Everyone will remember where they were the day The Full Force dropped a six hour marathon podcast on unsuspecting toy fans everywhere. Stuffed to the gills with MASK intel back to front, this fantastic podcast features interviews with Brandon Easton (writer of IDW’s MASK comic), Doug Stone (the voice actor behind the MASK of Matt Trakker) and a metric ton of other MASK content (as well as the latest G.I. Joe news from yours truly).
In all seriousness, this is a great episode with lots of excellent toy insight and it’s one you do NOT want to miss. Check it out on Podbean or embedded below, and make sure you’re hitting up The Full Force on Facebook for all of the latest news and updates!
Anyone who has watched an animated series from the 80s and 90s has likely watched something Larry Houston had a hand in. An exceedingly prolific storyboard artist, director, and all around animation legend, Houston was directly involved in much of the Sunbow product, and most famously was the storyboard director for quite possibly the greatest three minutes in animated G.I. Joe history, the opening to 1987’s G.I. Joe: The Movie.
Mike and I sat down and talked all about his work on G.I. Joe as well as other landmark animated series of the time and he was a fantastic interview.
The Hasbro Pulse website has posted a pretty awesome behind the scenes talk with G.I. Joe product designer Bobby Vala, which explores some of the thought and work that went into the ComicCon exclusive Missile Command Center! This is some great insight and has some awesome pictures showing some of the different steps Vala took to get to the awesome finished product so many Joe fans were grateful to finally receive after decades of lusting after the original online.
Check out the Hasbro Pulse article right here and huge props to Hasbro, our buddy Fred from JoeBattleLines and Bobby Vala for sharing some of the trade secrets with us. Great stuff!
Boss Fight Studio is surprising us all with an unexpected launch of their Boss Fight webstore exclusive Cerisier a Sakura Elvish Assassin! This figure was first revealed at New Jersey Collectors Convention, but it was unknown what assortment she might appear in.
Surprise! You can buy her TONIGHT AT MIDNIGHT for immediate shipping from BossFightShop.com.
New Vitruvian HACKS automatically makes the world feel like a better place.
Speaking of new Vitruvian HACKS, Boss Fight also reports that their Accessory Mini-Kits are in stock and will start shipping tomorrow. Ain’t life great?
“Guardians of the elven queen, members of this elite corps of archers bathe daily in dark ink, to maintain the gray color of their skin. Taking their orders directly from Queen Solan, they are her protectors and personal assassins. As a part of their duties to the queen, they take on an oath of silence. Their voices are removed permanently and irreversibly, using a magical spell. Their eyes have been altered so that they can see in pitch blackness. Moving undetectably and noiselessly, their natural home is in the dark. The last thing many an enemy of the Elves has felt is the cold blade of a Sakura Elf, silently draining their life away.”
And that’s a wrap. It always feels like the annual convention reviews are a sprint, with coordinating all of the images, the Photoshopping, the organizing and the page layouts, and then by the time the whirlwind week is over, there’s a feeling of some sort of satisfaction.
I have to be honest, though, I didn’t feel a whole lot of satisfaction with this one. Ultimately, most of the figures and vehicles felt underserved and overpriced, which is unfortunate.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s great that the Collectors Club is able to put together these figures for a fanbase that has no other outlet currently, but in looking back even to just 2015 the blatant and obvious degradation of quality is a shame. There were some highlights last year with Sky Patrol, several of them in fact, but this year everything felt pretty run-of-the-mill with very few exciting surprises. I felt there was a handful of serviceable figures that did the source material right, but there really was nothing that surprised, impressed, or blew me away. Perhaps I’m asking too much given the limited tooling supplies and resources available, but when the Club is asking nearly $1,000 for a set of exclusives, I gotta say, I expect more.
Anyway… the last three reviews can be viewed below:
