You were always on my mind

There are a couple of good reasons why I got this toy:



Number 1 (The altruistic reason):
This toy is the first release of Raje Toys, and I try to support, as much as my wallet can, the new people that release new ideas and awesome looking toys. I followed the creation of Dr. Brain (He's insane in the membrane - Hey, that's what the box says...), he started as a custom and was so praised that they decided to make it into a toy in its own right. And boy, did they succeed.



Number 2 (The look reason):
Since the first time I saw the teaser pictures I knew I was going to get this toy because it just looks so damn good. The sculpt of the body is really simple, very smooth and with almost no sculpted detail. The "head" and brain are a different story, the liquid in the jar is painted, which is a good choice, the brain is great, and back tanks are a nice addition to the figure as a whole. It doesn't have a lot going for articulation, but I don't really need it, just want it to stay there and look cool. And it does. There's a chase variant painted grey and red, but I really like this one better.



And finally...

Number 3 (The real reason):
It's a toy about a Brain in a jar. And I-JUST-FUCKING-LOVE-TOYS-WITH-BRAINS-IN-JARS!!!

Until next time.

A little bit of He-Story

Actually this story is quite simple...

It's a story as old as time itself. Boy meets Alien-Girl and falls in love. Boy is also heir to the throne. Prince-Boy and Alien-Girl got married. Prince-Boy is also Captain of the guard. Captain-Prince-Boy has a Brother. Brother is also Blue, making him Blue-Brother. Blue-Brother is jealous of Captain-Prince-Boy so he plots to seize control. Traitor-Blue-Brother gets an army and attacks Powerful-Castle-Filled-With-Powerful-Old-People. Traitor-Blue-Brother brings acid with him. Big Mistake. Captain-Prince-Boy defeats Traitor-Blue-Brother, burns his face and becomes King-Boy. Burnt-Traitor-Blue-Brother asks Powerful-Magic-Evil-Being to save his life. He transforms into Skeleton-Blue-Sorcerer. King-Boy and Alien-Girl have twins, but Princess-Girl is stolen by previously mentioned Powerful-Magic-Evil-Being. King-Boy decides to give half of his world to his brother, but he's kind of a douchebag and he gives him the dark creepy half, and keeps the best half with the beautiful beaches, lots of sun light and cat people to himself. Finally Skeleton-Blue-Sorcerer decides to come back and take over and Douchebag-King-Boy has to rely on his son's (Prince-Fancy-Pants) split personality to save the day.

I mean, anyone can see it coming. Right?

Well, I got one of the main players in that story sometime ago and it's time to talk about him:

This is Traitor-Blue-Brother



Keldor, brother of Randor, that is. The figure is a great piece but I'm not loving it completely. I mean, it was a cool idea to give Skeletor a human background, and to make it a treacherous brother is actually pretty poetic. The figure looks great too, but there's something that just doesn't do it for me. First, there's just no explanation to why he's blue and Randor is not. Did Randor's father had more than one spouse? Was that legal in Preternia? Is Keldor a bastard? I don't know, sometimes I wish to know... Sometimes I just want to imagine a really big bed with King Miro (or whatever Randor's father name is) in the middle and a lot of girls from all the colors of the rainbow. That sounds more like Conan than He-Man, but wouldn't it be great?

Anyway, Randor is the good guy and Keldor is the bad guy, and you know this by their choice of facial hair. If you don't know it by now, you should always remember:



Keldor was not part of the subscription so he could be easily avoided, but I battled with myself when I decided to buy the 200X Keldor, and since I lost that battle and got that figure in all his burning glory, why go through that again?

Keldor comes with two half boring Power Swords, as I said before, I'm getting sick and tired of Power Swords by now. But he also comes with the one thing the character needs. Since you will only want this character to replay that scene when his face is melted like ice cream on a pan. Hmmm, Ice cream on a pan... Wait a minute...

OK I'm back... Ice cream on a pan sucks, it's a terrible idea, don't try it at home. Where was I? Oh yeah, Keldor comes with the only accessory he needs: a vial of acid to utterly destroy his face. Ah, good Eternian times!

