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Journal Archives from February 2009
 
Toy Fair - Shocker Toys

Our friends from Shocker Toys were back again this year, and were very proud to display the final carded pieces from wave 1 of their Indy Spotlight line! The figures looked really good, and they are continuing to push ahead with wave 2. Click the image for a full look at their booth.



Posted by charlie on February 28th 2009, 02:19 PM
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Toy Fair - Diamond Select

Diamond Select always has a tremendous amount of awesome stuff in their booth, most of which is aggregated from the top tier and small batch producers in the toy industry. They also always have some excellent shop exclusives, and among it all we were totally smitten with the new DeLorean model, the Flux Capacitor replica, the return of Mego, and the super pricy and beautiful Star Trek Captain's Chair! As was par for the 2009 show we took a ton of pictures, so the booth has been broken into part 1 and part 2. Click the image below or either of those links to check out all of the great products that they were featuring this year!



Posted by charlie on February 27th 2009, 12:06 AM
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Toy Fair - Toy2R

In our ongoing quest to bring you not only the Toy Fair sights and coverage from the large producers like Hasbro and Mattel, but also plenty of the small interesting shops, we now turn our attention to Toy2R! This was one of those booths that was just bursting with cool product - everywhere you looked was stylish innovation, bright colors, new designs and the sort of creativity you long to see. These guys have been involved with the Urban Vinyl scene before it was a scene, so you might call them the founder of the feast! It was excellent to meet them this year, and we totally dug their stuff. Click the image for a gallery bursting with awesome.



Posted by charlie on February 26th 2009, 01:24 AM
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Toy Fair - Underground Toys

We paid a visit to Underground Toys on the first day of the show to see what is new in the land of Doctor Who. For several years now this company has been importing some super-sweet figures from the UK that correspond with the ongoing new Doctor Who show. This year in the UK the show is taking a bit of a break as they transition from teen heartthrob David Tennant to a new bloke - relative new comer Matt Smith. Well, there is still time for a few more 10th Doctor figures, and Underground will be sure to bring them to us, along with full sets of companions past, as well as more enemies than you can shake a sonic screwdriver at. Oh, and be sure not to miss this little extra part of their booth, where I saw one of them hang their coat - yes, it's the very best coat closet ever! And no, it's not for sale apparently - I asked! Click the image for the full gallery.



Posted by charlie on February 25th 2009, 10:43 PM
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G.I. Joe Q&A - Deadline Monday, March 2nd at Noon

Ok folks, it's hot on the heels of the Transformers Q&A, but now we have under a week to get the top three questions together for the very first G.I. Joe brand Q&A for 2009! Submit your best thoughts for the team behind the Joe line, I'll gather up the top three and send them to Hasbro before Noon next monday.
Posted by charlie on February 25th 2009, 12:36 PM
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Toy Fair - DC Direct

The DC Direct booth was an off-shoot of the Diamond Select display, which was itself massive. They had the typical huge number of new figures and goods on display, so proceed to wade through it all! It is split into two galleries for moderately more sane browsing. They had a number of great Watchmen related items on display, and probably the most hardcore one is pictured below - clicking it will take you to the 2nd gallery and don't forget about the 1st gallery. This is the last company for today, but we've got some more coming at you tomorrow - be ready!


Remember, to make sense of all of this coverage and to even keep some vague chronological track of the order in which we got to experience all of this stuff, go to the main Toy Fair 2009 homepage, and browse with structure!
Posted by charlie on February 24th 2009, 09:20 PM
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Toy Fair - Neca

Neca continued to develop the great brands that we have been watching from them all year, and they did not disappoint with new TMNT figures, and especially some additional Ahnold entries. I think that the Terminator sculpts that they had on display are the best likenesses that I have ever seen, and really hope that they survive the scale down to the size which will be for sale. We managed to be a little trigger-happy in their booth, so have split the gallery in twain for ease of interneting. Click the fantastic T-800 below to check out gallery #1, then don't forget gallery #2 for some Gears of War, Street Fighter, and a little action shot with The Uncle!



Posted by charlie on February 24th 2009, 09:07 PM
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Toy Fair - Lego: Power Miners

Brand new for Lego in 2009 is their new line called Power Miners. There is a great plot that goes along with it featuring mysterious crystalline monsters who have tunneled from beneath the planet's surface to Lego world! There are five types of the monsters - each with their own strengths and weaknesses. We absolutely love the color scheme and the action features on these sets, and hope that they have great sales with it this year!


