Ha! I bet you thought this blog would be about toys!

Well, it’s not. But these things tend to overlap with the same target audiences, so I thought it was neat enough to mention here. First, my apologies for not having my long awaited followup to last years Rejected Star Wars concepts up today. I’m really hoping it will be up tomorrow to wrap up our anniversary week, but my day job is just using up every spare moment of my time right now, nights and weekends included. And sleep time. And bath time. And time I haven’t used yet.

So, not complaining, just explaining why some site stuff is late. Daniel has really stepped up to make our anniversary as memorable as always (did’ja check out the Power Girl unveiling?!?) along with he great companies who contributed items to our little celebration. I’ve enjoyed my time here immensely, and still can’t believe I’m a part of this whole thing again, thanks to Daniel.

Anyway, what the title is referring to is this nifty Netflix account analyzer. As a movie buff, especially a classic film buff, Netflix has been invaluable in watching a lot of stuff I wouldn’t have otherwise seen. But over the years I find that I’ve tended to go through periods of a lot of watching, balanced out by having those red envelopes sit unopened for weeks on end, only to be sent back unwatched. These days I’ve done far more of the latter, unfortunately. 

But how has the subscription been as a whole? Have I saved money over Blockbuster, or buying DVDs outright? Am I wasting that money each month I’m not watching my full amount? Well, now there’s an easy way to check it out! Just go here to the Netflix History Analyzer.  It turns out my investment has been well worth it (although I did cringe at seeing the total spent in the past 5 years!)And yes, I do still have the same three discs I was sent on Feb. 24th…

OK, that’s it. More coming tomorrow (if only more Bollywood goodness)!

So it’s been 25 years since Marvel Comic’s Secret Wars Limited Series debuted.

For those who don’t know what that is, you really need to know only 3 things about it:
1) it was the first time a company put all of it’s major characters together in a company wide crossover that affected all storylines.
2) it was created because Mattel wanted a good "hook" to tie a toy line into, that used all the characters since Marvel had no current movies or TV shows on the air.
3) it really sucked.

Yeah, it was pretty bad. The art was rushed, the writing was abysmal, and the characters behaved very out of character. But, it did give us Spidey’s black costume (and therefore, also Venom) and a short-lived, yet beloved, toy line. And this year there have been tons of Secret Wars related articles, events, and merchandise. This is amazing because the series has pretty much been left alone since seeing publication back in 1984 (the less said about Secret Wars II, the better).

So what kind of things are out? Well, for starters, the new Secret Wars Omnibus is out, with an in-depth history of the toy line special feature by yours truly, with a photographic assist by our very own General Zod. Then you have the amazingly cool Hasbro Marvel Universe Secret Wars 2-Packs. So far we know that the first six are going to be  Spider-Man & Thunderball, Wolverine & Human Torch, Captain America & Claw, Black Costume Spider-Man/Magneto, Iron Man/Spider-Woman, Hulk/Cyclops. Supposedly all of them will be out by the end of 2009. The Captain America and Wolverine are resculpted from the main line, so we can only hope that the other repeats like Hulk will be similarily streamlined.

 

There are homages with smaller lines, too, such as the Monogram Miniature Alliance Secret Wars 2-Pack, and the new Minimates first ever Fan’s Choice poll.  And our very own Man of Action Chip Cataldo has been blogging about the crazy unseen SW bootlegs out of South America.As an added bonus, here’s a pic I recently found of my very first custom figures that I made back in 1990, which happened to be Secret Wars figure based (and a few Star Wars/ Indiana Jones efforts to extend the original line from 1985!) Note that I repainted Wolverine, but not shown are the black claws I painted silver. Oy.

And of course, we can’t forget our pals at the late, lamented Geek Week, who were ahead of the curve on this one:

Ok, so I’m a wee bit behind on the blog. 

BUT…

Lots of new stuff coming up this week for our 4th Anniversary, including a new story of never before seen by anyone Star Wars merchandise on Monday, and various features and goofy crap. Speaking of goofy crap, I was watching Slumdog Millionaire recently (didn’t care for it; the script had more coincidences and contrived moments than a George Lucas script) and it reminded me that I hadn’t posted a Bollywood video in awhile. So here is a little something to prime the ol’ blog pump, as it were,  and it should come as no surprise that it is once again a video highlighting my favorite Indian culture.

Near as I can tell, it’s a mash-up of She’s All That and Proud to be an American, with a dash of Ferris Bueller thrown in for good luck. So enjoy this fun, rap-filled rendition of "Pretty Woman":

Of course, it’s no "Jai Ho".

