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What do Mandrake, Lothar and Phantom have to do with Flash Gordon?
 
3rik said:
What do Mandrake, Lothar and Phantom have to do with Flash Gordon?
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They were all paired together for a cartoon in the 80-90's I dont remember.
 
3rik said:
What do Mandrake, Lothar and Phantom have to do with Flash Gordon?
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Ronin said:
They were all paired together for a cartoon in the 80-90's I dont remember.
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remial said:
basically all the comic strips were owned by the same company so they decided to do an Avengers style team
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Defenders of the Earth was a team of King Feature Heroes created by King and Marvel Entertainment (with Stan Lee very in the mix). This was 85 or 86, long before Movie or Animated Avengers was going to be a thing. The point was to revitalize the characters (which had languished in obscurity for a while with trailing readership in the papers) and give them updates (With our new young heroes proving their worth, four become eight, defending the Earth.) Unlike a lot of 80s cartoons that were advertising for toys, this cartoon was advertising for the characters in other media. (Flash got his movie and eventually Phantom did too.) In all fairness, this was a great cartoon series. (And yes, Stan Lee is responsible for the lyrics and theme music... good thing he wrote comics so well...)

First Episode:
Series: https://www.youtube.com/c/ComicsKingdomOfficial

Oh and Phantom 2040 has vague ties in to the Defenders... implied not stated. (Also worth watching.)
 
TristramEvans said:
View attachment 49349
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I like those movie versions, but they look strange to me since they're pasting comic style likenesses on them instead of the actor likenesses. I also like the idea of the late 70s Filmation cartoon getting some love. I wish they'd actually done something with the figures and made them likenesses of how they appeared in that show rather than unrelated color variants of the "Original Superheroes" versions.

I probably won't pick up any of these, but they remind me that I would really like to pick this Ming up:

Ming.jpg
 
Fenris-77 said:
Wow, that animation looks sooooo 90's it hurts.
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Actually, at the time, it was trailblazing and received accolades. It was done in 86. It was way ahead of the curve.

To context, let me quote the Wikipedia article
Marvel Productions and King Features Syndicate worked together to develop the show.[5] Marvel Productions had brought in consulting company Q5 Corporation to help develop the show. Q5's consultants consist of psychology PhDs and advertising, marketing and research professionals.[6] The animation for the series were done overseas at Daewon Media and Sei Young Animation (now merged with Dong Woo Animation) and AKOM in Seoul, South Korea, and Toei Animation in Tokyo, Japan.

The animation studios were big players in the animation field for animation done for projects around the world. They set standards that others followed, but not as well.


And Gabriel, the reason why they use the cartoon likeness is all about the royalties. You don't have to pay extra to an actor whos likeness you have licensed. So sticking to the cartoon look, means just the basic royalty/ license fee is needed.
 
I guess this one goes under that standing question of who are these toys for? Collectors or kids? Or maybe, kids or adult office workers.

Star Trek TNG Movie style phasers via Nerf

phaser.jpg

So, Aliens got a fairly direct port of the Colonial Marine Pulse Rifle. Sure, it had the Nerf and Aliens logo on it and it was recolored to white and yellow, but it was still a reasonable direct representation of the original prop as these things go.

For Star Trek, they've added all this... shit onto the phaser rifle. It's supposed to be Borg cooties or something. It's kind of disappointing to me anyway.

The dustbuster phaser is a fairly straight adaptation, so that's good. But... does anyone like the dustbuster phasers?
 
Oh. I guess no one posted about this.

Tomy recently did a crowdfunding for a 3 foot long replica class die-cast toy of the TOS Enterprise. Price was pretty awesomely reasonable at about half of the old Master Replicas version from the early 00s.

They had to extend the deadline a couple of times, because for some reason people simply weren't filing in to pre-order. There was practically no promotion of the campaign. It did eventually fund.



I... didn't go for this. I couldn't tell you why. I've always kicked myself for not getting the Master Replicas Enterprise and this one looks so much better. I'm in a vastly better financial situation to throw money at it. Just for whatever reason I saw it, shrugged my shoulders, and went "meh."