That wraps up the Lego breakfast tour coverage. Be sure to check out the home gallery for Lego at Toy Fair 2009 where you can delve into galleries of any of the 15 lines that they had on display!
Posted by charlie on February 24th 2009, 09:01 PM
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Toy Fair - Lego: Star Wars

This year was an important milestone for Lego, in that it is their 10th anniversary of having produced Star Wars sets! Now a cornerstone of their lineup, they began releasing such excellent sets as the classic X-Wing in 1999 to coincide with the theatrical release of The Phantom Menace. They gave all of us who attended the tour a wonderful silver-chromed Darth Vader Lego figure to commemorate the anniversary and the event, and their Star Wars set for 2009 looks great as well! Click the image below for the full, uncut, 130 image gallery of their SW line, and see what's coming soon!



Posted by charlie on February 24th 2009, 08:55 PM
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Toy Fair - Lego: Pirates

We were very excited several months ago when Lego Pirates sets started hitting store shelves! This line was, at least if memory serves, a core and awesome part of their entire brand from 1989 - 1997, and I remember having many a nautical battle. The shape and heft of the ship's cannon were particularly memorable, and the detail was always superb. Seeing them on the shelves again was wonderful, and seeing them all together and assembled in their Toy Fair booth was a great thrill as well. Unfortunately only the sets for January, so the ones that are already released, were shown. Hopefully there are more pirates in development deep within Lego headquarters, but at the very least I'm glad that we got these several fantastic sets!



Posted by charlie on February 24th 2009, 01:54 PM
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Toy Fair - Lego: Indiana Jones

Ok Preserve readers, we have a ton of updates today, so let's get started! Finally we're going to finish up the Lego Breakfast set of galleries, and we'll start out with what were the absolute highlight of the show for me, the brand new Lego Indiana Jones sets for 2009! We showed a few sneak peaks of these sets the very day we saw them, so you could all be up to speed, but now you can wade through the 86 pictures we have of their Indy display, and the great action features some of the sets are sporting. Above all else, these belong in a museum! ...or at least the Preserve.



Posted by charlie on February 24th 2009, 11:39 AM
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Toy Fair - Giant Microbes

Widely known, popular, collectible, iconic, and still friendly and fun - it's always great to stop by the Giant Microbes booth. They had five new characters with them for the show and for 2009 so far: Cavity, e. coli, c. Diff, West Nile and Anthrax. As usual they all looked great, and I can't get over the fantastic Egyptian styling of the Nile eyes. They also continue to have great success with their mega-micros, the up-sized figures that are great on the couch, as a pillow, on a camping trip, as a wedding gift, the list goes on and on! Click miss West Nile below to see their full gallery!



Posted by charlie on February 24th 2009, 12:08 AM
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Toy Fair - Lego: Creator

Lego's versatile and fun Creator line is still going strong as well, with two full display areas set up in their booth. We got a look at the pieces that are already in stores as of January 2009, like the Street Speeder and Race Rider - all very dynamic sets. The configurations we can expect for August were really great, though, including a 'Firey Legend' dragon, and a spectacular Car Transporter which for some reason makes me think of a repainted hybrid of GoBot Stacks and Tf Magnus - no real reason why, guess it's just that kind of day. Click the image below for the full Creator gallery!



Posted by charlie on February 23rd 2009, 01:43 PM
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Toy Fair - Lego: City

With three full sections of their booth devoted to Lego City, it was clear that the classic Lego line is still going strong, matched only by the Star Wars and Bionicle product displays. There were tons of great new sets on display, full of construction vehicles, repair bays and the perennial Preserve favorite, the 2009 Advent Calendar! Click the image below to see the whole giant gallery!



Posted by charlie on February 23rd 2009, 10:07 AM
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Transformers Q&A - Questions Due Monday!

Ok Preserve readers, I know it's really short notice but what with New York Comic Con and Toy Fair giving us the ol' one-two, the last several weeks have been a blur. Now, checking the Q&A calendar, I see that the questions for the first Transformers brand session for 2009 are due this Monday, February 23rd!

