Before Dan can beat me to it, some of us are already revving up to beg for schwag from SDCC.  Let the patheticness begin...

A list, of sorts:

Hasbro
McQuarrie Yoda/Obi-Wan Kenobi two pack with coin
R2-KT pink droid
Shadow Scout with speeder bike
Concept Grievous

Battlestar Galactica 3" titanium vehicle 3 pack

Marvel Legends Stan Lee
Marvel Legends She-Hulk

Funko
Clone Trooper Red (wacky wobbler?)
12" Gold Futurama Bender Bank

Gentle Giant
Commander Cody mini-bust (edition size: 3500)
Animated Yoda and R2-D2 maquette (edition size: 2500)
Luke and Han stormtrooper bustups

Diamond Select Toys
Sulu: Wrath of Khan (DST booth?)
McCoy: Wrath of Khan (newforcecomics.com booth)
Scotty: Wrath of Khan (AFX booth)
Chekov: Wrath of Khan (Toy Rocket booth)
Genesis Khan - free with purchase of above four figures.

San Diego Comic Con Intl.
DC Direct Vanishing Bugs Bunny

Acme Direct
SDCC exclusive OT character key?

Sideshow Collectibles
VCD Blackhole Stormtrooper
Darth Sidious holographic with Mechno-chair

I missed some of these, sorry, I was only thinking mostly of what I collect, not the rest of you slobs.  Here's some more:

Hasbro Transformers Alternators Ford GT Rodimus figure
Hasbro GI Joe Destro figure
Funko bobbleheads: Peanuts Woodstock and Captain Snoopy; Red Devil Betty Boop; Sparkle Angel Betty Boop; Marvin Martian Gold and Silver
Gentle Giant Harry Potter "Luna Lovegood" minibust (1000); LOTR "Glorfindel" (500);
AFX He-Man 6" King Randor mini statue
AFX Age of Apocalypse mini busts: Blink (600); Rachel Grey/Marvel Girl (600); Rachel Grey/Deathmark (400)
Wizkids SDCC Fin Fang Foom (1250); Halo 3 battle damaged SCARAB tank
Monogram Spiderman 3 movie bust paper weight (pw); clear Venom bust pw; pewter Spiderman; brass Wonder Woman; bronze Nightmare before Christmas Jack and Sally set shaped like a coffin
Diamond Select Toys Marvel Zombies Colonel America bust (1000)
Sideshow Collectibles: Black costume Spiderman mini bust (1500); T2 John Connors mini bust (1000)
Peanuts: two t-shirts (different); Snoopy "Joe Cool" lanyards (400); Snoopy hits the beach Funkovision (175)

DC Direct
Albino Man-Bat $25
Justice League Unlimited 3 pack $20


That's about all I can find, there's probably more from the stuff the Spawn horror crowd would be into, but you can probably find all that at the Spawn.com board.  Numbers in brackets are edition sizes where included.  The "pw" in relation to Monogram stuff indicates paper weight, not Phil Wise. 

Another ******* with a gun.

31 dead or thereabouts.   

I'm not talking about stands for single figures, rather a display setup.

I have a buddy that works in a business where they make molds with plastic.  It's not inconceivable that he could potentially make something that could be quite nice and start selling these things, much like Oscar and his cases (he could make Oscar-ish cases too, though I'd suggest to him that niche is filled). 

If you were asked to make a stand, what would you be looking for?  And by stand, I mean a riser or series of risers to display your figures on as many of us do in our collections. 

For me, I'd probably opt for something 12" wide overall.  I'm not sure the width would matter all that much, as you'd have to work your overall space to make them fit, but 12" seems a reasonable measurement.  The 12" width would accomodate about 5-8 figures along the width.  It could be 8" or 10" as well. 

In terms of depth, I'd probably suggest 8" here.  That way each section of the stepwise rise would be able to be just a touch under 2" which is probably a reasonable display space for a conventional 3.75" figure.  I think if you were just looking for vintage figure displays, you could tighten that up because of the neutral stance of the figures, but far too many modern figures have some splayed-leg, action/attack type of stance that would require most of that 2" of horizontal space from front to back. 

I'd suggest 3 steps overall, or maybe 4.  Four would fit the 2" step width easily enough of course, so perhaps that would be best.  The front could just be the width of the plastic of course, but how much height would be ideal for each subsequent step?  Two inches would be ok because you'd get to view 'half' of each 3.75" figure on display.  The problem would be that the last figures heads would top out at around 10" in height (3.75" for figure + 2" for step #2 + 2" for step #3 + 2" for step #4 + a little for the first step).  Is that too tall?  If so, would you be satisfied with a 1" rise for each step?  So long as you had your astromechs/Ewoks in the front row, you'd probably see everything fine. 

The construction would be plastic of some sort (Lexan, etc.) but what color would you prefer?  For myself, I'd be leaning to clear, so that the figure stands I have would match in nicely.  But would you accept/use white or black?  Or another color? 

So if you had a stand that was 12" wide and had four levels, you could display about 32 figures in a 12" wide by 8" deep space that would require 10" of head room.  Any appeal to any of you? 

I'll use a picture of Scott's collection to show you what I mean with respect to the steps:


I guess I'm asking because I've never been able to find anything locally (this is Canada, eh) that's been satisfactory.  I figure if I can convince this guy he'd be able to sell some then I could find them locally.  I also think that if I find out what collectors would want, maybe I can make this into a sideline for his business to help justify his mold costs.  So what would you want?

As the title states, it's not really a review of any of the figures, I just grabbed the camera and did my usual substandard job of taking pictures.  Since the first wave (minus Vader and the album) of TAC figures are out in Canada and I've been fortunate enough to pick them up, I thought I'd show some pictures of what they look like in a broad sense. 

