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DSTZach

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Posts posted by DSTZach

  1. I understood some of that. 

    Chuck had kept the line going for 20 years. He's certainly figured something out. If he's walked away from any license, it's because it was not making money. Blame me for that if you like, blame the sales department, but don't make any "observations" about Chuck. 

    No one can change the 2-inch rule on Marvel Minimates. If you do know who sets the rule, then you know it's not us.

    If Puck and Howard the Duck are taller than Captain Britain, I would be surprised to learn that. Wish I had more than one of those to check. 

  2. I honestly think it's okay that every MM license has different production requirements and target audiences -- if every set was made for the same audience at the same level of complexity, I am not sure that would move more units or get us into larger retailers. 

    One line doesn't need paint on its legs and minimal tooling. Sure, we can run that one for a while selling to just specialty and Toys R Us, even though kids are largely disinterested in Star Trek. 

    TMNT is new-parts heavy, but appeals to kids, and is able to get into TRU AND KMart, which was at one point a large chain with large orders. That line lasted a while. 

    PvZ was kind of in-between. Heavy tooling, mixed appeal kids and adults -- picked up by TRU. We did four different sets of four figures plus micro-Mates -- the first Deluxe box sets? It didn't last that long,  and I don't know how sales did, but there weren't a TON of characters, and there was some behind-the-scenes stuff.

    (Not every MM line ending is due to sales -- remember, MM licensing is rarely done on its own. It's part of a larger license, and if sales on another line like action figures or statues doesn't do well, or the license is not renewed by either party, it can affect the MM line.)

    Getting licenses with universal kids AND adult appeal is tough. While most MM sets are for older collectors, those that get picked up by large retailers are largely animation based, with kid appeal. To rule out collector lines in favor of only licenses that have a chance at Walmart takes some of the fun out of it, I think. Besides, the last line to almost reach Walmart was decidedly adult. 

    In short, blaming the head of DST for keeping a diverse and largely enjoyable line of figures going for 20 years seems misdirected.

    And not sure what you mean by the 2-inch rule. Starting in 2003, we couldn't make Marvel bigger than 2 inches. Using a 2-inch base body,  some can be a little bigger than 2". They can be as short as we want,  but at some point they are not very poseable (even kid legs and arms are highly restricted, but some characters get one-piece leg stubs). So if they are a smaller character, and not a MAIN character like Rocket Raccoon (who got a poseable figure AND A micro-Mate) then they get a micro-Mate now.

    To be fair, both the Legends and Select Spider-Ham Figures are non- poseable. 

     

     

  3. Army builders is not an initiative, it's just character selection. The initiative involves a completely different approach to the line, utilizing some added elements that may broaden the appeal. 

    Making an army builder set isn't going to broaden the audience for the Minimates. We'll sell a few more sets, sure, but the number of people who bought the Cobra box set is VERY low, and even if we assumed every one of those customers would buy two army-builder packs, it would still be low. 

     

  4. 10 hours ago, buttheadsmate said:

    In a nutshell Peter Porker deserves better than being a 'micro-Mate' . 

    ".......a micro-figure in pretty much every deluxe box set... "  By quoting you ,my intention is not to 'bait' but that is simply not reality . I know we have a 'Herbie' & no issues with that ... Scott Lang's head is Scott Lang's head , they're not micro-Mates .

    Walgreens ....yeah Walgreens.... wave 3, had an *Itsy Bitsy Spider-Man . I know the Deadpool/Spidey story where Itsy Bitsy is featured but Itsy Bitsy Spider-Man is based on ........who actually ???  Anybody, please show me an image of who this character is based on ?

    That said ,that obscure *Minimate , was surely the obvious base for a Peter Porker Minimate.  Peter Parker is 5'10" whilst Peter Porker is 5'2" .....according to 'Marvel database' . There are several Marvel Minimates that portray Marvel characters much smaller than 5'2" so WTF is the issue ?  Please ?

     

    -baitheadsmate:spidey:

    Holy crap! I'm sorry, sir, I had no idea you felt so strongly about Spider-Ham. I only had one issue of Spider-Ham at a very young age, but I've been reading the new books to my son and he loves them! I guess I'm used to you being a connoisseur of the figures more than the source material. (Red FF costumes aside.)

    As far as height goes, I did the same Google search you must have and found the two sites that said 5'2" -- Marvel.com and Comicvine. The Marvel website is... not 100% accurate in all things. If there is a different unit of foot measurement in his universe, one in which feet are smaller and he is a slightly shortish average adult man, then Spider-Ham may very well be 5'2". But if you put him next to the real Spider-Man, in any universe (including the animated one, I should add) he is only a few human feet tall. 

    75960609616900411__60400.1592509091.jpg?

    clean_1_17.jpg

    We went with the smaller size because that seemed to, visually, be the most accurate, and because like I said, we were trying to reduce the price of each set from $50 to $40, which meant one less poseable figure. We still had room for a Micro-mate though, so voila Spider-Ham.

    As far as Deluxe Box Sets, we have made three:

    1. FF with HERBIE (82)

    2. Young Avengers with Lucky (83)

    3. Daredevil with nothing (84)

    I guess the What If Zombie set AND the Commemorative Avengers Set are technically deluxe boxed sets, so if I were to include them in that list, then yes, only two out of five (now three out of six with Ham) sets will have had micro-Mates. My mistake.