We can only submit 3 questions now since there is so much interest in the brand and 2009 will be such a big year, so I'll have to really narrow it down. Be sure to send in your questions asap so I have time to get the list together and send it to Hasbro!
Posted by charlie on February 22nd 2009, 12:15 AM
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Toy Fair - Jun Planning

Jun Planning was a late registration at the show, so they were somewhat in hiding, not appearing in the main or supplementary books, but we were still able to track them down! Tucked away in the back of the vast lower story showroom, they had brought with them an assortment of new additions to their popular Pullip doll line as well as some Nightmare Before Christmas figures, characters from the new movie Up, the ever-popular Gremlins and Mogwai and even some goblins from Labyrinth! Sadly the goblins were off limits to the camera, but we hope to see them in a press release soon. Click the image for the full gallery of their booth.



Posted by charlie on February 22nd 2009, 12:05 AM
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Toy Fair - Lego: Space Police

Lego is keeping their hat in the space toys ring with their great Space Police line for 2009. They did not show off any new entries in the Mars Mission line, as it's finished for now, but the new Space Police sets were looking great! First appearing as part of their Space line-up in 1989, then again in 1992, it is great to see this classic series coming back for another round! Expect these sets to hit in August, along with most of the other new products that were on display. Click the image to see the full Space Police gallery and live the vintage revival!



Posted by charlie on February 21st 2009, 04:26 PM
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Press Release - New Ghostbusters Screenshots from Atari
Ghostbusters: The Vidoo Game from Atari
Press Release - This just in from Atari, we have several new screen shots from the upcoming Ghostbusters game that everyone is hotly anticipating! You'll notice that Winston isn't in any of the pics, but I re-confirmed with our press contact that he will be in the game, and is voiced by Ernie Hudson himself! Also it's great to see a shot of Janine, who will be voiced by Annie Potts - well done! Click the link to see the rest of the screens, and get the game on June 16th, 2009!.  Read More
Posted by charlie on February 20th 2009, 11:43 AM
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Toy Fair - Mezco Toys and their Jason Exclusive

As everyone knows, the American economy is in the pits these days. Sadly the effects of that were clearly visible at Toy Fair, with booth sizes scaled back from the incredible to just the reasonable, and the 'give aways' either drastically reduced in awesomeness or completely non-existant. A company who bucked this stingy trend in grand fashion was our good pal Mezco Toyz, with a Jason figure from their brand new 3 3/4" scale series set to release this fall! Single carded specially for Toy Fair, with a sticker to prove it, Jason is looking fantastic in his new scale. You can even remove his mask! Though we'll probably wait until the fall and buy a mass-release one to check that out, because the exclusive set is just too pretty to bust open! Click the link below to see more images of this great give away, and big thanks go to Mezco Toyz for figuring out how to keep the fun alive in these troubled times.



Posted by charlie on February 20th 2009, 01:34 AM
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Toy Fair - Lego: Castle

Friend of the Preserve pkdan reported to us today that his two kids have just reached the magical age where they can both safely play with Lego sets. Being a tremendous fan of the brand, and the magic that goes with it, he is ecstatic that this year he can share Lego's many innovative sets with his kids! He was particularly excited to see what the Castle line had in store for 2009, so here is a gallery of what you can expect on store shelves from the days of knights and orcs! Click the pic for more images.


Also, a big thank you goes out to Rudger, who secured for us the elusive wave 11 G.I. Joe Modern era set! It figures that the character we were the most excited about, the M.A.S.K. homage 'Specialist Trakker' would be one we never found ourselves in the wild! Well, since Hasbro made it pretty clear in their Toy Fair presentation that they are not pursuing in any meaningful way the classic lines in either Joe or Transformers, the end is in sight and getting the missing pieces becomes even more immediate and attractive a goal. Now the basic figure line at the Preserve is finally complete!
Posted by charlie on February 19th 2009, 09:09 PM
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Toy Fair - Lego: Bionicle

The Lego coverage continues, now with a large gallery of the fantastic new additions to the Bionicle line that Lego has planned for 2009. Their new 'Glatorian' sub-line looks to be very well articulated and bristling with weapons. Annotations for the pics are coming soon, but you can browse away by clicking the image below.



Posted by charlie on February 18th 2009, 09:53 PM
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Toy Fair - Lego: Agents 2.0

Ok Preserve readers, we've finally gotten a semblance of internet back, and are resuming work on the many fantastic galleries that we gathered up from Toy Fair! Going in rough chronological order, we're making our way through the Lego breakfast we had on Sunday morning, and have gotten the gallery of their Agents 2.0 line posted. Check it out!



