Jeff Cope gives us a broad overview of Art Asylum's showing and what they have in store for the coming year!

It's a year for anniversaries at Art Asylum with the design studio celebrating 10 years and new license Speed Racer celebrating it's 40th. The company's been making top notch toys for years, either under their own name or for other companies from Toy Biz to Diamond Select Toys. With the acquisition of several new licenses like Speed Racer, Battlestar Galactica and Madballs it appears the last decade has just been the tip of the iceberg.

AA is releasing a high-end resin statue of the Battlestar Galactica from the hit series airing on Sci-Fi. They were offering exclusive chrome editions of the ship and Cylon mini bust at the Con.

Speed Racer is a major initiative for Art Asylum in 2006 that is honor to the anime series long history and looks to the future with the launch of all new online adventures of Speed and his kids. Think of it as "Speed Racer: The Next Generation" as the new animated webisodes focus more on the adventures of Speed Jr. and his sister Velocity and a new cast of characters. Keeping watchful eye over the brash youngsters is Speed Racer Sr., his wife Trixie and the now retired Pops Racer. Of course the mysterious Racer X is still out there being...well...mysterious.

There's a variety of new product coming including Minimates of Speed and Racer X which each come with their cars (the Mach 5 and Shooting Star, respectively), die cast cars with die cast mini figures and a range of 5" action figures based both on the classic Speed Racer series and the new online series. Look for the Minimate sets and Die Cast assortment at Toys R Us in September.

Marvel Minimates (produced in partnership with Diamond Select Toys) gets a new look in late 2006 with swanky new packaging. Look for sets based on The New Avengers, Marvel Knights and Astonishing X-Men coming soon.

Both classic and new Battlestar Galactica are getting the Minimate treatment this year. As is being done with Speed Racer, there are special figure & vehicle packs coming. AFI forum member Matt "Iron-Cow" Cauley had a significant role in the design of the BSG Minimates!

Probably the last 1980s property anyone expected to make a comeback was Madballs. Originally produced in the 80s by Amtoy, Madballs even enjoyed a brief run as a Marvel comic. Well, lookout, they're back! Art Asylum, under license from American Greetings, is bringing back these bouncing balls of terror! For more information click over to http://www.madballs.com, but only after you're done here!

Capcom's popular video game series Street Fighter and Darkstalkers get the Minimate treatment. Series One (shown here) has been released with a Series 2 (featuring characters such as Guile, Ken and Blanka) in the works.

DC fans rejoice! Art Asylum (together with DC Direct) is producing DC Comics Minimates! While control art was released in conjunction with the original solicitation copy for the first several assortments, the figures themselves were unveiled for the first time at the Con. Matt "Iron-Cow" Cauley had a hand in the design of this line as well.

A series of resin busts based on the new Battlestar Galactica series is planned. These busts feature a unique twist however. They are designed to be displayed individually or some of the busts can "interact" (aka fit together with) other busts in the series (such as Admiral Adama and Captain Lee Adama).

The titular ship of the series, as previously mentioned, is being produced as a high end resin statue. It's a thing of beauty! The gang at Art Asylum really outdid themselves with this piece!

Keep watching AFI for more on Art Asylum and their upcoming products very soon!