Fictional characters should know better by now...



Until next time.

(I was going to talk about She-Ra too, but this post got too long already and I have to work, I'll catch up to MOTUC before I review Carnivus. Guy-Pretending-To-Be-A-Scout's honor!)

Montreal Haul!

No, I did not go to Montreal, although, that would have been a good excuse to explain my lack of posting lately. sadly, there's no excuse, just a lot of work and a Freak Studio too tired to sit down and write jokes about toys.

But the amount of toys and toy pics I have now, annoys me, and since I usually put the toys in their displays after I've posted about them, I'll better start posting again before I die in toy-valanche.

To explain the title: My dad had to go to Montreal, my dad is a doctor, but he also loves art and is a quite talented artist himself. He didn't really get toy collecting, but he did understand me and I finally convinced him that art toys are a true art form that has to be aknowledge (I also gave him an Andy Warhol figurine that changed his mind a little bit).

Now we usually talk about toys and artist, so, when he went to Montreal and found a designer toy shop there, he asked for a guy I mentioned like a thousand million times: Joe Ledbetter, and he got me these:



The haul consist in two incredibly different pieces of Ledbetter's unique art. Slander snake and Toxic Swamp Dog.



The orange Toxic Swamp Dog (and the only one I'm going to have, I'm not a fan of colorways, so I just get the design in the color I like the most, since this was a present I'm keeping orange as my favorite) is made in one of Toy2r platforms and I have to admit is quite massive.

And when I say massive, I mean it:



I think this is a fun piece, but I have a bit of a problem with Joe Ledbetter doing platforms: His art is so different that he really needs a special sculpt in order to show his designs.

Toxic Swamp Dog is cute, but I don't really like it as much as the other toy my dad got me: Slander Snake.



Here you can see why Ledbetter is so special: he makes his 3D designs look like 2D. And I love that about him, first, because I think it looks great, second, because nobody does nothing quite like it.

Something similar to what happened with Toxic Swamp Dog happened here: My dad got the purple Slander, so Slanders, for me, are now officially purple.

Another great thing about this sculpt is that you can open it to reveal...



The snake's dinner. Gross... But kinda cute (my mom actually thought it was an egg...)

I'll try to get my hands into more Joe Ledbetter toys. But I'll try to find the ones with the specific sculpt before I get the others that are just painted platforms.

Until next time.

(After I explained my mom what that little ball in the snake's stomach was, she decided the figure wasn't cute anymore)

In brightest day, in exclusives cash...

There's an awesome customizer online that goes by the (also awesome) name of The God Beast. I met him through a forum. But I won't talk about his amazing work (although you should totally check it out here), I just want to thank him for hooking me up with some DC Direct exclusive figures.



Black Lantern Hal Jordan and White Lantern Sinestro (from C2E2).



I don't usually talk about packaging, since I'm an opener, unless packaging is way cool or fun (like the Wonder Twins or the new exclusive Plastic Man from Mattel) I'm not interested in it. In this case I just thought the box was clever and very well designed, with only one flaw: An exclusive toy is something you are lucky to get. You either went to the event where it was sold or found it on ebay and pay like the unworthy idiot you are or you find someone to get it for you...

My point is that if you know you are making that kind of toy, and you're going to make a nice looking book-like packaging...



MAKE IT RESEALABLE!!!!

OK, rant over. Let's go to the figures.



Hal Jordan as a Black Lantern is just a repaint from last years SDCC Hal-Jordan-in-every-color-we-can-think-of exclusives. So in the sculpting department there's not much to say. Since I don't own any of those, I'm happy with this well sculpted figure and I wanted to have one for the Black Lantern/Justice Zombies display I'm putting together. Although, next to the more detailed dead lanterns it may turn out to be a little bland.

Hal came with a Black Lantern ring, similar to the one you got with the comics. Except this one has a code the other one doesn't.