Posted by charlie on February 18th 2009, 06:00 PM
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Toy Fair - Content Note and Teaser Pics

We've visited with a number of fantastic companies for which galleries do not yet exist on the Preserve. NECA, Mezco Toyz, Brickadoo, Deglingos, Organic, JooJoo and many more are just waiting to have their great new products displayed, but we have to get all the technology in place first! The pics are coming...maybe everyone should email The Uncle about his internet connection! In the meantime, here are a few of our latest show photos, direct from the Press Room!

We stopped by the Deglingos booth again this year to see what was new with these great looking plush figures. Their unique european look and 50 different fabrics which are used in their construction really make them stand out of the crowd. New this year at their booth is the line 'Super Zeros', which are action figures that have a super power, but also a weakness, to make them more down to earth. Those Super Zeroes are slated to receive wider distribution in Hallmark stores and other gift shops, while the deglingos will remain a specialty and boutique item.


We also stopped by Brickadoo to see what they had new for 2009. They have a new 'Build Your Own Vincent van Gogh House' set which is very cool. Taken from one of his many famous paintings, the set has already been receiving critical acclaim. It's great to see Brickadoo doing so well! More images of their booth are on the way of course (as is the case with all of these teaser pics).


Dark Horse has their Bruce Campbell figure on display, but unlike the unpainted prototype we saw last week at New York Comic Con, they have it looking almost ready to go! It even comes with a mini-accessory of his autobiography.


Lastly for right now, we of course stopped to see our friends at Tonner. It was great to see the DC Stars figures again, and I am dying to get a Hawk Girl - the wings are amazing! New on display was Wonder Woman, who looks fantastic, but also new was Miss Piggy!


She will have a variety of outfits, and they are all great - Tonner hit another one out of the park. They were disappointed that the Doctor Who and Torchwood figures still hadn't been approved by the BBC and various licensing entities so were unable to be displayed, but hopefully they will be any day now. When that happens, we'll post the release!
Posted by charlie on February 17th 2009, 12:25 PM
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Masters of the Universe Classics - Stratos is Available

Head's up MOTUC fans, Mattel has posted their brand new Stratos figure for sale on their site! Head on over to mattycollector.com to snag the next figure in this blazing hot line - he might sell out even faster than Skeletor's 12 day record!


Posted by charlie on February 17th 2009, 12:14 PM
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Toy Fair - Latest Galleries

We have just finished our galleries for Beantown, Onell Design, Sunny Puppets, Teddy Scares and Foodchain Friends! Oh, also Transformers Movie part 1 and part 2. Check them out!
Posted by charlie on February 16th 2009, 09:39 AM
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Toy Fair 2009 - Basic Fun: Madballs

The good people at Basic Fun Inc. have brought us a new series of Madballs for the show. Series 3 includes 6 basic and 3 'sick' pieces, and they are as hardcore as ever! Click the image below to see a gallery of all of the Madballs in their glory.



Posted by charlie on February 16th 2009, 08:21 AM
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Hasbro - Marvel and Star Wars Galleries

We have new galleries from our Hasbro tour on Saturday, this time from their Marvel and Star Wars lines. Since we took so many pics, you can check out Marvel part 1 and Marvel part 2, as well as Star Wars part 1 and Star Wars part 2 by following those links. Enjoy!
Posted by charlie on February 16th 2009, 01:03 AM
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Lego Tour - Amazing New Indy Sets!

We have just returned from breakfast with Lego at 7am this morning, and their 2009 line looks spectacular! Of particular interest to the Preserve, and I imagine to our readers, is that they are continuing the Indiana Jones line into 2009 and the sets are stunning. They have, wisely, all but dropped the Crystal Skull sets like a bad habit, and are going to release some amazing sets from the proper 3 movies in the franchise. Let's take a quick look at what you can look forward to, starting with the Ambush in Cairo set:


Certainly the most basic of the new sets, but you get Marion with the frying pan, and Ford with digestive trouble shooting the swordsman, perfect! Next we'll take a look at their one Crystal Skull set, Chauchilla Cemetery Battle, which still looks great...better than the movie!


Now for two sets with fantastic new Action Features! My soul is prepared for the Venice Canal Chase - how's yours?


With a push of a button, the enemy boat splits in half! It really goes a distance on a table - pics will be in the full gallery! Next is the plane chase from Last Crusade, where Dr. Jones does his best with the tail gun, but ends up causing more harm than good! Well, at least they took out one of the German planes when he foolishly followed them into a tunnel, and in this set the wings of the German plane fly off with the push of a button!


