I know a number of fans were concerned about the $3 tax that they received with their Mattycollector subscription orders. Mattycollector has posted this on their website:

Oops!

Lots of you have asked and we’ve finally gotten to the bottom of the $3 tax on international customers who purchased the Club Eterniaâ„¢ subscription for 2010. Turns out it was a tax coding error on our part. My team has identified how the error happened and is processing refunds to all customers who were mistakenly charged. You should see it on your statement within the next two to three weeks

Sincere apologies for all the confusion.

—Matty

He-Fans,

The 2010 Club Eternia subscription ends this Friday at 12:00 noon eastern time. This is your only way to be guaranteed the Jan – Dec figure of the month plus the exclusive Club figure Wun-Dar the Savage He-Man which comes complete with removable battle armor, black Power Sword, half black Power Sword, ray gun and Eternian meal. This figure will not be sold in any other way. You must be a member to get him.

Club members will also get a poster-sized map of Eternia. This is all-new art shown postcard sized at SDCC. The poster will also feature secrets of the Power of Grayskull and the Elders printed on the reverse. These will be never before revealed secrets to help complete the storyline behind MOTU Classics for the true fans.

There may be a few other bonus items thrown in during the year for members only such as coupons and other MOTU schwag.

To become a member and sign up for a year of figures, visit my site MattyCollector.com today! Hurry, offer ends this Friday!

PS: The Jan figure will be Adora, the Feb figure will be Trap-Jaw/Kronis and the March figure will be Moss Man, most likely with partial flocking. Still working on this one…

More from Mattycollector on the Moss Man problem:

Thanks to so many fans for chiming in over the weekend on the Moss Man issue. As you know, those damn laws of physics just won’t let the flocking work on a figure that is so articulated. We did see some cool fan photo-shopped images of a partial flocked Moss Man and a repainted Moss Man with more paint ops to the face and hands. Both are interesting options. Remember these are fan images, not official images from Mattel of actual product.

Let us know what you think here on my Facebook page and on fan sites such Actionfigureinsider.com, He-Man.org and Fwoosh.com (among others). We’ll check back on Monday to see what everyone has to day! [sic]

Evidently we’re just not going to be able to get the figure fully flocked. I think the partial flocking is the best solution, as long as it can be done well–that is, the flocking sort of fades at the edges, rather than looking like a thick piece of topsoil glued to his thighs or whatever. That’s probably my preferred choice at this point.

Thoughts everyone?

Mattel appears to be having some trouble flocking the new Moss Man.

Hey He-Fans,

Just to let everyone know, we are working out some of the kinks with Moss Man right now. The flocking on a highly articulated figure is a bit tricker then we expected. There is a chance Moss Man may get pushed out to April and the “as-of-yet-unannounced” April figure will get bumped up to March (see why we have bonus figures in tow, stuff like this happens a lot!). This is not confirmed yet, just want to keep you all in the loop.

And along those lines, would fans be interested in Moss Man if he was not flocked? Or is this a make or break deal? We are doing everything we can to keep him flocked, but just curious what fans think?

If the only way to flock him would be to limit the articulation would that be okay also? Curious what you all think?

We want to hear your feedback!

Matty

Personally–and I know this may be sacrilege to some–but I can do without the flocking. Never cared for it, like cloth on smaller-scale toys. It can wear off and look shabby after a while. And I definitely don’t want to lose any articulation.

I’d be happy with a Moss Man made using the Beast Man body with a few newly tooled pieces to reflect the moss (similar to how ToyBiz built Man-Thing around a Sasquatch body–or maybe vice versa, I don’t remember).

Now that we know that sales of the art book went to benefit Make-A-Wish, Howard of Fixitinpost.org has offered what I think is the most sensible explanation yet for why the print run was limited to 1,000 books:

As I speculated on our post-SDCC podcast (plug, plug), I’m assuming that the limited numbers are due to a royalty structure or something similar. When companies commission artwork, there’s generally a clause that allows them to use the artwork for certain non-commercial purposes (promotions, charity, etc.). The definition of “non-commercial” is usually determined by the number of units produced, be it of a toy package or even the art itself. Again, this is all speculation, but I totally get the “legal limitations” reason/excuse.

The idea is that Mattel could only print 1,000 books for charitable purposes. Any more and they’d have to start paying royalties (or perhaps just larger royalties) to the artists. (Of course, I think it’s a shame the artists–rarely the wealthiest members of society–can’t be paid more royalties by a big corporation like Mattel via an actual for-profit production run, but that’s a separate issue.) (more…)

This already went ’round the ‘Net circles so you’re probably already aware, but Mattel also posted packaged pics of Teela and the bonus 2002-style Zodak yesterday.

It confirms Teela is coming with Zoar (without the blue on him–apparently that will be a later repaint). I have to admit, I wasn’t planning on getting Zodak, but now that I see him in package, he’s a bit more tempting than I thought he would be.

NoisyDvL5 of ItsAllTrue.net also sussed out the bios from the back-of-package photos on Facebook. I’ll let you go there to read them, since he did do all the work.

Mattel has updated their Facebook page with photos of the new packaging for He-Man and Skeletor, who’ll be offered for sale on Mattycollector.com in December (with slightly altered packaging–I think it’s just “The Original!” on the front there).

So for those of you who’ve gotten on board the MOTUC Trak a little late, here’s your chance to own the big boys.

I know a number of you asked why Mattel couldn’t include bonus figures in the subscription in the Ask Mattel thread, but I hadn’t planned to include it in my questions because 1.) I was certain every other site would ask, and 2.) I was fairly certain the answer would be boilerplate. (more…)