In the same fashion as two years ago. It's 4 am, we leave for our flight in 12 hours. I still have to pack, send out BMF's first birthday invitations, put together our swag, clean out our back room for the in-laws, do a return and most importantly get some quality time with BMF since I worked a 12 hour day. Sleep? Who needs sleep. Watch the feeds for live blogs of all the big toy panels. See you after the con!
Wow, just WOW! That was our initial reaction as we approached the Denver Convention Center on Friday for our first taste of the 2nd annual Denver Comic Con. As we neared the entrance I overheard a door person explaining that this was the beginning of the line and that the end of the line wrapped around block. The most shocking thing was he stated it would be shorter to go the opposite direction to get to the end of the line. It was at that moment I knew we were in for an AMAZING show.
Hey, hey, hey, it's con season and we got some reporting to do, and we are going to talk about a panel or two. You'll have some fun now with me and the Mrs. here. Learning about StarFest while we drink some beer. Na, na, na, we had a good time. Na, na, na, your gonna have a good time!
This is one my favorite shows of the year. As usual we had some amazing announcements this year. Mattel blew their load involuntarily and in those leaks was one of my favorite things from show. It is perhaps one of my favorite figures from the entire line in his best homage yet. While most of the G.I. Joe toys had already been shown, we did get this treat. No matter how many versions of this figure we see, every time he just gets better and better. Transformers had my best of show yet again. No ...
So what got us excited before what was one of the best Toy Fairs to date? The biggest news in years was the announcement of the Gentle Giant sculpted Star Wars Black Series 6 inch line. This has got me incredibly excited. Robot Kingdom once again teased us with a preorder outta left field for the Transformers brand. While not necessarily a preorder, a major retailer's computer system revealed yet another amazing item, this time for the G.I. Joe franchise. While not necessarily action figure rela...
Project Genesis continues to amaze us. Now we just need some alt mode pics. On the opposite end of the size spectrum are these new Lego Star Wars polybags. I'm loving the Umbarran MHC, both scales. One of my favorite figures this year is MOTUC Granamyr. Find out if he was worth the almost $100 price tag and if you should hunt him down on the secondary market. Bringing up the rear yet again is G.I. Joe, but at least Wave 2 of the Retaliation was in stock at one retailer.
Here's our fifth annual Black Friday cast. As you're gorging on turkey and/or deals, remember as collectors we have hundreds, sometimes thousands of things to be thankful for. But, please do not forget to be thankful for the things that really matter, friends and family.
If you saw my last post, you know I'm not really feeling these as of late. So I'm taking a break. We're not taking a break, just me in regard to writing posts to accompany the shows. I just need to want to do these and I right now I don't. FYI our 5th Annual Black Friday show will be out tomorrow. Spoiler, there's not that much on sale at least in the stores. Here's hoping my online research turns up more deals tomorrow.
Perhaps the biggest news, literally, is the MOTUC Castle Grayskull. The thing is massive and we're creeping up towards the minimum. If you haven't pre-ordered yet, do so NOW. G.I. Joe actually had some news this time around. Hasbro announced Kre-O is finally repping Joe-style. Most of it looks pretty bad, but there are a few pieces I can't wait for. So everyone knows this is a thing. I'm excited about the game, but I could care less about the toys. Finally, I'm so happy to see that we'll be gett...
You will hear about the amazing reveal at the MOTUC panel at Power-Con. Did you know there was a missing Star Wars figure? Me neither. G.I. Joe was abysmal this week (as usual). No wonder they preempted their NYCC event with Kre-O news. Finally, Transformers, as usual, had a slew of news. Not quite as exciting as what we found out after the cast, but still interesting nonetheless.
With that out of the way, now on to the happy. Here are my favorite things from the show. First up, Celebration VI gave us our first in hand look at the Vintage Collection Royal Guard. I bought an extra opener and now I wish I had bought ten. I talk about focus characters during the show and the Royal Guard is to Star Wars as Soundwave and his minions are to Transformers. That makes this e-Hobby/TFCC colabo an absolute must. Joe news is almost non-existent as usual, but another focus character r...
