Mattel has come up with a pretty cool option for comic shops that order DC Universe Classics. Customers can pre-order their own six-figure case, which guarantees one of each character and just one extra. I had an extra Batman in my wave one case that I gave to Toys for Toys.I’ve already pre-ordered a case of DCUC wave two (from Corner Store Comics). The case will include one of each figure and one extra (probably Superman Blue/Red). This time, I’m going to give the extra figure–to one of you!* (more…)
5 Questions With: Michael Crawford
Codename: Michael Crawford
Occupation: Pop Culture Collectible Reviewer
Base of Operations: Michael Crawford’s Review of the Week
History: Michael has been reviewing various forms of pop culture collectibles (including action figures, busts, statues, games, and various toys) for more than 12 years now. He started back in the Usenet group days of rec.toys.misc, and started his own website at the beginning of 2000. His style of review has been adopted by dozens of other reviewers, and he’s well known in the industry as a fair and honest critic. In the last eight years, he’s reviewed thousands of items, and also regularly writes a column called The Toy Box for director Kevin Smith’s entertainment website, Quick Stop Entertainment.
Your toy review site is one of the most popular on the Web. Why did you start it way back when?
I had been writing reviews on several Usenet groups, but they weren’t all that I wanted them to be. They needed to include photos, and I also wanted there to be a historical record, so folks could go back and see reviews from months–and now, years–earlier. And so was born Michael’s Review of the Week.
Why the weird name? Because that’s what it had been called when I was doing reviewers for the Usenet groups, and I wanted consistency. Since then, folks know it better by it’s url, www.mwctoys.com, or just “Michael Crawford’s site.” A few years ago, I had a friend do an updated design for me, and he labeled me “Captain Toy” at the time, which has sort of stuck as well.
How much of your daily life does managing the site take up these days?
Well, I try to keep a very regular schedule–that’s the trick to being able to get new content up consistently. I have reviews go up every Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday night, and I’ve missed that schedule maybe once or twice in the last five years. I also do the Quick Stop column mid-week each week, which means I do about four reviews a week. Each one takes two to three hours, depending on the complexity. That’s the whole shebang–photos, writing and so forth. I try to spread the work out over the full week though, and get as much of the reviews done in advance. That means the Thursday night review is always half done by the time I’m posting the Tuesday review, for example. Of course, that doesn’t always work, and there are plenty of occasions where I get something new and want to get the review up ASAP, so there are some marathon writing sessions. But I’d say that I spend about fifteen hours a week specifically on the site.
What’s the coolest thing that’s happened to you as a result of running the site?
The coolest thing is getting to know the wonderful people that are involved in the hobby, both the collectors and the folks in the industry. Oh, occasionally you meet a complete moron, but that’s few and far between. The vast majority of the people I’ve come to know in the industry and the collecting community have been friendly, considerate and helpful.
Let’s talk about the Poppies. What are they, and how did you come up with them?
Last summer I started the process of thinking and planning for my own yearly best and worst picks for 2007. Every site does their own picks, but there isn’t any cross industry type awards for pop culture collectibles. I figured it was time to do something about that, and thus was born the Poppies. The inaugural year has over ninety judges from five categories–Companies, Retailers, Websites, Collectors, and Artists. They’ve come together and nominated their top picks in each of ten categories–Best Company, Best Overall Line, Best Male Figure 18″ and up, Best Male Figure 12″ – 18″, Best Male Figure under 12″, Best Female Figure (any size), Best Statue, Best Mini-Bust, Best Vinyl, and Best Misc Item. They’ll start the final vote this week, and I’ll be announcing the winners on January 15th. There’s also a contest for readers to enter. They can try to guess which items will be the winners, and I’ll draw one name from those that match the judges final choices the closest for a cool prize.
What’s your fondest toy-related holiday memory?
Hmmm–that’s a tough one. But I think it was getting Eric The Viking, the Marx figure. I was very big on the Marx stuff as a kid, but I remember that Eric was one that I really begged for, and finally got one Christmas. It was pretty exciting, and I still own that Eric with almost all his accessories.