Sinestro, on the other hand, was a pleasant surprise. his crooked smile and Vincent Price mustache are great. At first I thought he was just another repaint too. But he doesn't look like Justice or Yellow Lantern Sinestro (I don't actually own these, so I may be wrong). But I guess it's a new sculpted head in a repainted body.

I like the color of the head. DCD seems to have troubles deciding if Sinestro should be pink or purple, but I think this is just fine.

Also, he's the only white lantern you are going to get (in full white lantern outfit, at least) until Geoff Johns decides he needs another car and a better TV set and writes another giant Crisis-like arc.



Until next time.

(Hey wait a second... Isn't Geoff Johns writing Brightest day? That sneaky bastard... Next you are going to tell me we are getting a Mera figure too...)

Dunny by Artist: George Gaspar

There are a few problems for Argentinean collectors that want to get in the world of art/designer toys:

1) There are very few places that carry designer lines from, lets say, Kid Robot, I can only think of one or two places and even they have very limited (and usually very old) options.
2) The blind boxes, one of the usual ways to get these toys, are not blind at all, in fact, all the stores will open the boxes and charge according to the rarity of the piece. Yeap, that sucks!
3) Since designer toys are rare, they are expensive, consider I can pay for a smorking labbit what someone in the U.S. would pay for a Masters of the Universe Classics figure (you don't even want to know what a MOTUC costs!).
4) Most stores will only get one case of figures so the possibilities of completing a set are very close to a negative number (oh, I also should warn you that I really suck at math...)

So, for these and some other reasons I never, until some time ago, owned a Dunny. But that changed when George Gaspar (of Toybreak fame) asked me if I would be interested in one of his awesome custom Skull Dunny(s) in exchange for some bootleg crap I had.

Lets see... Awesome custom in one hand... Bootleg crap in the other... I may suck at math, but even I knew the obvious answer... I said yes!



So basically, George took the Rainy London Dunny from the Ye Olde English Dunny line (designed by Triclops) and erased the rain drops, popped the head open, inserted the skull he sculpted and that's about it. It may sound simple, but with only those changes he turned this:



Into this:



Of course, the true skill of George can be seen in the skull, the sculpt is incredible, very detailed and fitting perfectly in the clear head. George is also a cool guy that left Triclops' name under the skull Dunny's foot. I agree with that, you should give credit when credit is due. But, the only mistake George made was not signing his own name in the other foot. After all, two very creative people were needed in order to help this little monster come to life.



I'm extremely happy with my first Dunny, because is freaky, and cool and I know is special. For now, until things change, If I want a Dunny I'll stick to trade or buy the great customs of the awesome people I meet online every day.

Until next time.

(Or... If I see a really cool one somewhere and I can't control myself. Along with math I was also never very good at controlling myself...)

Earth Mightiest... Bunny?

In Argentina, we call our Swap Meets, Park Sales, they are usually found on Sundays and, as the name says it, on parks. I don't go to Park Sales often because there's usually always the same stuff over and over. But sometimes you can get fun things.

Things like:



This is Hoppy the Marvel Bunny, he was Captain Marvel's pet during the make-no-sense era or something. He was released by Dc Direct in 2007 as part of the Shazam! line and is a figure I always thought to be fun, but not enough to actively search for it. But there it was, right in front of me in some guys table.

The seller also had Billy Batson (for me, he's like the accessory of this two-pack) but the paint was pretty damaged, Hoppy, on the other hand was perfect.



Image from Joe acevedo's site

The sculpt is really weird, he looks very cartoony, almost like a strange custom with a superhero type body and a Bugs Bunny head. Just another fun but not World changing figure from DCD homage to the silver age of comics and another cool addition to the Legion of Super Pets Squad! (yes, I just made that up)



Until next time.

(At least we didn't get an Uncle Marvel in the series).

The last Crusade

Hey, guys, do you remember this post?

What? You don't?

OK, it's all good... Go read it, I'll just wait here...

...

De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da, that's all I want to say...

Still reading? Man you're kinda slow... OK, I'll keep waiting...

