good package art in favor of a lot of photoshopped crap, but that’s another topic).  Hey, I can understand this; I’m in marketing myself and am sometimes involved in the same kind of inane "plussing up" of a product for no reason (forgive me for not naming specifics ). But above all else, these special offers should not interfere with the actual item being purchased.

Which leads me to today’s rant: the newly released Walt Disney Legacy series. This first series packages every last "True-Life Adventure" film in four stuffed volumes. On one hand now that Roy Disney is back in the fold the studio has done a truly fantastic job putting these together, with tons of extras, documentaries, and nice restorations of films that have too long been unavailable. And as far as I can tell it’s a pretty comprehensive package. On the other hand, the marketing dept. thinks that the films themselves are not enough, and takes the path of the tin outer cases they made for the ‘Walt Disney Treasures’ line on step further: the DVDs are loose inside a tin "film reel canister"!

The ‘Treasures’ tin cases at least could be removed and inside was a normal dvd case (otherwise when they are on a shelf you cannot tell what they are since there is no printing on the spine…if they fit on the shelf in the first place).  But these new film reels can’t be put on a shelf without them rolling off, and you can’t tell what’s inside without picking each one up and looking at the front cover. Granted, the packaging is very handsome, but how on Earth do these things get decided without ever thinking about the purpose of the item and the functionality in a collection (since by and large it is the core Disney fans who are buying these limited sets)? This is the same mentality that leads to crazy figure packaging that makes it impossible to remove the darn figure (and jacks up the price) just because some designer thinks it looks cool. I’m looking at you, SDCC Solomon Grundy.

Anyway, this whole thing got me so aggravated that I made my own covers and bought some double dvd cases online. So everyone can now benefit from my frustrations- right-click on a cover below and choose "save as" to download a hi-res pdf of each cover that you can print out and use on your own dvds. All for free! (Caution: files are large!)

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If there is one thing I enjoy collecting more than toys, it has to be books. I like books in all shapes and sizes, but mostly concentrate on biographies, books on history, art, and films. But one genre is the most near and dear to my heart: compilations of classic comic strips. 

I think my love affair with the art and stories of yesteryear was first kindled when my parents gave me The Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics one year for Christmas. I think it was 1980, because the previous year they had given me the Abbeville Press book of Mickey Mouse strip reprints. I guess because I wore out the poor Mickey Mouse book they figured that I liked the old comic strips…and I did! In fact, I started collecting comics after looking for new comic strip collections led me to the then new phenomenon of comic shops. I eventually found all of the Disney "Best Comics" books, but the Smithsonian volume had turned me on to much more than just Disney; there was the non-stop adventure of Roy Crane’s Wash Tubbs and Cap’n Easy, the hard boiled detective work of Chester Gould’s Dick Tracy, the dogged determination of Harold Gray’s Annie and Sandy, the everyday living adventures of Frank King’s Gasoline Alley, Billy DeBeck’s Barney Google, and Frank Willard’s Moon Mullins and the surreal and mesmorizing artwork of Cliff Sterrett, Milt Gross, George Herriman, and Windsor McKay.

But the one strip that really grabbed me (outside of Floyd Gottfredson’s Mickey and Carl Bark’s Duck stories) was the absurdist fantasy world of E.C. Segar’s Thimble Theatre, aka Popeye (At one point, I thought I would even make the ‘definitive’ Popeye website!). Now, growing up with classic cartoons on tv every afternoon in the 70s had given me an already healthy appreciation of the spinach-eating sailor. But that Popeye was nowhere near as rich a character as the one to be found in the original run of comic strips. Sadly, what passed for Popeye in the comic pages of the day was a pale imitation of ‘gag-a-day’ strips done by Segar’s old assistant, Bud Sagendorf. And Popeye was by no means alone in this regard: Mickey, Moon Mullins, Barney Google (now Snuffy Smith) and others had all been reduced to simple comedy, eschewing more complicated continuities and abdication almost all storytelling to comic books and TV. Even those strips like Dick Tracy and Mary Worth that still continued to run longer storylines couldn’t hold a candle to their glory days. And don’t even get me started on the newspaper version of Spider-Man, where sometimes it took weeks for Peter Parker to walk out of his apartment door!

But it turned out that I was in luck! I was growing up at just the right time, as numerous publishers had seen fit to reprint selected titles from the Golden age of newspaper strips, most likely in response to Bill Blackbeard’s Smithsonian volume. Shel Dorf was reprinting numerous title with his Blackthorne label, Bill Blackbeard was covering Wash Tubbs & Easy (and an ill-fated attempt at reprinting the Gottfredson’s Mickeys), Another Rainbow was publishing a massive B&W Carl Bark’s Library, and Kitchen Sink was undertaking the first comprehensive reprinting of Li’l Abner, from 1934 to 1977! Even better, Fantagraphics begin publishing a magazine devoted to comics strips, Nemo, a selection of Little Orphan Annie books, and the jewel in the crown: The Complete E.C. Segar Popeye.

I gobbled up all of these books and devoured them time and again. The intricacy of the art and the cinematic nature of the storytelling all left me lamenting the state of the modern comics page. But at least I had the reprints…for a time. By the early 90s a shift had taken place. Video games and "grim ‘n gritty’ comics were crowding out simpler fare, and by the middle of the decade even the last of the reprints had died out. Collections of classic strips would be all but forgotten. But there were a few signs of life: DC Comics had been publishing archives of Will Eisner’s Spirit since the late 90s, and in recent years both Calvin & Hobbes and The Far Side debuted single volume collections that contained EVERY strips from each’s respective runs. But classic strips still had not gotten their due. Until 2004, that is. That’s when our old friends at Fantagraphics were able to fulfill a lifelong dream of theirs: comprehensively reprinting Charles Shultz’s Peanuts in chronological order (which amazingly had never been done). The sales of these initial volumes far exceeded expectations, leading to a new boom in reprints- not only are the old strips being rediscovered, but this time around (unlike in the 80s) they are being given the upscale designer treatment with heavy stock, handsome covers, and in some cases full color Sundays at the original publication sizes. 

In the past year we’ve seen new editions of Buz Sawyer, Peanuts, Gasoline Alley, Dennis the Menace, Dick Tracy, Mary Perkins, Li’l Abner, Steve Canyon, and yes, Popeye, finally printed in a huge edition complete with color Sunday pages. And even more are coming in the future? Who knows. Even though I really would like to see someone tackle Annie and Moon Mullins, my biggest wish would be for Disney to recognize the market out there for a quality B&W reprinting of the Mickey Mouse strips in chronological order. They’ve never been reprinting unedited since publication. But with sequences like this they probably will never have the guts to release it. Which is why I blew a few hundred bucks last year on decent quality xeroxes of the fabled Comic Buch Club Germany portfolio. Still, I’d much rather have a nice clean official version. If these compilations continue to do well in the marketplace, I may yet get my wish someday. And they we might even see toys based on the classic Gottfredson Mouse and Barks Ducks! Oh, and if you really want a good look at the sorry state of today’s comic strips, why not give The Comics Curmudgeon a read?

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