I never thought I’d say this, but I own a doll just like a little girl. Yeah, I know the whole “action figures” are really dolls business jerks throw at toy collectors, but this time I’ve really gone and done it. I bought a doll and I lay the blame on Tonner Dolls who were at this year’s Chicago Comic Con. If they hadn’t of been there, I’d still be happily doll free.
While at the recent Wizard run Chicago Comic Con I went on a sort of frenzied spree buying old Playmates Star Trek figures. There were tons of them for five bucks or less, so I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to finally check out these figures after missing all of them when they were originally released. A few of the figures came with customer response cards from Playmates, so I did what any rational person would do. I filled out one of the nearly ten year old surveys. After answering questions about my birth date and address I filled out the rest of the card. Here’s what I put:
In 2006 I was checking out a forum for writers and saw a post from one of the founders saying that they were starting a blogging network and needed writers. I decided to check out what was available and I saw that there was a toy collecting blog up for grabs. At that time they wanted ten posts a week and I wondered if I could actually write that much about toys on a consistent basis. Nearly three years later and after over a thousand posts, Toy Bender is done.
If there was anyone who was looking forward to the DC Universe Infinite Heroes more than me, I doubt it. When the line first appeared I went ape nuts with the prospect of having tons of my favorite heroes in my favorite scale. Then they came out and boy, the joke was on us toy collectors with it’s overall poor sculpting and horrendous lack of articulation. Still, Mattel seems to be trying to make this thing work and they’ve finally come up with something I truly need:
It’s getting to be that time of the year again, that special time where those who aren’t going to the San Diego Comic Con wonder just how in the hell they are going to get the exclusives that the want. Hasbro’s finally got pictures of all their stuff, so let’s just take a look at their offerings. (more…)
This picture was posted on the G.I. Joe forum Hisstank.com the other day and it made me wish, yet again, that I had a time machine:
While cruising around the internets I recently ran across a picture of a upcoming Star Wars figure, or at least it’s a rumored figure at the moment.
It’s funny that I was just thinking the other day that they should do an updated Slave Leia. My old one is too tall and doesn’t have enough articulation. Well, it looks like I’ve got what I wanted! Maybe next time I’ll dream about bikini girls washing my car…
…anyway, Leia here looks great (despite the crappy picture), but she is the perfect example why super articulation doesn’t always look the best on female characters. You see, horny dudes usually design female characters so they are nearly nude, which makes the cuts where the points of articulation look very odd. It’s easier to hide articulation on characters with plenty of clothes, like figures of dudes.
I also like the sitting position add on. How else could you get a figure to look good laying around on a throne like Leia does in the film? If this is the real deal, I can’t wait for this figure to come out.
The above monster figure is an example of one of the coolest ideas for a custom toy I’ve ever seen and it’s based on something that I hold near and dear to me. You see, the above figure is from an part of a series of episodes of the G.I. Joe cartoon entitled Pyramid of Darkness. In a sort of rip off of Gremlins there are these little furry animals that are suddenly changed into the horrific whip cracking aliens you see here. They’re never really explained in the series and they pretty much sums up why the G.I. Joe cartoon was stupidly awesome.
They also represent something that I thought was weird when I was a kid. Why didn’t they make figures of them? Of course as I got a bit older I realized that it was best that they didn’t, but when Pyramid of Darkness came out I was still pretty little and I embraced all the super weird over the top sci-fi elements found in the cartoons. Now that I’m older, I’m more into the military element of G.I. Joe, but I like that it can be fluid and sometimes incorporate the more fantastic.
Kudos to the customizer, for perfectly capturing something that might otherwise shrugged off as stupid or not worthy of being in the G.I. Joe universe.
Thanks to: HissTank.com
Some images have been released showing off the three new Star Wars Evolution three packs that are exclusive to Wal-Mart. The packs are a new Rebel Pilots pack, a new Imperial pilot type of pack, and finally a commando themed pack.
I fell off the Star Wars collecting bandwagon, but recently got back on when I was reunited with my Star Wars collection. I have really gotten into picking up pilots, so these Wal-Mart exclusives are probably going to end up in my collection. I can’t pass up the opportunity to have another A-Wing pilot or another lady Rebel.
While going through my collection of open Star Wars figures, it suddenly came to me that kids have it really great when it comes to having figures to clash lightsabers. Back in my day there were only three official Star Wars figures that had lightsabers: Obi-Wan, Luke Skywalker, and Darth Vader. You may have had multiple versions of Luke, but if you wanted to reenact a lightsaber scene that didn’t involve coloring a toothpick and putting it in the hands of a Stormtrooper, then you had to go with those three choices. These days, there’s a virtual cornucopia of lightsaber wielding figures to choose from.
Before we proceed let me pause for a moment. I’m not saying that kids couldn’t make other figures into evil or good lightsaber battlers. Kids have tons of imagination and can include other figures into their play worlds. Hell, I literally had Steelheart of the Silver Hawks marry Green Lantern at one point in my childhood for one of my “plots” and I also managed to use Encyclopedias to fill in for the Death Star trash compactor. What I’m getting at here is that there’s one thing between having fun as a kid by mixing all your figures and another where you’re trying to fit the stories you make up into the same world of the movies you’ve seen roughly a billion times. (more…)