... to you, De Do Do Do, Dee Da...

Oh, finally. OK, so you've read till the end when I mentioned Major Disaster from Toxic Crusaders right? Great, well, guess who can't control himself and it's not Bill Clinton? I'll give you three guesses.


"ME", the right answer was "ME".

You know those slow days when you start to wander on ebay just because? Well, I found this pretty nice auction for all the remaining figures I needed of the Toxic Crusaders line. Eight figures total some are awesome, some are good, all of them are really freaky.

These are the good guys:


(Yes, those are the good guys)

By now, you know Major Disaster, an eco friendly hero so much cooler than Captain Planet, and if you are among the select few that consider Toxic Avenger a work of cinematic art, then you are probably familiar with Toxie too. Lets get something out there from the beginning, you may notice that all of the figures have very noticeable paint stains, well those are not stains, it is, in fact glow in the dark paint sprayed on each figure, since this didn't follow a pattern, you can say that each figure is somewhat unique. I like that, plus it makes the figures look kinda campy, just like the movie was.



It's great to have a Toxie toy, although a bit of a caricature I just wanted one since I saw the movie for the first time (side geeky note: Marisa Tomei started her career in Toxic Avenger as one of the girls from the health club pool, true story that nobody wants to hear). Toxie's friend, and God's gift to women (check out that tongue!), is called Junkyard, it's your average mutated dog fused with a hobo thanks to the power of radioactive waste... y'know, the story of my life. Both sculpts are fun but I'd be happier if Junkyards tongue was retractable, you can store it in his mouth but the figure looks odd that way.

Since we are talking about 1990s Playmates here, all the figures came with a ton of accessories even with one that was in a plastic bag and said "SECRET GLO-IN-THE-DARK WEAPON: So radioactive, we've put it under wraps!", yes, that meant that every figure came with a GITD accessory and it was secret. I would have loved this as a kid, damn, I even love it now!

Junkyard GITD weapon was a rolled up newspaper with spikes (awesome), and Toxie's was this:



His own pet ghost, Blobbie.



The other two good guys are Nozone and Headbanger. Nozone is like one of those gimmicky characters that you might enjoy for some time, but then it gets kinda boring. Yes, he has a huge nose, and you can take his hat off and pour some slime so it will look like mucus. Funny... for, like, a minute. But the character design has some cool things, the wheel instead of his right foot is a great detail. Headbanger is the one I'm not thrilled about, he looks a bit out of scale and the sculpt in both the surfer dude and scientist is not Playmates best work. One cool thing is that one is called Fender and the other Bender... I laughed at that...



On to the villains, one thing I liked about this series is that both bad guys and good guys were monsters. And I liked monsters for as long as I can remember (that's why the Evil Warriors of Skeletor always defeated the normal He-Man and his normal boring Human Friends).



The main villain of the series was Dr. Killemoff, and I must say I respect a guy that can make the four arm / purple suit / gas mask combo work and, boy, does the good Doctor succeed. The figure came with plastic tubes to attach to the mask, but I think it looks better without them. The other figure is Radiation Ranger, this one really needed the tubes. He's the army builder of the series, the Rangers are like Killemoff Stormtroopers.



The other two are called Bonehead (lame name, cool figure) and Psycho (cool name, not so crazy about the figure). Bonehead is a punk biker that enjoys acid rain and polluting the Earth (all the line had a message about ecology that was a bit ahead of its time in 1991 but it would be really in right now... Toxic Crusaders remake anyone?). Another thing about cool about him is that all of his accessories are GITD. The sculpt is simple but effective. Psycho has something that I don't really like, but I can't put my finger on. Since the figure has great detail, as all the others, and has some cool design ideas, like the way his bionic leg continues from his knee, I'll say that what I don't like is the expression of his face.

Overall, a fun line to have and an easy one to complete (that's also fun). There they are, between Toynami's Futurama and Playmates WildC.A.T.S. on my display.



Until next time.

(Don't pollute and stay in school!)