I didn't buy the entire wave myself and haven't bothered opening them all yet, but I did pop the Galactic Marine and the Airborne trooper out of the package.

Just a couple of shots of the Galactic marine in the packaging, in case you guys don't see the trilogo versions elsewhere.  As with the Saga figures we end up with generic cardbacks rather than the scene specific cardbacks.  Much gnashing of teeth ensues from Canadian collectors over this issue and with Saga, I agreed.  With the TAC cards, the generic cardback might end up being not so undesirable after all.  The generic cardbacks are simply a cost saving measure on Hasbro's part, because we have to have both English and French up here as both are official languages.  I believe the Spanish comes into play as these are also the cardbacks distributed into Mexico.  I don't give a crap really because I open these things. 

I've said elsewhere the MOC crowd will probably be pleased with these.  In spite of all the corners, the cards feel pretty sturdy.  The J-hook will be of concern and I've already seen some with fast creasing (one day on the pegs) but the rest of the card is sturdier than expected and should hold mint better than either the ROTS or Saga cards.  The bubble too seems thicker and stronger and hopefully the quality and shape will lead to a lot less bubble scuffing than on ROTS/Saga bubbles.

Card Front:


You can see no scene, just a big, old Vader head.  I think it works with the black/white cardback though. Apologies for the glare, Jared I ain't. 

Generic card back:


We just get the figure listings and no information due to the generic nature.  To offset that, inside the bubble on the cardback is taped a trilogo information sheet:





I couldn't manage a decent shot of the coin without too much glare, but they are standard regardless, no trilogo coins for us.  The cost would be prohibitive and we'd end up with zero figures instead.  The back of the coin has the Imperial logo on it (I've only opened the two clones, so maybe the rebel coins are different). 

The airborne trooper comes with a nifty purse bag.  When I opened it up it had a purse bag, small blaster reminiscent of the scout trooper pistol and the larger blaster.  I looked for a holster but none to be found so initially I thought it was pretty stupid until I turned the purse bag over to see the pistol fits nicely inside the purse bag.







For reference sake I threw in the 501st sculpt with the removable helmet.



The galactic marine is indeed a little taller and both he and the airborne have some pretty nifty articulation with better shoulder and elbow joints than their 501st compatriot there.

The airborne's rifle is a nice, hefty hunk of plastic. The galactic marine's rifle is a flimsy piece of ****.  You can see the bend just in front of the trigger and that's pretty much the thinnest part of the weapon, so it's going to be soft and flexible right there.  If you're an army builder, equipping some of your airborne with pistol only will allow you to shift the sturdier rifle over to the marine. 

On both the skirts are integrated with the belts, so if you want one off, you'll be trimming with a knife and be left with rough, unpainted edges.  Neither looks particularly hard to take off though.  On the airborne those shoulder straps (not the purse bag) are also seemingly integrated/attached to the belt.  The pauldron on the marine is easily removable though. 

The faces/head sculpts seem different between the two TAC figures, odd considering they're clones, but whatever. 



If you're an ass man, there's the view for you.  Marine's backpack is removable, leaving a gaping bullet hole in his back.  The purse bag on the airborne is obviously removable as well. 

They seem like well done figures, using good sculpts.  If you're a clone guy, you'll be happy. 

As for the rest of wave I of the TAC figures, well it's kind of here or there, it'll depend on your preferences.  I didn't buy the battle droid or R2 though I'm sure they look ok together.  I'm a big astromech/R2 fan myself, but the paint on this one just wasn't appealing, I might relent later.  But not on the battle droid. 

The Mace Windu figure is actually pretty nice and I picked up one for a buddy in Japan.  I just got the Mace from the battle pack, so I'll compare and maybe pick that new one up yet. 

Obi is funny looking to me.  It's a decent sculpt with all new accessories for him but the head sculpt looks weird so I left him for now. 

The lava miner was interesting enough for me to buy one, and that should be sufficient.  Someone more detail oriented will have to decipher whether it's good or bad.

The concept stormtrooper - McQuarrie - is different slightly in paint/coloration from it's predecessor.  I couldn't find my old version to compare with, but I'm confident the sculpt is the same, as are the accessories.  The difference is where the highlights are on the armor; the old version had black detail whereas the new one has grey.  I don't think it makes a huge difference, but it is noticeable.  I'm guessing, but I think the shield might have more detail to it or just different paint perhaps.

Box of 12 #41 clones for sale.  All are on ROTS card, some US cards, some Canadian cards.  Some cards could pass for display but none are mint.  I can open them up for you and ship loose too if you like. 

Asking $70 USD plus the shipping.  And if you don't know, I'm in Canada so shipping won't be as fast as it would be were I in the US.

Unbelievable but the link on yahoo for fantasy football is up already   I'll commish the league if no one else wants in but I'd prefer to pass as I'll probably be doing multiple hockey leagues come fall time. 

Who's in?

Just wondering if anyone else out there has the feeling that we'll be getting some more packs of figures that come with the pods?  Though I've not seen one up close yet, I can't imagine them tooling something like that to only release in the one package. 

I can at least see a (bad) rehash that has Mas Amedda, Palpatine (disfigured) and perhaps a new Padme and a slightly modified Bail.  Boredom at the Senate or something like that. 

Any other ideas?

Time to start a new thread for 2006 or change the title back.

What's wrong with athletes these days?  I want a raise even though I suck.  And I like Culpepper, but someone ought to point out to him that the time to ask for a raise is when you exceed expectations, not fail to meet them.