Now for the last set, and what a treat. It's huge, it's detailed, it's from Temple of Doom, it's the Mine Car Chase! Lego has succeeded where Hasbro refused to tread, and we are all thankful for it!


More pics of the Indy products, and the entire 2009 Lego line, will be in a series of galleries posted this evening. For now it's back to the show!
Posted by charlie on February 15th 2009, 07:37 AM
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Hasbro - G.I. Joe Movie Toy Galleries

Ok folks, we've gotten the first batch of our Hasbro tour images uploaded, basically the set pertaining to the G.I. Joe room. They only showed off Movie related toys in this room, and it sounds as if other than those two online exclusive 7-packs the 'classics' line will be paused for 2009. Also, we haven't heard much about Resolute after those 2 comic packs and 3 figures in wave 13, but they assured us that things are 'on track' and they are 'working on it' and 'very excited'.

Anyway, check out the Joe galleries - we've split it into two parts so that you weren't loading 144 thumbnails at once! Click for Gallery 1 or Gallery 2.
Posted by charlie on February 14th 2009, 10:10 PM
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Hasbro - New Classic G.I. Joe Figures

OK, the official images are proving to be helpful, as Hasbro didn't have anything on display for either their Transformers or G.I. Joe brands which were not from the movies this summer. Behold, then, two new online-only 7-packs full of some great characters!


Dr. Mindbender, Zap, Chuckles - awesome!
Posted by charlie on February 14th 2009, 03:17 PM
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Hasbro - Transformers Movie Toys - Devestator

Of course, Transformers fans will be thrilled to finally get a first look at the giant gestalt that Hasbro has managed to deliver with this new batch of toys for the new movie. Devastator is definitely big in person, though he's no Fortress Maximus - the colors and detail are there, and the construction vehicles of which he is made are certainly very well done on their own merits.


Here's a little detail of the face - I'm still angry with the whole 'make the face crazy' thing that Bay seems to love, though it does seem they have pulled back from that just a tad in the new movie.



Posted by charlie on February 14th 2009, 03:09 PM
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Hasbro - G.I. Joe Movie Toys - Night Raven

Also on display was the Night Raven that everyone is very excited about. It will have a handle for cocking and firing projectiles in their "lock and load" feature, but the handle will hide so the jet displays well too.


We can also take a look at the packaging - it has a matte finish because that's still the prototype but it is great to see the fully painted art instead of a clear window.


One of the big disappointments was direct from the mouth of the brand manager, that they will not be making Snake Fries. This was another figure that was 'leaked' from the catalog pic that circled the internet last week, and was hands down the best Mr. Potato Head tie in name to date. A real bummer that they won't be releasing it anymore - and confusing as well.

Overall I got the feeling that they were holding back a lot of announcements so that they have big reveals remaining for San Diego. I guess it's the case that the movie isn't until later in the year, though it's a shame that Toy Fair is clearly no longer the end-all beat-all of announcements, and that they gave us really a very small look at the product lines overall. Well, we have lots more images to wade through, as well as their official memory stick, so back to it!
Posted by charlie on February 14th 2009, 03:01 PM
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Hasbro - G.I. Joe Movie Toys - The Pit

Ok Preserve readers, it's high time that we started our Toy Fair coverage with the 500 images we just shot on the Hasbro Tour! While we're still working on the galleries, I wanted to bring you a few choice shots asap - you probably saw the sneaked image in the catalog around the net last week, but here is the first look at the Pit!


Let's take a look at it all opened up as well:


Even more awesome, the Pit comes with a ping-pong table!



Posted by charlie on February 14th 2009, 02:49 PM
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Time for Toy Fair!

Great Scott Preserve readers! Can you believe that it is time for Toy Fair already!? Well, I know I sure can't - these two events were waaay too close together this year, and it will be a relief with the NYCC is in the fall in 2010. At this very moment I'm on the way to Manhattan, and at 12:30 on Saturday I will be meeting with Hasbro to get the first looks at their 2009 plans for G.I. Joe, Transformers, Star Wars and anything else they have up their sleeves!

