Interview > Monster Artist Extraordinaire Matt Frank

MattFrankArt.com

Matt Frank

Specialty: Drawing monsters
Base of Operations: MattFrank.com. You can find much more of his monstrous artwork here.
History: Matt Frank is based in the Golden Land of Texas. He likes pineapple juice. He also loves to draw monsters and anything else that happens to be very, very cool. His comics work includes IDW’s Godzilla and Transformers: Flash Forward and Bluewater Productions’ Ray Harryhausen Presents: Wrath of the Titans.

What toys did you collect as a kid, and what do you collect now?

When I was but a lad, my room (and our storage space) was practically bursting with toys. I had substantial collections relating to Power Rangers, Transformers, Jurassic Park, War Planets, Mighty Max, Ultraman, and, naturally, Godzilla. Largely this was thanks to my grandmother, God rest her soul, and her predilection towards expressing love via large purchases.

Nowadays, as an adult, I’ve had something of a change of priorities without a loss of motivation. My tastes have been refined, somewhat, in that I’ve trimmed my collecting habits down to mostly Godzilla and Ultraman related swag, with the occasional Transformer, but mostly keeping an eye open for the more interesting or unique toy/figure. For example, I came across a model of Osaka Castle that was quite nicely detailed, and it goes perfectly with my six-inch Bandai Godzilla figures! I also came across a rare Reptilicus figure (an exclusive for the Asian Fantasy Film Expo in 2000) while in New York City, and snagged it for my “rare and cool” shelf. (more…)

Diamond Reveals Their Plans for Battle Beasts

The new Battle Beasts website has gone live. Highlights:

  • There will be a new comic from IDW,  written by Bobby Curnow (Godzilla Legends, Night of 1000 Wolves) and penciled by Valerio Schiti (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Donatello, Dungeons & Dragons: Eberron)
  • At San Diego Comic-Con, DST will unveil the first full wave of Battle Beasts Minimates, which will be in stores in late fall of 2012. The first wave of two-packs will focus heavily on characters who appear in the comic, and will have a gameplay element, as well. DST will also have an exclusive two-pack of Battle Beasts for sale at the show.

So it looks like the figures will indeed be Minimates in the style of the previous con exclusives, and not the fully-sculpted action figures we saw prototypes of a while back. That’s disappointing, but the Minimates style is very popular with collectors and kids alike, and this will allow Diamond to offer the kind of variety and character selection the original Battle Beasts line was known for. It’s probably a shrewd move.

Odds ‘n Ends > Mattycollector News, G.I. Joe Photo Covers, FOC Dinobot Pics

  • 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.)