Just getting more San Diego Comic-Con pics cleaned up and posted. In this installment, I’ve got Futurama figures from Toynami and a bunch of robots from Bandai.
Futurama – I became a big fan of the show after a friend relentlessly badgered me to watch it after it had been canceled. I never picked up any figures, just not my style, but with the new Toynami figures coming out, there’s an opportunity for folks looking to start up a collection now that more episodes have been picked up by Comedy Central for 2010.
Visiting the NECA booth last week at San Diego Comic-Con, I was disappointed to not see more Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and not until after the show did I find out why. I am not familiar with many of NECA’s licensed video game properties. Sure, I know Street Fighter, but my gaming in my old age is limited to NHL games. Still, there’s lots to appreciate here just from an action figure fan perspective.
Bio Shock – Industrial from TheFwoosh.com really dug these – he hasn’t played the game either.
Poe Ghostal has published a great San Diego Comic-Con wrap-up, and it contains an update from NECA on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. We had heard before that it was international sales that had bogged down the first series, but not that NECA had altered the sales plan to try a figure at a time. I still have a pre-order out there for series 2 – I wonder when that will be canceled.
Rustin attended an information session with NECA, where we got the story behind the second series of TMNT. As we all guessed, Playmates’s deal with Mirage is preventing NECA from being able to sell their TMNT figures at Toys ‘R Us. But you say: why can’t they just sell them in specialty stores? As it turns out, the problem is with international sales. While the four Turtles in the first wave sold very well domestically, sales were virtually nonexistent overseas due to lack of recognition. Non-U.S. fans knew the classic blue, red, orange, and purple Turtles from the cartoons and movies, but the comic-based Turtles with their all-red bandannas just didn’t sell. Therefore, NECA barely broke even on the line.
Therefore, the plan now is to sell a figure, see how it does, then try the next figure. The first will be April in green and yellow variants in the fall, and if she sells well enough, Shredder will follow. I understand why we’re getting a yellow April–NECA’s hoping that figure, which resembles the cartoon version, will sell well overseas. But why the green version? It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to sell the comic-accurate blue version as an exclusive at SDCC, then sell the green and yellow versions at retail–it should be blue and yellow at retail. In any event, fingers crossed that April’s numbers merit us a Shredder. I already plan to pick up a couple Aprils for friends and family.
Thanks to our good friends on the Hasbro Marvel Team, ActionFigurePics.com and TheFwoosh.com were able to present the Marvel Universe Covers Contest. This was an opportunity for you to win some fantastic prizes featuring new Marvel products, like the 70th Anniversary Invaders 4-pack, the single-carded gray scale Captain America, and the Wolverine Mighty Mugg – all HasbroToyShop.com exclusives that debuted at San Diego Comic-Con.
The challenge? Recreate classic covers from the Marvel library of comic book titles, using action figures from the Marvel lines from Hasbro and Toy Biz.
While the judging is now underway, we’re proud to present the covers that the you produced – over sixty of them! We’ll be posting the results of the contest soon, so stay tuned.
Mattel held its “Mattypalooza” panel today, in which they recapped the Mattycollector.com offerings, including DC (which was a recap from the earlier DC Universe panel), Ghostbusters, and Masters of the Universe Classics. I’ll be covering the latter in this update.
MOTU Classics is performing better than Mattel expected, so the line is expanding. Beyond the standard monthly figures, we’ll be getting much more. On selected months, there will be bonus figures consisting of reissues, repaints, oversized figures, and even army builder 2-packs. Also, Mattel will make an accessory pack, once per season.
Masters of the Universe Club Eternia Exclusive Won-Dar
The subscription, now called “Club Eternia,” is coming back for the full year of 2010, with some minor changes. Because interest was low, they’ll no longer have the “hold for combined shipping” option. Also, there will be a $20 subscription fee – and they’ll provide an exclusive figure, Won-Dar (a remake of the extremely rare vintage Wonderbread He-Man), and posters of an Eternia map and a character roster.
Club Eternia is available to order on Mattycollector.com. Subscriptions will close in about 3 weeks.
