When I was about twelve, in 1990, there was nothing I wanted more than figures from the movies Aliens and Predator. After all, I had Robocop toys, so it wasn’t as if there were no precedent for action figures based on rated-R flicks. Alas, the first toys from Kenner would not arrive for a few more years, by which time I had moved on to other fads. (more…)
Poe’s Point > Fiddlers and Moncs
Here it comes…the obligatory Convention Exclusives Editorial.TM (more…)
Poe’s Point > Captain…America?
So the all-new, all-different Captain America carries a gun now. Then what makes him any different from the Punisher? Especially since the Punisher recently went crazy and dressed up like Captain America for a while.
And it’s not a very impressive gun, either–looks like a plain old Colt .45 to me. Shouldn’t Captain America at least have a Magnum or something?
Mind you, I always thought it was a bit silly that Cap only carried a shield as a weapon. Even Batman has batarangs, gas pellets and explosives he can throw at people if need be. But a gun? To quote Mr. Furious, “That’s it? That’s your power? You have guns? Couldn’t you be a little more creative than that?” Again, the Marvel Universe already has a guy whose power is that he has guns.
I don’t know…I might check out this issue (Captain America #34). I wish Marvel had a $2 digital download option for their comics. More likely I’ll wait for the trade paperback, since a single issue of a modern comic reads like an excerpt from a novel these days.
To get on topic, how long until Hasbro releases a figure of the gun-toting Cap? I say he shows up within three waves.
Poe’s Point > Toys and the Chinese New Year
As with many hobbies, the rise of the Internet has allowed the average action figure collector to understand the intricacies of production, sales, and distribution more than ever before. Fans track and discuss case mixes, variant ratios and shipping schedules. They have favorite sculptors and designers. And with projects like the Four Horsemen’s FANtastic Exclusive, they even get to participate in the development process.
Of course, this heightened awareness also provides collectors with an insight into the sort of issues one would never consider. For instance, we’ve long known that most American toys are manufactured in Chinese factories (for better or, in some recent cases, worse). But what perhaps you weren’t aware of is the fact that, for a week or two in February, all those factories close for the Chinese New Year–meaning the toy companies have to push as much product through as possible before then to avoid serious delays. (more…)
Poe’s Point > “…its wings were stretched from wall to wall…”
Jason “ToyOtter” Geyer has a blog post about the online action figure collecting community, explaining why they recently banned a forum member (I don’t know who, nor does it matter). It occurred to me that I’ve been a member of said community for nearly ten years now (fifteen if you count my early days on the Prodigy bulletin boards as a member of a Transformers fan club).
My first real online action figure community was the Spawn.com boards. Eventually those boards got a little too contentious for my taste and, as Geyer suggests in his post, I founded a website (or rather, was talked into joining the founding of a website) with two other Spawn.com expatriates. Over time, I found I was less interested in writing toy reviews than I was in just commenting on the industry as a whole (plus I’m a control freak and wanted my own site), so finally, at the beginning of this month, I unleashed this blog upon an unsuspecting and uninterested public. (more…)
Poe’s Point > An Appreciation of the Ball Jointed Neck
When I was a kid, most action figures had the same articulation: swivel joints at the neck, shoulders, and hips, and maybe a twist at the waist. That’s what you got with Star Wars, Masters of the Universe, Super Powers and Secret Wars, and later, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (though MOTU and the Turtles featured somewhat ball-jointed hips). Some lines were an exception; the 3 3/4″ G.I. Joe figures were heavily articulated, with the aforementioned articulation plus ball joints at the shoulders, head, waist, and hips, and swivels at the biceps in the later figures. But usually, you were stuck with the basic joints. (more…)
Poe’s Point > The Magic Toys ‘R Us
In this post, I’d like to pay tribute to what I fondly call “the Magic Toys ‘R Us.”First, a bit of background. Back in ye old dayes of the 1980s, action figures were relatively plentiful. You could walk into Child World or Caldor’s and find a rack of C3PO, R2D2, He-Man, Skeletor, Trapjaw, and any other popular figure you were looking for. Some figures were a bit harder to find than others, but eventually you’d be able to find just about anything at retail.