Or, when is green not the right green?

We all know Mattel has had some issues in the manufacturing of our favorite DC Comics characters. But the one that really puzzles me is how often the colors of the final product do not match the paint masters supplied by the Four Horsemen, or even the designs as seen in the comics.

Sure, they are the right color, per se. But they are not the right value of that color. And this should be a very simple process: your get a paint master, you match each base color to a Pantone guide, you figure out which parts are molded plastic and which are painted, you send these numbers off to the factory in China, and eventually you should get back some color chips that show the actual plastic that will be used, and what the base plastic looks like painted.  At this point you double check the samples against your original Pantone numbers AND the paint master. If they deviant, tweak them and send for new chips. This seems like a pain, but the manufacturing window is long enough that you should be able to handle at least 20-3 rounds of tweaks if necessary.But for some reason, what we see in the prototypes IS NOT what we get.

Case in point is the new Superman/Brainiac 2-pack shown at NYCC. The sculpts are great, but the green on the classic Brainiac (seen on the left)  is waaaaaay too blue, and waaaay too dark. In all the original comics he was more of an olive shade of green. Who makes the decision on what PMS was used? And is it too late to adjust it? See the original comic cover at right, and my quick photoshop mockup below left of what I think it should be. I just don’t understand going to the trouble of making these characters and not going all the way.

And speaking of color, check out the Superman on the right in the pic below, too.  If we’re going to get yet another Superman (albeit one with short hair with the new body) why not adjust the color on him, too, and give us a classic Superman in the shade of blue that the old comics used? The shade of blue that Christopher Reeve wore in the Superman movies? The shade of blue that was used for the Super Powers Superman figure? You get the picture. Fans don’t want to feel screwed with rebuying the same character,  so why not do everything you can to make it feel different? 

How about it, Mattel? And if you need someone to double check your colors on any other upcoming figure, give me a call. Better to head these things off up front than let a substandard product go to market.

So longtime readers will know that there is no love lost between me and Shocker Toys President Geoff Beckett. I’ve never been a fan of the company or the guy running it, and my occasional harsh reviews of their product has been met by attacks and legal threats. I preface this post with the above to try and ward off any accusations of for some reason being a company shill.

Because I talked to Geoff Beckett at NYCC last week, and saw the product that he had brought with him. Hold on to your hats: it wasn’t bad. In fact, it was quite nice! Now, he did not have the full line-up of Indie Spotlight series 1 there, nor did I see any packaged samples, or even any painted samples. I can’t judge any of that stuff (I have seen pics that show he did have some test shots there later in the show, but when I was there they weren’t out).

What he did have were the NYCC Exclusive versions of "Smoky Maxx and Smoky Scud". I was able to play with both figures fairly extensively while I talked with Geoff, and I was quite impressed with what I held in my hands. The construction is solid, the joints are nice- not too loose, not too tight. Neither one felt in the least bit breakable, and were able to hold many more poses than I thought possible just looking at the pics of them. The sculpting is polished and not the usual unfinished stuff we’ve been seeing, and both figures looked as on-model as I could expect, not being a fan of either property. But definitely as on-model as anything I’ve seen from Hasbro or Mattel. And the Maxx felt a lot tougher than any recent product I’ve seen from either of those companies. And he’s HUGE! Like I said, I’m not a fan…but I might pick up one or two of these if the final product is as nice as what I saw. And if Dick Tracy and the Phantom are equally nice I will definitely pick them up. 

So that’s the figures.  The harder thing to judge is that company itself. I had a long talk with Geoff, and while our previous conversations at cons have always been cordial, I was pleasantly surprised at how pleasant our talk was! Geoff was very contrite about his past behavior, and just in talking with him face to face it was hard not to believe that he truly understands how much of a problem his behavior has been for his company. There were no excuse, no justifications, just a remarkable humbleness and he was very apologetic about letting himself go overboard online. Seriously; I would never have known this guy was the same guy who runs rampant on the message boards.

But that’s also the big hurdle Geoff needs to clear these days. And he very much knows that. I’m as surprised as anyone that I left his booth wanting to give him the benefit of the doubt. But as he also knows, the only thing that can possible redeem Shocker Toys now is getting the toys on shelves AND having those toys be stellar, not just good. So here’s what he told me about that: They are just now shipping to distribution centers. When they show up in stores depends on the stores, but the target is later March/Early April. Product was delayed getting in (not sure if anything else is being show at Toy Fair, but very little was at NYCC) and they are/were taking preorders for the NYCC exclusives (show in the pics here) shipping out for delivery in late March.