While you're waiting for all of that pictographic goodness, check out the slowly growing NYCC Coverage - we've just posted images from the mattyCollector.com panel, the general Mattel panel, a large gallery of DC Direct figures, and some general pics from Friday. The panel pics are, admittedly, sort of far away and un-annotated, but Matty has posted the actual PDF slides to his Facebook page. When the time allows, we'll go back and augment those galleries with the actual images - which will be a big improvement!
Posted by charlie on February 13th 2009, 10:24 AM
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New York Comic Con - Mattel's Masters of the Universe Classics

We've been raving about Mattel's new Masters of the Universe Classics line, so let's take a look at the fantastic new figures that were revealed over the weekend! Click here for the full gallery, or click the images below for larger views. Their new Hordak is a sight to behold, and will definitely be a fan favorite.


Perhaps even more awesome still than Hordak is Man-At-Arms, complete with some great weapons that snap into his backpack, and two heads - with and without amazing-stache! That fact alone should make him go down in toy history.


We also have a great looking Tri-clops, who has detail that is 'worth examining very closely' they told us at the panel. I tried to get a few close up shots, so have a look for yourself.


Lastly they put out a prototype Teela, and she looks great! She should be coming out later in the year, and I bet we will see a painted version of her at Toy Fair this weekend!



Posted by charlie on February 12th 2009, 08:56 AM
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New York Comic Con - Esc-Toy Ltd.

At these big shows, we always find an equal if not greater enjoyment from tracking down the small rather than large manufacturers and seeing what they have to offer. The products are often innovative, striking, fun and clearly filled with a lot of heart. That sort of personal touch becomes harder and harder to sustain when you have to crank out 100,000 units to meet quotas and keep the lights on in several offices, warehouses, and the homes of your many employees! Well, we were delighted to have a few minutes to spend at the booth of Esc-Toy Ltd. which is a small company, based in New York City, specializing in artisan small batch figures and sculptures. Owned and operated by Erick Scarecrow, who also created many of the pieces in our gallery, they assist artists in bringing their vision to the marketplace. Click here for our full gallery of 63 images, and click the images below for larger versions.


I really like how these products showed up in these images. Too often the pop and color of a great toy doesn't fully make the transition to a 2D capture on an unforgiving computer screen, but in this case, the products still clearly show off their great detail, rich colors and excellent poses. Remember to check out the full gallery for more.



Posted by charlie on February 11th 2009, 08:07 AM
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Mezco Donates Jason to Museum of the Movie Image
Mezco Toyz
Press Release - Mezco Toyz brings us news today that they have donated their new Friday the 13th Jason figures to the Museum of the Moving Image. Click the link to read more about this honor and see how Mezco is further going down in toy history!  Read More
Posted by charlie on February 10th 2009, 09:12 PM
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New York Comic Con - Playmates

We're really hitting a wave of 25 anniversary celebrations this year, which only goes to further my constant comments that 1984 was the greatest year! Well, Playmates is doing a great job with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Anniversary celebration, releasing a line of vintage figures, made from original molds on vintage cardbacks! You can find the four turtles in stores now, and hopefully April, Splinter and the Foot Clan will be available soon! Check out the display that they brought with them to the New York Comic Con - click here for a full gallery of their products, and click the images below for larger views!


After we got the basic Turtles in the original line back in the '80s, we certainly got a whole busket of crazy figures in later waves. It's good to see that they are keeping the theme alive, with DJ Don, electric steel drum Mikey and Kirk Thatcher Raph! I'm sure we can expect a bunch of wild variations on the Turtles, not to mention a collection of crazy Shredder figures and improbably talented and equipped Foot Soldiers!


They also had a Turtles in Time arcade machine in their booth - Cowabunga!



Posted by charlie on February 9th 2009, 07:40 PM
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New York Comic Con 2009 Wrap-up: Uglydoll and Tonner

Alright Preserve readers, I apologize for the service interruption and the delay in getting more than some Ghostbusters pics to you this entire weekend! We're pawing our way through the 1000 pictures we shot over the show, and will start getting you up to speed starting now!

The Uglydoll booth was bright and fun as always, and on the strength of the success of the Sleepy Time Ice Bat from San Diego Comic Con, they came to NYCC with another show exclusive. While the Ice Bat exclusive was only made in a run of 100 pieces, they upped both the quantity of this new figure to 300 to try to better meet demand. It still looked like they were selling well, and by the time Saturday night rolled around only a handful remained. Hopefully they met their numbers, and we'll be able to see future exclusives at the upcoming shows!


Tonner was out in force at the show, with a number of new figures! They had new Black Canary, Green Lantern and prototype Catwoman and Hawk Girl figures that all looked great. The wings on Hawkgirl were really amazing - click this image to be taken to the gallery page for their excellent booth.