That began to change in the late 1990s, when action figure collecting became an adult collector’s hobby as much as a kids’ childhood rite.
But scalping was taken to a whole new level–and not just in action figure collecting, but in pretty much any collector’s hobby you can imagine–by the advent of eBay. In the early days of eBay, there were plenty of deals to be had. I was able to amass quite a collection of old 1980s toys from my childhood for relatively reasonable prices. By the early 2000s, savvy eBay sellers had started to use the power of the Internets to make better profits. With a few clicks of a keyboard, a Midwestern grandmother can hit a toy website and find out those old G.I. Joe dolls her son left in the attic are worth $100 or more. Soon, prices for the action figure after-market went up as a whole. (more…)
Poe’s Point > Toy packaging comes under fire from local TV news guy
Mrs. Ghostal-to-Be and I are often amused by the promo spots for Jon Keller, a Boston TV news personality. He’s sort of a cross between John Stossel and a daytime talk show host; every promo follows a formula whereby something seemingly positive is revealed to possibly be negative. “Doctors say regular exercise is good for you. But some people say that may not be true–find out why at 11!”
Now Keller has turned the burning focus of his scrutiny upon a true scourge of the modern world: toy packaging. In this special report, Keller argues that when it comes to toy shopping for Christmas, “the cost and the crowds are nothing compared with the agony of getting the darn things open.” He’s even created an online petition telling toy companies “Our children want to be able to play with the toys they open Christmas morning–or for Hanukkah or their birthday–without watching their parents fight, fumble, cut themselves, and curse at the packaging.”
My parents were usually able to do all that independent of any toy packaging in the vicinity (especially Mumma Ghostal–she has the vocabulary of a drunken sailor). But I have to admit, toy packaging is a big pain in the ass these days. I’ve cut myself more than once on clamshell cases.
And yet, I do think clamshells make for the best collector’s packaging. Many collectors keep their toys in the package, and plastic clamshells don’t wear the way cardboard boxes and backing cards do. I suspect the rise of clamshell packaging has much to do with the rise of toy collecting as an adult hobby. As someone who opens all of his toys, I’m not too fond of having to tear my way into clamshells, but frankly, I find the innumerable wire twist-ties far more irritating than getting the package open.
So will you sign the petition? Clamshells–yea or nay?
Poe’s Point > Twisted Xmas 2: An Xmas Carol
I suggested yesterday that McFarlane Toys create a second series of Twisted Xmas toys, this time based on Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. Given that it’s a ghost story featuring supernatural creatures, graveyards, corpses, and Victorian-era values ripe for the perverting, I think this is a no-brainer for McToys–and a sure-seller.
Here’s how I envision the line:
Ebeneezer Scrooge — a grotesque, hunchbacked miser, carrying a sack of filthy lucre and leaning on a cane with a death’s head knob.
The Ghost of Jacob Marley — a horrific, zombie-like corpse, completely buried in huge chains, padlocks, safes, shackles and other heavy iron objects. His jaw-wrappings would be in shreds, and his rotten jaw would be dangling by a thread of cartilage over his chest.
The Ghost of Christmas Past — the obligatory hot chick of the line. In the novel this ghost is actually a kind of young/old male spirit, but enough movie versions have made it a woman to make it work in the public imagination. This figure would just be a scantily-clad fairy, probably carrying a big candle extinguisher.
The Ghost of Christmas Present — described as a “giant” in the book, I envision McFarlane’s version as a huge, gluttonous ogre. His base would be covered with half-eaten food and his magic torch would be more like a monstrous flaming club.
The Ghost of Christmas Yet-to-Come — C’mon, this one’s easy. Personally I’d love something that looked like the thing from Scrooged, but I have faith that McFarlane would come up with something suitably monstrous.
Tiny Tim — This one would probably be the most tasteless (and there’s always one in these Monsters lines). In the novel he wears those Forrest Gump-style leg braces and carries a crutch. I envision McFarlane’s Tiny Tim as a hulking, deformed teenager with giant robotic braces on his legs–and a crutch like a claymore.