Where will you be able to find the mass market toys? Good question. Diamond is no longer their distributor, but they have 2 smaller ones signed up. They will be available to comic shops and the Hastings chain, and are in talks with larger stores. Toys R Us is still interested, Geoff said,  but new deals need to be made. Shocker also had their version of "Mighty Muggs" on display at NYCC, with licensed versions possible if the concept is sold. These were similar, but more articulated that MM and a bit smaller.

For something so ambitious I can at least say what I saw is much better than all the Indy toys that flooded comic shops in the late ’90s. But who knows if it’s too little, too late or just the tip of the iceberg. My final advice to Geoff was to stay offline altogether, so we’ll see just how far that advice goes. But if I got anything wrong in the article, feel free to correct it in the comments, Geoff. My memory only goes so far these days.Will these ever actually get it stores? Will people be able to easily buy them some day in the near future? I have no idea. And to be honest, I’m not holding my breath. But if they do get out there I think others like me who might have dismissed them out of hand might be pleasantly surprised.

So that’s that. Only time will tell what happens with the long running Shocker saga, but after so many missteps the real "shocker" will be if the final product actually turns out to be everything Geoff has said it would be, and more.

So I’ve been slacking off a bit on the ol’ blog, what with work demands and two major cons back to back.

But I haven’t forgotten you, my friends. I have a bunch of really cool stuff to blog about int he near future, including part 2 & 3 of the "Rejected! Star Wars" concepts. And in fact I’ve realized that it has been quite awhile since we’ve visited that old Hindu state of yore, Bollywood. Well, South India. Or something.

In any case, in the great tradition of Chiru’s Thriller, and Shammi Kapoor’s Beatles Parody, I bring you…Indian Jeff Lynne???

I know, I know, it’s no rural village dog marriage or nothing, but it’ll do for now.

It’s been a fairly good toy week. I wasn’t even looking hard and found most of DCUC 6 today, and had to really hold myself back from looking at any Targets because i don’t want to stumble across those clearance deals like $3.48 Marvel Legends and $35 Millennium Falcons. I’m trying to scale back, and sales always make me break down like a 6 year old girl in a free pony store. I didn’t see a Shazam!, Black-Suit Superman, or Dr. Impossible. But what I got has made me pleasantly surprised.

First, though, I want to point out that our old friends Shocker Toys has released pictures of the factory production pieces of their first Indie Spotlight wave. I’ve given Shocker a pretty hard time or the years (albeit very well-deserved), but on the flip side I need to point out when they’ve done something right just as much as berate them for doing everything else wrong. These sculpts and paint jobs look pretty good. If I ever see them in a store, there is s light chance I might pick one or two of them up. Considering my attitude toward the company and its product lend themselves to me torching a store carrying their toys, this is a surprise indeed. Heck, I’ll go so far as to say that if Shocker wants to send me a set for review I will go out of my way to be fair.

Back to DCUC: I gave Mattel a hard time just in my last post. Wave 5 was just a mess, and we’ve been hearing about them switching to a new factory and that they’re looking into the problems for so long now, it really sounded like a broken record designed to brush off collectors. I’m happy and amazed, though, that DCUC 6 actually does go a long way toward fixing problems!

To start with, the plastic has a harder durometer than previous waves (although to be fair, wave 5 also was nice and hard). Unlike wave 5, the joints are definitely not frozen on any of these. Someone finally got the memo to make sure every joint was worked good before packaging, because now the problem is that some of them are slightly loose. But I’ll take that any day over potential breakage. Most of the paint is nice and crisp, and the C&C figure, Kalibak, has great snap together joints that seem to fix the "bad leg" problems plaguing earlier figures. In fact, Kalibak’s joints are so tight he can easily stand on one leg while waiting for that last piece! And the paint is not only nice and crisp (only found the one set, and those were all as nice as can be expected) but they are finally starting to get all the colors right. In past waves, there have been many unexplicable shifts from the paint masters to the production figures. I hope this just keeps getting better. Bravo, Mattel!

One complaint, which may be big or minor depending on what you care about: the "paint wash" on these guys is pretty bad. Mainly because its not a wash, but rather a quick once-over with an airbrush, and on only one color on the figure. It makes them look dirty, instead of added depth. And even if they continue this process (my advice would be to save money and drop it is they can’t do it right) they should go with a slightly darker shad of the base color, not this almost black wash. It needs to be subtle, not in your face. 