SDCC 2012... If you can't think of at least a half of a dozen things you're excited about you need to find a new hobby. I don't think I said this on the show, but here are my favorite announcements from each line. For Masters this guy was killing it for me. Nostalgia will usually trump everything and Jitsu was one of my favorites as a kid. While Joe fans got the shaft once again panel-wise, fan sites got the opportunity to talk to the man with the plan, Derryl DePriest. He sounds excited for the...
This week is mostly catch up with all the craziness leading up to SDCC. Not a lot news, but ridiculous amounts of sightings and new pre-orders which is about par for the course. With Joecon came The Concept Case. This thing has instigated a lot of discussion and as with all fandoms a good share of negativity. These two Kreon "combiners" kicked off what we would find out at SDCC is basically an amazing new direction for Kre-O Transformers. Star Wars has been a little lack luster as of late, but w...
As usual, we get plenty of toy talk in during the show which was recorded in its entirety at Denver Comic Con 2012. In Masters news, we're getting a great quarterly variant in one of my favorite vintage toys, Dragon Blaster Skeletor. While we're in a holding pattern with Joe for the next 7-8 months, we got an amazing Joe compatible product in Marauder "Gun-Runners" Series 6. In the "coolest thing I've seen in a while" category is this Star Wars Lego hologram display. My favorite news of the show...
Did you know we're finally getting Mekaneck? Oh and what a neck it is. Speaking of Meka's, we're also getting a mechanized Darth Maul in a Battle Pack with one of the hardest to find Clone Wars figures and a fan favorite. Even if the Voyager Fall of Cybertron Soundwave poops out his data discs (never knew difference of disc vs. disk), I still love him with all my heart. Something else I love is YoJoe.com's new Toy Archive. It's amazing when the best get better.
The reason why we normally don't do interviews or have guests on is we love the dynamic of just "kicking it". From the get go Gary "Commander and Chief" and Mike "Beach Head" Irizarry of What's on Joe Mind fit right in. It was literally seconds until we were all laughing and that's what really matters. We all felt so at home that just our con segment took over one and a half hours. So we decided to just scrap our regular format and spend the next hour talking about the postponement of G.I. Joe: ...
Five years in a row. Just thinking about it makes my wallet want to cry and my heart soar. Although I always exercise amazing restraint in the dealer room, I always buy all the exclusives. That right there puts you $300+ in the hole before the show even starts. However, this year I got to live vicariously through my show buddies Optimus Andy and Tylertron. They definitely took advantage of their first Botcon. I definitely took advantage of kicking it with two amazing guys. From cutting lines to ...
With over three and a quarter hours of toy talk, you could easily spread this cast out over a week. Let us see, Monday would be con news, a smattering of great toy news and some Matty/MOTUC Q and A. Tuesday would yield a little more toy news, a look at 3rd party love and possibly the Store Report. Wednesday would have us looking at some new stuff online, including ShelfLifeX.com. As well as a quick look at What I Got. Thursday we would look at this amazing transforming Sky Striker Starscream and...
As usual we talk a bunch of toys, but instead of highlighting a few of them with this post, I really wanted to focus on what has me most excited right now, Attack on Cobra Island. What's Attack on Cobra Island you say? It's an amazing old school 16 bit side scrolling G.I. Joe brawler. It is literally the game that every red blooded 80s G.I. Joe fan should've wanted back in the day. In just a few minutes of playing you can easily tell that it is a labor of love. IP infringing, fangasming love. Wh...
It seems like the whole community is bitching. I just wish everyone could remember this is supposed to be fun. Speaking of fun, what's more fun than new Disney Star Wars figures? How about a Transformer that turns into 6 different things? No, I got it, a UFO Transformer with an old school bubble helmet. If saving money is your thing, both BBTS and Matty have pretty good sales right now. We also hear from a old friend. Finally, we pick the winner of our Toy Fair 2012 Giveaway.