I guess I'm going to hold out hope that someday someone does a Refit version like this. Although the struggle this one went through to get funded as well as Eaglemoss going bankrupt doing Trek starships casts some serious shade on that ever being a prospect. If the TOS Enterprise can't get easily funded at that price point, then it's really not worth even attempting any of the other ships as they're simply not iconic and broad appeal enough.
 
I mean, if I was a Treki, I'd be all over it, but...

I'd rather have a Gunstar myself
 
I am not a Treki or a collector either, but I've always admired the design of the Enterprise. It captures the majesty of the grand age of sails ship while still being plausibly futuristic (for its times).
 
Gabriel said:
I guess this one goes under that standing question of who are these toys for? Collectors or kids? Or maybe, kids or adult office workers.

Star Trek TNG Movie style phasers via Nerf

View attachment 49527

So, Aliens got a fairly direct port of the Colonial Marine Pulse Rifle. Sure, it had the Nerf and Aliens logo on it and it was recolored to white and yellow, but it was still a reasonable direct representation of the original prop as these things go.

For Star Trek, they've added all this... shit onto the phaser rifle. It's supposed to be Borg cooties or something. It's kind of disappointing to me anyway.

The dustbuster phaser is a fairly straight adaptation, so that's good. But... does anyone like the dustbuster phasers?
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from a nerf blaster POV they are garbage. the pistol is a resleeved Jolt, and the rifle is a 5 round internal mag Stryfe. No way are they worth $120.
(Jolts are 1 shot, direct prime blasters that retail for $10 or less. Stryfes are semi-auto flywheel blasters, that sold for $20 or so when they were still on the market, but they are getting kinda rare as they are no longer in active production.)

(don't call them nerf guns, call them nerf blasters. calling them guns can get negative attention of law enforcement)
 
Hey, when we play our 40K game on that cool Flintstones terrain up above, can I use this as a substitute for one of the flyers that I don't have a proper model for?

silpheed.jpg

SA-77 Silpheed 1/100 scale model by Plum from the Sega CD game Silpheed

Now that I have this, I really wish I had picked up that R-Grey (Raystorm) model I saw at a store ages ago.
r-gray.jpg
 
As an inveterate 40K player who's very open to counts as models, I suggest you use whatever the fuck makes you happy. I love 40K, but GW and their prices (and lack of some models completely) can kiss my ass.
 
A figure I'd like to get. But it's a bit pricey. I think this is a special limited color version. It looks like there were two others in different color schemes. They were less expensive by a third, but still pretty pricey even for a 1/4 scale.

figure.jpg
 
I've not been much for collecting toys, but I found this in a comic book store back in the early aughts, when I was in Uni, and I thought it was cool.
IMG_20220915_123519-01.jpg
 
I just want to know are there really whole production runs done for these truly random ass characters with the idea that it's going to be profitable? Who's doing this?
 
Bunch said:
I just want to know are there really whole production runs done for these truly random ass characters with the idea that it's going to be profitable? Who's doing this?
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In the case of GoodLeg, above, it's essentially a micro-studio run by three guys. They do production runs of a few dozen (until the molds break) and offer the figures as subscription-only pre-orders, averaging about $200-500 a figure usually selling out in a day or two.
 
Bunch said:
I mean these guys. Is someone paying $200 for these?!?
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Yeah, if that little. I paid $300 for the Manborg one above those. It's a completely unique collectible, only 15 ever released in the wild.
 
TristramEvans said:
Yeah, if that little. I paid $300 for the Manborg one above those. It's a completely unique collectible, only 15 ever released in the wild.
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So maybe $4,500 in total revenue? I'm curious what all the various costs are to see the actual profit in doing it.
 
Bunch said:
So maybe $4,500 in total revenue? I'm curious what all the various costs are to see the actual profit in doing it.
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lol, it's three guys in Germany doing it in their garage on weekends.

This is fandom not business; profit isn't the primary consideration
 
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