One last complaint: I hate these formed inner bubbles in general, but this wave they are so bad that you have to nearly break the figure to get them out, especially Hawkman and Killer Moth, whose wings have to be cut free. Why can’t we go back to simple carded figures? Is theft really that much of a problem? Speaking of Killer Moth’s wings, mine were put in slightly too high, making them lean forward on his back. But again, a minor complaint when you get a Killer Moth figure to begin with! Now bring on the 60s Batgirl to go with him.

Man, Mattel really makes it hard to be a Mattel defender. 

I like a lot of what they try to do, but between concept and execution, something just goes missing. Do they need to hire an engineer? Or fire the one they have and hire a good one?  I’m really hoping that everything I’m hearing about wave 6 being the start of a new beginning is true.First, a bit of good news: although I have yet to see any of the Walmarts I frequent in Dallas carry DCUC, I did finally see an empty peg space today with tags for DCUC and DCIH! And there were A LOT of empty pegs in the toy section, leading me to believe that the new reset is right around the corner.

The bad news, though, is that even after searching abunch of Walmarts while on vacation in San Antonio and finding the four sets for me and other AFI guys, I still was a loser at DCUC Roulette. It doesn’t matter how nice these look in the package: when I opened them Black Lightning’s arm fell off (I didn’t even touch his arm, either!) and Amazo’s elbow peg wasn’t pushed through his arm, leaving it hanging at the elbow. And of course Metallo is fantastic…as long as you don’t move his legs. All the joints were fine, but the hip pegs won’t stay in the torso, much like the problems with Metamorpho back in wave 1.

Speaking of Amazo, he appears to be the smallest one in the assortment! I say appears as he uses the same body as Atom, I think. But visually he does look like the shortest one. I just can’t understand how 5 assortments in to this line, and there isn’t a single basic beffy body to use for these larger characters. This was the same short sighted thinking that led to Superman, Atom Smasher, Amazo etc. being tiny in JLU, but you’d think by now Mattel would have been past that particular learning curve and thought toward the future right off the bat. Ah well.  At least I found a set, which is better than most collectors.

Recently I needed to make a bunch of Trophies for a internal project at work, based upon two execs in my company. I sculpted some custom heads, but had no idea how to make that make copies, or what bodies to use for them.

With the help of the amazing SpyMagician (who cast all the heads I needed and sent them back within days) I ended up choosing Kilowog as a base body. He had no sculpted details, making him perfect for a "generic superhero body", but more importantly, nobody wanted this single carded monstrocity so I thought it would be easy to pick up the 20+ Kilowogs I needed.

Little did I realize, but the Targets near me only yielded one or two of the ‘Wog per store! I became increasingly desperate as I drove all over Dallas until I stumbled in the motherload at Parker & 75: there before me was greatness- easily 25 Kilowogs, shining from the pegs, untouched by human hands!

So, in the end, I did clear a few Targets of the bane of JLU collectors, and whittled down the "Kilowog Graveyard" quite a bit. With any luck,  those stores will restock sooner than later with all new JLU singles.

No need to thank me, just doing what any responsible citizen would in a time of crisis.

…is that Jason gets a stress fracture on his heel. 

In V-Town to help set up some stuff for the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) this week, and all the walking coupled with my bad arches has given me the "excrutiating pain", as the kids call it. But thanks to my friendly local super Walgreens I was able to hobble down the street and pick up some icy/hot cream, a big bottle of ibuprfen, a few instant cold packs, and $50 worth of shoe inserts to play with (I wasn’t going to hobble back 5 blocks if one didn’t work). 

As with any trip to a new town, I limped over to the toy aisle once I found my pain relief items.  Does anyone remember when you used to be able to go into any drugstore and find a world of wonders? Super Powers, Master of the Universe, Star Wars gum cards…it was like a trip to kid’s paradise! But now it’s just some lame generics and maybe a Hot Wheels or two. When did all the old school toy distribution completely disappear?

Was it when TRU and Wal-Mart undercut these guys so much that the prices in a drugstore are too insane to carry mass market? I don’t know. But it did make me sad not to find anything worth looking at. Especially since my poor feet hurt way too much to explore Vegas much (it’s my first time in Sin City). My client did put me up at the Wynn, so I can’t complain too much (checked in next to former Spurs’ star Avery Johnson, so that was neat to this San Antonio boy). Too bad I have to fly out before CES starts, as it would have been nice to see some of the new products.

I will say that while walking the con floor today I spied a booth setting up a HDTV that was running a clip from The Empire Strikes Back in HD…just stunning looking! But that was about it for coolness…