Cleatus the Fox Sports Robot
When it comes to toys, I’ve always tended to be “into” one franchise or another at any given time. Right now it’s DC Universe; before that it was Halo, and before that, Hellboy, and so on. But I’m always on the lookout for cool toys, even if they don’t fit my current obsession. And once in a while, you come across a real gem like Cleatus, the Fox Sports Robot, produced by Foamheads, a sports collectible manufacturer.
From the packaging:
Last year’s revival of the NFL Robot on FOX marked the beginning of a new era for America’s favorite spectator sport. This 10-inch posable action figure features the highest quality and greatest attention to detail available in an action figure. The FOX Sports Robot utilizes its fully articulating joints to evade defenders and score touchdowns. A must-have piece for every sport fanatic’s collection. (more…)
Transformers (2007)
For much of my young life, I was a diehard Transformers fan. I have distinct memories of receiving my first Transformer, Jazz, as well as Soundwave, Hot Rod, and of course, Grimlock, my favorite toy of all time. Heck, one Christmas Santa brought me Fortress Maximus–probably the most enviable toy I ever owned as a kid. FM was the equivalent of the aircraft carrier for G.I. Joe fans, or the Eternia playset for Masters of the Universe.
At the age of fifteen, I wrote a fan fiction novel about Transformers. It’s now out there in the wild of the Web, and not hard to find. I lost most of my interest in Transformers in high school, when my attention turned to even geekier pursuits such as playing Magic: the Gathering and reading The Lord of the Rings.
Still, I’ve always had a lingering fondness for ol’ Optimus Prime and company. Which is why I realize it’s a bit odd it took me so long to see the recent Transformers movie. I mean, I like science fiction blockbusters, and among everyone I know, I was probably the biggest childhood TF fan–so why the apathy? A few reasons, I think. A certain dislike for the flashy but insubstantial filmmaking style of Michael Bay; the ugly robot designs; and a genuine lack of interest in Transformers these days.
Anyway, I finally watched the movie over the weekend. As I’d suspected, it was entertaining, but it didn’t make me want to go out and buy any Transformers toys; which, frankly, represents a pretty big thumbs-down from me (I’m the guy who wishes he could get a Horatio Caine action figure, after all–my standards are pretty low). Again, I thought the Transformer designs were much too complicated and cluttered, especially in the faces, which made it impossible to empathize with them as characters. To me, they were big piles of metal that looked like they’d fly apart at the slightest bump.
What there was of a plot was confusing. Why, at the end of the film, are Megatron and Optimus Prime discussing the relative merits of humanity? At that point, Megatron has spent all of twenty minutes around humans, so his wanting to destroy them all–to say nothing of his understanding how important their continued existence is to Optimus Prime–sort of comes out of left field.
That’s only one minor point, really, but it’s indicative of my general feeling watching the movie. I enjoyed all the little asides to fans of the original cartoon, but most of it was just weird. Why the bizarre John Turturro character, who acts like a G-man version of Stanley Spadowski and somehow gets more lines than Megan Fox? Why the moment where Bumblebee pees on said G-man? The so-called “humor” of the film generally left me cold, especially the scene where the Autobots scurry around the house of human friend Sam (Shia LeBeouf) like Keystone Cops. Having looked up to the staid, respectful Optimus Prime of the original cartoon as one of my childhood role models, it seemed a bit undignified for Peter Cullen to have to deliver lines like “Oops, sorry, my bad” and fret about being spotted by Sam’s parents.
I want to be clear–I’m not criticizing the movie for not being a direct cartoon-to-meatspace translation of the original cartoon. I might have gone even farther from the show’s premise to up the realism of the flick, though I also would have ratcheted back the Transformer designs.
I watched the movie less as a Transformers adaptation and more as a standard science fiction movie–this year’s heir to Independence Day and Armageddon. And on that level, I still think the film fell a little short. The action sequences were confusing, the characterizations with wafer-thin, and Michael Bay’s odd and yet, somehow clich
New DCUC site
Action Figure Insider forum member Vader has created an information website for DCUC. It’s pretty cool–and thorough.