It's that time of year again. We kick it Toy Fair style. It's the Super Bowl of action figure events. Where plastic addicts from all around the world rejoice and/or bitch about all the new toys we'll be getting.
While this is the Super Bowl weekend of toy news, we recap everything leading up to this weekend of weekends. We kick around the leaks from UK Toy Fair, Transformers Prime releases and G.I. Joe Retaliation toys. There are some great preorders if you like the small stuff. Robert Atkins put on one hell of a custom contest. After almost a year of the Hot Rod/Rodimus Prime retrospective, we're finally reviewing Fansproject TFX-04 Protector Armor. And if you think that was a lot of reviews, I still h...
One thing still makes everything right in the world, talking toys. Even though I can’t buy any right now, I still love following all the updates. While we haven’t actually talked news in over 2 months we were able to keep the cast to just under two and a half hours. During the show we discuss the onslaught of con news, recent MOTUC happenings, new Transformers toys, the collector clubs’ upcoming exclusives and some of the best 3rd party products we’ve seen in a while. As you can imagine we picke...
The toys of the 80's were literally a perfect storm of relaxing federal regulations, the proliferation of cable TV and syndication and media tie-ins. Gone were the previous generation’s large 12" and clothed dolls. The late 70’s saw a relatively unknown film usher in a new era of action figures and with it a new approach to toy marketing. With the advancements in technology in the last 20 years, such as life-like video games and the World Wide Web, unfortunately kids will never have an experienc...
Well both of us just woke up from a tryptophan coma. Now we need to get ready for the Black Friday madness. We have one of your favorites back on the show. Hope you enjoy this year's cast.
We got some great toy news for you this time around. The G.I. Joe Collector Club has revealed a ton of their new Figure Subscription Service (FSS) figures. If you want to decide not only the next Fans’ Choice figure for Star Wars, but probably a majority of the obscure figures to come in the next few years, go vote now! Did you now there’s a Dinobot combiner? There is and it looks good, not great, but that might be good enough. Finally, it’s that time of year. Hasbro Toy Shop has 25% off and fre...
Power-Con showed some new, new, new shit. First one of my favorite Masters figs is coming and I didn't know I even wanted a Griffin, but now I can't live without out it. Another one of my favorite figures might be coming too. I got a little coupon crazy this week, even more so than normal. We announce the winner of our 3rd Annual Swagaway. Lastly , I'm honored by one of the most renowned reviewers in the community. As with all of our co-hosted shows, this was definitely one of my favorites. Hope...
And now, TOYS. With exclusives Runamuck, Runabout, Footloose and the upcoming Joe sub it's a great time to be a member of the Collector Clubs. Is Amazon really opening a toy only site? HELL to the YES! Hasbro is going to make us a new figure. You just have to tell them which one. There's some new stuff on pegs, shelves and that Web thing. More importantly, don't forget to enter our 3rd Annual Swagaway. Just let us know your favorite thing from Comic-Con 2011 before October 1st.
Since what is becoming our standard post-SDCC absence, there hasn't been too much toys news. The G.I. Joe Collectors' Club has announced more details about their sub, including the first two figures. Matty has gone sub crazy, but what's new? As usual, there has been a glut of product in stores after SDCC. Mostly DOTM, but even the 30th Anniversary Joes are showing up early. To go along with the whole golden age / homage thing, Hasbro and Amazon finally released their Transformers: The Movie 25th...
How can you not get excited about the new Clone Wars and Vintage Collection Figures? While pricey, what kid of the 80's wouldn't have killed for a 2 foot Voltron figure? Speaking of the 80's, what about Mattel finally getting the Filmation rights? We've got a Filmation accurate Grannamyr and Shadow Weaver coming. How about Transformers Generations continuing with a new Junkion? In this day and age where spoilers run rampant and are almost the norm, it's simply amazing to be one of the first to h...