Of further interest is that their new Doctor Who and Torchwood figures are just about ready to be revealed, pending only final approval from BBC type entities. With any luck, they'll be able to show them off next week at Toy Fair!
Posted by charlie on February 8th 2009, 05:21 PM
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New York Comic Con day 2

I'm very sorry for the late post Preserve readers - due to circumstances well within my control, I was wandering the streets of Times Square Manhattan with a few too many in me, both consisting of grappa and seafood linguine! We'll get some images posted soon, but suffice to say that the panel of Captain Action and Outer Space Men was the real highlight of the day! More information on these two companies is to come, so sit tight!
Posted by charlie on February 7th 2009, 11:15 PM
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New York Comic Con Begins!

Today marks the start of the New York Comic Con in Manhattan! We were on the scene to see what toy manufacturers were on hand with their latest offerings, and Mattel was the real star of the show!


A larger than life Faker figure from the Masters of the Universe line was front and center greeting all of the visitors to the show, and serving as a great landmark for meeting up with party members. We got pictures of the brand new Prototype Ghostbusters figures from Mattel and they look great! Click on the image below to be taken to the Ghostbusters gallery - we'll get some more pics tomorrow with better detail.


Ok, that's all the coverage we can muster tonight, it was a great evening in Manhattan fulled with homemade chili and a viewing of Thinner - that's hard to beat!
Posted by charlie on February 6th 2009, 09:11 PM
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Transformers Universe - Robot Heroes: Blaster vs. Thrust

Cover your receptors Perceptor! Our unabashed love for the Robot Heroes line continues into the Transformers Universe series, and today we wanted to feature the great Blaster vs. Thrust 2-pack!


You'll notice, throughout the Preserve, that I refuse to refer to a figure as, in this case, 'Autobot Blaster' as the name appears on the package. These are more cases of Hasbro being unable to trademark a name such as 'Blaster' so they have to add a little something to it. Well, that is fine and good I suppose, but I don't think that we all need to call (for example) Ratchet by 'Autobot Ratchet' for the rest of eternity, while most other Autobots are just called by their name. Anyway, just figured that was worth some clarification!

As for this set, it's another two great likenesses in a small scale - you can almost hear Blaster defending Autobot City from his DJ tower in the sky. Pretty soon Hasbro will show us what I assume to be a truly insane number of additions to this line that we can expect in 2009. All that is coming to you soon from Toy Fair, in less than 2 weeks!
Posted by charlie on February 5th 2009, 11:30 AM
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Mattel Announces Ghostbusters Line

It is being reported on a number of sites around the net, but we can't resist posting what is the coolest news of many moons from a Preserve-centric standpoint. According to Poe Ghostal, Mattel has revealed their super secret line to be none other than the Preserve fixation franchise of Ghostbusters! The Mattel press release will no doubt do a better job of explaining their intentions than will we:

Sony Pictures Consumer Products and Mattel, Inc. announced today the development of a new collectible line of toys based on the world’s favorite poltergeist fighting team, the Ghostbusters, including an extensive cast of ghosts and ghostbusters – celebrating the 25th anniversary of the frightfully funny classic film "Ghostbusters."

Mattel's "Ghostbusters" collectible line debuts with 12-inch figures in June 2009, and will be available exclusively at MattyCollector.com. Each figure will feature window box packaging and include authentic Ghostbuster equipment unique to each character. For the first time, Mattel's line will include talent likeness of Egon Spengler, Ray Stantz, Peter Venkman and Winston Zeddemore. Select prototype figures will be on display February 6-8 at New York Comic Con ...


For the full release head on over to Poe Ghostal, a quality site! Anyone who has a Vectrex-inspired rendition of Soaron Sky Sentry next to their comment box is a-ok in our book! So, get excited for this new line of 12" and 6" Ghostbusters, with actual likenesses, sculpted by the 4 Horsemen! We will hope to have those prototype shots to you this Friday!

Since I like trying to reuse my old pictures, here's the Ghostbusters: The Video Game marquee from SDCC - seemed topical. Thank goodness that game is back on track - thank you Atari!



Posted by charlie on February 4th 2009, 05:57 PM
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Chicago and New York Comic Con Details

With the New York Comic Con only a few amazingly short days away, the company behind the event has released some interesting news. They will be launching another pop-culture con in 2010 to be based in Chicago, the Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo to be precise. Also of note is they they will be moving future New York Comic Con events to the fall, making it the tail end of the convention season.

