- Mattel has announced the January Mattycollector sale, which includes the Sorceress and Fearless Photog, as well as the “Ready to Believe You” Peter Venkman. More interesting is the news that they will now have He-Man, Skeletor, Battle Cat, Panthor, and 6″ Peter Venkman and Ray Stanz on permanent sale throughout 2012. It only took them four years.
- I have to pick a winner for the Arkham City contest–I’ll do that tonight. Apologies for the delay.
- I’m intrigued by IDW’s photo covers of G.I. Joe toys for their comics (here’s one, and here’s another one). On the one hand, it’s awesome that they’re paying tribute to the comics’ toy origins. On other hand, the covers are pretty uninspired. A brief Flickr search will come up with better pics (check out Geek Creek and Ed Speir IV, for example).
- Power Pal Joe Amaro sent along this touching video of James Sawyer of motucfigures.com reviewing the Wind Raider with his son. As a toymaker himself, Joe says “this is the sort of thing that makes it all worthwhile.”
- Joe also sent along these awesome pics of the Dinobots (via Tformers.com, though they could have originated elsewhere for all I know) from the upcoming Fall of Cybertron videogame: Grimlock, “Slug” (Slag’s new name, apparently? Yuck. Damned trademarks), and Swoop. They all look awesome, and we had better get toys of them. (Preferably not assembled by sweatshop laborers–more on that later.)
PhigmentSuicide
I think the name change might be more due to the fact that 'slag' is a derogatory term in the UK rather than a trademark issue. Like how they changed the 'Slag' from TF: Animated's name to 'Snarl' for the same reason.
Braystreet
I like Slug a lot better than pretending Snarl never existed and muddying the water in that manner. If you think about it as in comparing him to a bullet rather than something vulnerable to salt, then it's kind of a nice mental image, given his alternate form.
Ridureyu
I've always found it funny that one of the dinobots has a name that's slang for "WHORE."
John Harmon
It's only a slang word in the U.K. which makes no sense.
Slag is molten metal.
Monte
Thanks for the shout-out. Always flattering being mentioned in the same sentence as Ed. That talented bastard.
But you're right, sadly. Those covers are pretty weak. I suppose it's possible that they were paying tribute to specific classic covers or something, which could be limiting, but even if that's the case, there are hundreds of old Joe comic book covers to choose from, and perhaps more to the point, there are much better Joe figures than those they chose for their covers. I hate every single figure pictured on those two covers!
Still, it's a cute idea, and I hope they continue it and improve upon it and hire me to do it.