First pic of the 6″ Dark Knight figures
Toy News International has posted a photo of the Batman figure from the upcoming six-inch line based on The Dark Knight. The line’s sub-title is apparently “Movie Masters,” which presumably means it will cover more than just this one film (and possibly non-Batman films such as Superman Returns and Justice League).
Over on their FANtastic Exclusive forums, the Four Horsemen are a bit uncertain whether the photo is definitely of their prototype or not, but they do offer this tidbit about the figures: “They match up in both scale and articulation with the DC Universe Classics figures. The articulation is really well hidden in that figure.”
More details about the Movie Masters line will be revealed at Toy Fair next month. Along with DCUC and the NECA Ninja Turtles, this is one of my most-anticipated lines for 2008.
ToyFare #127: first pics of Mezco’s Heroes figures
ToyFare has posted a scan of the cover for issue #127, featuring Claire and Sylar from Mezco’s upcoming Heroes action figure line. Click the image for a larger version.
My first impression: these appear to be as realistic and non-cartoonish as Mezco’s popular Hellboy movie line from 2004, so fans worried about a Warriors or Miami Vice redux can relax. However, Sylar’s features still look a bit exaggerated, and the Claire likeness needs a lot of work, particularly around cheekbones and the eyes. Hayden Panettiere has very distinctive eyes; if you can get them right, the rest of the likeness will fall into place.
These are almost certainly prototypes, so there’s plenty of time to work on them.
Whither modern Red Tornado?
The only official variant announced by Mattel for DC Universe Classics wave 1 (DCUC1) was a modern version of Red Tornado (a character I, admittedly, know practically nothing about–but I like his action figure). But though the line has arrived in comic shops and retailers across the country, the mythical modern RT has yet to be found. Since I know little about the character anyway, I was hoping to get the modern version.
Some background: initially, modern Red Tornado was going to be the main figure, and the “classic” Tornado–with big gloves and buccaneer boots–was to be the variant. But fans on the major collector sites (Fwoosh/AFI) expressed far more interest in the classic version, so Mattel adjusted their case ratios to reflect that. From what retailers could tell, there would be two case types–one that would have one of every regular figure and two Batman figures, and one that would have one of every figure and two Tornados. The assumption among fans was that the latter would contain one
modern and one classic Tornado, but so far, all we’ve got is classic.
So, the question is: what’s the deal, Mattel? Will we see the modern Tornado in later case pack-outs or alongside a future wave, or is he destined to become an exclusive or, worse, never see the light of day at all?
Coming up this week: My long-overdue comments on The Transformers movie (which I saw for the first time this weekend) > Cleatus, the Fox Sports Robot > Michael Crawford and the Poppies > and at last, my review of DC Universe Classics Wave 1 > Plus: PGPoA’s very first contest!
Shortpacked! > Welcome to Fandom
This Shortpacked! strip takes a shot at the online action figure community, a topic I just wrote about. It’s targeted specifically toward Marvel Legends collectors. While I admit they’re a rambunctious bunch–particularly since the Hasbro takeover of ML–the journalist in me wonders whether Willis was feeling a little defensive about the makers of his favorite toys (Transformers).
Another thing…I’ve always assumed that the online community of action figure collectors was no different than geeks in any other geekdom–movie fans, Tolkien fans, science fiction television fans and so forth. But this strip makes me wonder if action figure collectors don’t have some unique characteristics aside from their preferred topics and vocabulary. Is there something about the character of your average adult action figure collector that is different from, say, a comic book geek? A videogame geek?
(PS. I’d intended to write a more substantive post today, but I was sidetracked by six hours of Mass Effect. I offer no excuse, just sincere apologies.)
(PPS. I’d be remiss if I didn’t post a link to my favorite Shortpacked! strip of all time.)
(PPPS. I hope Butterbur sends this promptly. A worthy man, but his memory is like a lumber-room: thing wanted always buried. If he forgets, I shall roast him. And now back to Mass Effect…)
