Ron, Author at ActionFigurePics.com

Last Day – Four Horsemen’s Gothitropolis Ravens Kickstarter Campaign Ends Tonight

As I mentioned in my little Soapbox Sunday rant yesterday, the Four Horsemen’s Kickstarter campaign for the Gothitropolis Ravens has been an unmitigated success. When I talked to them in San Diego, less than a week into the campaign, they were surprised they had hit the $65K target for funding (Kickstarter works on an all or nothing model for funding projects – if you don’t hit the target, you get nothing.) With just about 12 hours to go, they’ve already signed up around thirteen hundred backers who have pledged over a quarter of a million dollars.

If you’re already a backer, now’s the time to adjust your pledges. In the final days of the campaign, the Four Horsemen have been adding extra goodies. The secret figure that was revealed as a stretch goal, the Screaming Eagle, may come with an American flag cape – if they can source a quality one. An additional figure, the Pink Flamingo, was added when the funding totals blew past the regular and bone wings. And stands for the figures (including foot pegs and adjustable clip for flying poses) are now available as add-ons for $3 each.

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Soapbox Sunday: Five Lessons Mattel Can Learn from the Four Horsemen

It’s like a Tale of Two Cities – the Four Horsemen are involved in a couple of product pre-order campaigns running in parallel. On one side, they’re the design shop behind Mattel’s Mattycollector Club Eternia and Club Infinite Earths subscriptions for Masters of the Universe Classics and DC Universe Classics. On the other, they’re taking pre-orders for their own Gothitropolis Ravens line through the crowd-funding platform, Kickstarter.

As we’ve seen over the past week, folks from Mattel and the Four Horsemen are tearing their hair out over whether the Club Eternia and Club Infinite Earths subscriptions will hit the minimums needed to survive. Meanwhile, the Four Horsemen’s Ravens are flying high. Their Kickstarter campaign hit the funding target during its first week, and proceeded to blast through every stretch goal they started with and even a few more they had to put together along the way.

You might think it easy to dismiss the stark differences in the success of the campaigns as coming from collectors’ growing dislike of Mattel and their service partner Digital River. And while I see a fair amount of anecdotal evidence for Mattel-hate, I believe there are some clear differences in how they run their campaigns that is causing the Mattycollector subscription fallout. If the Mattycollector subs live to fill in product silhouettes again next year, here’s some things Mattel can learn from the Four Horsemen, to make the sign-up period less traumatic and uncertain.

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Ask Matty Q&A for 8/15 (a Few Days Early!)

It’s been a long time since our last Q&A with Matty, but we’ve decided to get back into it. Toy Guru provided some answers early, because he’s either going to be driving for every last subscription to Club Eternia and Club Infinite Earths, or he may just be out of the office for a few days.

1) A lot of people thought that the DC Unlimited and Batman Unlimited lines were doing well at retail. What were the reasons for canceling those lines?

We are always working with retailers to find the best way to bring DC figures to mass collectors and moms and kids. Right now the 6″ line will continue on Matty pending we get the min number of sub holders.

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Hot Toys Reveals the Mandarin from Iron Man 3

On the off chance that someone is reading this post who hasn’t seen Iron Man 3 yet (it’s not you, is it?), I’ll try to be spoiler-free. Ben Kingsley’s portrayal of the Mandarin is probably the strongest performance in the movie. It’s also arguably the worst thing in the Iron Man trilogy, and yes, I’m including Tony Stark urinating in his armor in Iron Man 2. Sorry if the armor-wetting was a spoiler too.

That said, if you’re not a fan of the Mandarin from the movies, you can still enjoy this figure. He looks like a bad-ass, just like he did in the movie. And he’s got the chair, the sunglasses, the ten rings, and the attitude. That’s ACTING!

You should find him for pre-order soon at places like Sideshow and BigBadToyStore.

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Tri-State Collectors – Shop in the Mezco Vault – 8/16 Only!

[Update: Reading is fundamental! I posted this thinking the sale was today, but it’s next week. Oops!]

I often miss living in NYC (rarely during the oppressive summers or freezing cold winters, though), and today is one of those days. ~~Starting in a short while at Noon EST~~ On Friday next week, Mezco is opening up their vault and making some unique items available for sale to collectors like you and me.

So if you’re in the Tri-State area, ~~now’s~~ next Friday the time to tell your boss that you’ve come down with a summer cold, and get your butt to Mezco in Long Island City and pick up some loot. I’d be there if I could!

Mezco Unlocks The Vault And Release Rare And One Of A Kind Items

New York – In a first of its kind event, Mezco Toyz is opening their vault and releasing items from their archives.

Mezco’s Test Shots usually end up ion public display at such institutions as The Museum Of The Moving Image, Geppi’s Entertainment Museum, or others. This is the only time the vault has ever been opened and multiple test shots made available to the public.

At the same time, Mezco will be offering a select number of out of production items, including items from it’s popular Scarface and Hellboy lines. “We get calls and emails about some of our discontinued items, like Notorious B.I.G., Heroes, Scarface, and others almost daily. This is an attempt to satisfy fans, pure and simple. We will be offering rare items, out of production items, and items like test shots that are one of a kind and unavailable anywhere else. ” says Mezco’s Mike Drake.

Most test shots will be priced in the $100-$200 range so they will be affordable to even the most thrifty collectors. Rare items will be offered at lower than expected prices as well. “This is truly a collector’s dream come true!” says Mezco’s resident artist/ ninja Rich Ford “Bring a truck and bring your credit card, because this is gonna be one heck of an event!”

Public sale is on Friday 08/16 from 12noon-5pm. Cash, Visa, Mastercard are all welcome.

Mezco is located at:

2109 Borden Ave
2nd Floor
LIC NY 11101

The Hunter’s Point station is approx 3 blocks away from us.
http://hopstop.com/search?address2=2109+BORDEN+AVE,+Hunters+Point,+New+York+11101&city2=newyork

Not attending? Follow the excitement on Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/MezcoToyz
Instagram – https://www.facebook.com/MezcoToyz/app_267091300008193
and Twitter – https://twitter.com/MezcoToyz

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Photo Credit: Rich Ford