The rescheduling of NYCC seems like an excellent idea, particularly in light of the relative disaster that this year will be for topics near and dear to the heart of the Preserve. In particular, by shifting the date of this year's event to February 6th, they have put it exactly 1 week before Toy Fair - inarguably the key event of the entire year for the toy industry. As a result, toy companies are unwilling to reveal any new products at NYCC, needing to save the big news for the industry event. There is also a logistical nightmare of doing a full set up and tear down of a complicated exhibition booth on adjacent weekends.

A friend of the Preserve who is himself neck deep in the toy industry predicted nearly a year ago that basically no toy companies would bother with NYCC in 2009 due to this scheduling problem. Now that the exhibitor roster has been posted, he has been shown to be correct! The big surprise is that Mattel is doing a real push at the show, complete with a show exclusive, which is however just an early-release of Faker in the Masters of the Universe Classics line. Other than Mattel and several smaller companies, the roster of usual suspects is all but empty. Our friend explained the real costs involved to a small company if they had to stay in New York between the events, which is the only reasonable solution given setup and breakdown needed and the small gap between them.
  • 3 extra hotel nights/ 1 room (minimum) $600
  • Parking (1 vehicle) $120
  • Food (2 people) $120
  • Storage $120
Those numbers are on the low side, with storage in the city for anything substantial being scarce and sky high, not to mention the rapid spike of adding another car or hotel room. It becomes clear that for a small company, attending both shows this closely together is too expensive (at least $1000 extra) and too logistically complex. Hopefully now that the event will have a permanent home in the fall, we'll see a benefit for both exhibitors and attendees alike!
Posted by charlie on February 3rd 2009, 08:12 AM
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Transformers - Revenge of the Fallen Comic Prequel

Ok, so I'm a little behind on my comic reading, and by 'a little' I mean at least a few months out, but last night I finally got around to issue #1 of the new Transformers 2009 movie prequel comic. IDW has gone a bit out of their way to make this run confusing - the overall title of the comic run is "Transformers: The Revenge of the Fallen Movie Prequel: Destiny" which is broken into two 4-issue halves of 'Alliance' and 'Definance'. I started with Alliance #1, as should you.

While I have sadly already biased myself against the new film based on my low opinion of the 2007 effort, I have to admit they certainly pushed all my G1 buttons in this prequel issue! Granted the ability to ignore most movie-relevant plot points helped with the enjoyment, but a few panels in particular made this issue solid gold. It's definitely worth picking up and playing the 'how many references can I catch' game, and I have to really give a tip of the Preserve hat to writer Chris Mowry and artist Alex Milne for the beautiful job they did unveiling Prime's new holographic driver. You'll know it when you see it provided you're a big enough Tf nerd (big thanks to tfwiki.net for having the image available!). If that carries over to the movie, I will be so happy, and it may just be awesome enough to save the rest of the movie from the jaws of dislike!
Posted by charlie on February 2nd 2009, 05:54 PM
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G.I. Joe - Hall of Heroes

This just in, thanks to a hot tip from Rudger: The 2009 Hall of Heroes figures have been posted for pre-sale at hasbrotoyshop.com! Resulting from the fan voting in April of 2008, this set collects the top 10 characters from the 25th Anniversary line. Much like the He-Man commemorative figures that Mattel put out around the turn of the century, each of the HoH figures has the card encased in another protective display box. They look great, cost $9.99, and if you have an extra $100 lying around go order the set!



Posted by charlie on February 2nd 2009, 08:15 AM
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G.I. Joe Modern Era - Ripper

"It ain't true that I hates everything. That's a load o' rubbish. I likes grape soda and chocolate-covered donuts, don't I?"

I can add nothing to that which makes it any more awesome. Enjoy the Dreadnok, Ripper.



Posted by charlie on February 2nd 2009, 01:05 AM
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Transformers Universe Deluxe wave 5

The latest wave of Transformers Universe Deluxe figures is turning up all over now, though the thrill of finding our set in the wild a few weeks ago never gets old! This set features Smokescreen of G1 fame and Dinobot who harkens from the Beast Wars era. Full galleries and bios for these two figures are coming soon, but here's a sunny picture of the pair in case you aren't tired of seeing them on store shelves quite yet!



Posted by charlie on February 1st 2009, 12:02 AM
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