Sunday, March 17, 2024

Friday, March 15, 2024

iMPULSE BUY: He-Man Cartoon Collection

 


I swear I should just make a Robo’s Fault display at this point for stuff that’s in my collection because I saw Robo playing with it and decided I wanted it too. From Mancakes and Beef Boss to the Fwoosh Skeleton to the Game On arcade games to these goddamned He-Man figures. As much as I sneer at influencer culture, I’m certainly being… influenced.

Or at least I’m finding out about stuff I would have wanted anyway? I’ve dabbled in He-Man stuff on and off for like three decades now - mostly “updated” versions that tried to bring some legitimacy to the property. I’ve been repeatedly tempted, for example, by MOTU Revelations toys from the latest reworking, but they’ve never quite clicked over for me. And then I saw the Cartoon Collection.

Six inch scale figures with modern, if not quite super-modern, articulation (ball joints, single elbows and knees, wrists, ankles, etc.) but proportions, looks, and accessories lifted straight out of the Filmation cartoon, full cheese factor intact. Apparently the Origins line has been doing this with the original toys forever, but the cartoon adjustments push it over the line into “Yeah, that’s the Masters toys I’ve been wanting.” And the 20 buck price point does not hurt.

I assume the price is because the toys were based around reusing bodies with just new heads and armor overl

ays, and the cartoon followed the toy designs, so they’re relatively cheap to produce. But they’re well made, the accessories are cool and plentiful, and while there’s not a lot of paint, that’s again accurate to the cartoon’s level of detail.

He-Man comes with his regular sword, a back scabbard for it, and an episode-specific bonus sword. Skeletor comes with his staff, his sword, and a couple of weird “masks” that are in fact replacement heads, again

from a specific episode. I am a sucker for deep-cut, very specific cartoon accessories even when I’ve never seen the episode they’re from, which is a weird quirk, I guess.


Man-At-Arms and Teela are similar, although at first I was worried about the scale because I opened Teela first and she is TINY. You can see that in the photo above. Plus they pose the figures weird in the packaging to make them look like the original toys, which makes them even smaller. But no, they’re just proportionally small and in the 6” scale. I’m assuming eventually the Teela body will be used for Evil-Lyn and The Sorceress. Man At Arms comes with his Stasis Ray, which he used to fight dragons, so out came my Golden Axe Dragon Mount to be stasisized. And his club (not shown).

Teela has her sword and shield and little training drone thing. Not to infantilize a hovering sphere with a gun and a kinfe, but it’s still a little training drone thing.

I did not get the whole line, becaus, because the characters I’m invested in in He-Man is a pretty small sub-set of the total. There’s a Trap-Jaw and a Beast-Man that don’t matter to me already, and a Stratos on the way I could care less about, but I think I gotta be in for Mer-Man, whose dopey-ass look perfectly captures the cartoon’s ridiculousness.

So, I guess, I have some of the power?

Also this sent me down a “create another hole in the collection I then immediately filled” rabbit hole that was slightly embarrassing in size and expense, but that’s a story for another day.



Thursday, March 14, 2024

THE ARCADE GROWS: Star Wars, Marvel Vs. Capcom 2

  


Nostalgia is weird. Sometimes you see a thing and a flood of… not memories as such, but pure, unbridled RECOGNITION floods your soul. That’s how I felt, when I idly revisited GalacticBasic’s Etsy site where I’d picked up that Mortal Kombat machine last year and I saw this. I absolutely had to have it.

Wednesday, March 13, 2024

LONG PREORDER ACHIEVED: Fwoosh Yokai Skeleton

 


November, 2022. It was a simpler time.

And hey, I get it. Indie toy companies take time to get stuff made, get stuff shipped, get stuff out. But man, when I ordered this Yokai Skeleton (Jack O Lantern Edition) from Fwoosh Toys, the guy I thought of as the face of the channel was still associated with the channel.

Tuesday, March 5, 2024

ACQUISITION AND PHOTO SHOOT: Super Action Stuff GAME ON!

 

I love the Internet. I hate the Internet.

I saw these on the main YouTube toy guy I follow (Robo, now RoboDon’tKnow, formerly Fwoosh) and I had to have them. First, they’re 1/12 scale arcade machines, which is one of my things. Second, they light up. Third, they’re chock full of a wild assortment of weird accessories for 6” figures, all of which I thought were hilarious.

No, did I need both of them? Only sort of. I mean, they come with all the same accessories, except that many of them are available in different colors. But Cyber Dagger had the colors I wanted most, and Cats With Knives 2 is CATS WITH KNIVES 2, and there were in fact some things I did want doubles of. So there you go.

I also needed an intensive project to really get the hang of my new workflow that incorporates Affinity Photo 2. So I decided to do an elaborate photo shoot of all the accessories, for a sufficiently loose value of all. Some were exact duplicates. Some didn’t quite deserve multiple photos. And so far I’ve lost three of the accessories. Because they’re tiny. But get ready, this is gonna be a long one.

Monday, March 4, 2024

NEW TOYS: The Normal-Ass Purchases of February

 

OK. So here’s the deal. February was a relatively light month for purchases but a very heavy month for photographs and Generally Being Busy. Most of that is tied to one specific purchase which requires one very long post which I’ll be working on soon, and then March stuff can start being photographed this week, but in the meantime, three just normal-ass toy purchases.