    And Itsy Bitsy Spider-Man is also known as Chibi Spider-Man, and was used in the Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon whenever he was imagining himself in a certain situation, I believe. I'm pretty sure this is a screen grab:

    28a2378cce7840b072b9dad76b35f019.jpg

    But they ALSO did an episode where everyone on the squad was turned into a chibi, and it looked like this:

     

  5. Yes, knowledge of their existence would certainly help. :) I do my best every day, sending samples to influencers, submitting to gift guides, even print advertising. There is a lot of Joe product out there,  and there is about to be more, in addition to McFarlane I just saw an import company (!) Is doing a line.  It's getting ridiculous. 

    Pulse was supposed to offer some for Joe June, not sure what happened. They may prefer new items, I'd love for them to take an exclusive, but not sure they're interested to that extent. 

    We are looking at a new initiative that may or may not pan out. Could bring some unmade characters to stores, but we'll see. 

  6. 8 hours ago, buttheadsmate said:

    To clarify that remark ....no articulation or swappable parts .....Minimates are to be known from now on as Inanimates ?

    Pathetic ,absolutely pathetic .

    I cannot remember ever being "baited" by BHM, so I assume there is some deep sarcasm going on here. We've been doing a micro-figure in pretty much every deluxe box set -- I forgot to mention Lucky! Daredevil did not get one, but I don't know what we would have included. 

  7. I did not mean to belittle or discount the WG Minimates. It was a great line, even though a lot of people here DID belittle and discount it at the time. I wasn't watching the shows religiously, so it took until VERY recently to appreciate my Screwball Minimate, but as a comic reader I do like my Squadron. And the evil Avengers. And the various Hulkbuster armors. Good times.

    Are these as detailed as those, in these four examples? Maybe not, but maybe I didn't study the design sheets well enough before I made that statement. I would love to sit down and put my art-major eye on both figures next to each other, but I don't have the time. (Do I have time for THIS? Of course not.) Are there new molds? Yes, new arms and cape for Miguel, web-shooter hands for EVERYONE (not new molds, but not something we did for a lot of Walgreens Mates, IIRC), and new web effects for some of the characters. 

    Do these look ANYTHING like the movie versions? Of course they do! They're wearing the costumes that the movies designers used as the basis for all of their work! Any costume differences are minor; I do not count sneaker brand, shading direction or eye pointiness. Do they look EXACTLY like the movie versions? Of course not, because these are Minimates. We're not going to make a figure shaped like a Dorito, or make Spider-Ham's head bigger than his body, or capture every faint texture applied to every surface of a million-dollar 3-D rendering. Not as a Minimate. 

    A movie license was not an option -- not a cheap-out, a box-out. Comic versions based on the comic storyline ON WHICH THE MOVIE WAS BASED were a valid option. I actually suggested it, because I thought it would resonate, and comic fans (or at least comic shop retailers, our main customers) would consider jumping on board with it. Maybe it will be out around the third movie. I could be wrong about its chances of success, but if comic versions are no longer acceptable in this world of occasionally well-received but increasingly frequently POORLY received multimedia adaptations, then the line is dead.

    Thank you for the assessments from Smashmaster and BHM. Here are some design sheets. 

    Marvel Wave 85 - Miguel O'Hara Spider-Man 2099.jpg

    Marvel Wave 85 - Gwen Stacy Ghost-Spider.jpg

    Marvel Wave 85 - Ben Reilly Scarlet Spider.jpg

  8. 2 hours ago, BuffaloDelorean said:

    I think by Hobie they meant Spider-Punk, not Prowler.

    The Best Of Spider-Man didn't have leg muscle detailing either, like the plain inner wrists it makes sense that something would get skipped with all the weblines.

    I'm an idiot. I was thinking of the original Hobie Brown. Spider-Punk would be great. I wish we'd done Spider-Punk. He would have been a good substitute. Not sure we still have Marty's guitar, or Janice's. 

  9. 6 hours ago, Shanester said:

    Swift Minimates? Oh boy, how the conversations have shifted.  The visuals I have seen from Rebel Moon look incredibly interesting to me.  Will that translate to Minimates?  I think the art and production on Minimates is as good or better now, than it has ever been (RIP Eddie Wires).

    They came out great. I honestly can't wait to show them off, and I hope they sell well and I hope we can make more! Horned bikini alien FTW!

  10. 10 hours ago, NerdyTrev said:

    Why not?

    Marvel Select is specialty stores only, so as not to compete with Legends. I am not sure that Minimates is any different, at least not since Hasbro came into the picture as master toy licensee. (I know they started at Target.) And no, Walgreens may not count as mass market. 

  11. 2 hours ago, FightTheDead118 said:

    A little disappointed by the lack of leg printing on these figures (yes I know spidey has his leg designs but even then he would usually have some musculature printing as well), I know simplifying tampography was brought up at one point as a cost cutting measure , but all these figures having completely blank legs makes them feel straight out of 2006

    I'll be 100% honest, even though I have not seen them in person (I had to skip the show this year), I did look at the design sheets, and the painter approval pics, and... I didn't even notice. Literally. I love Minimates, have hundreds of them, but the lack of a muscle on the thigh goes right by me. I think for a lot of people that is a reality. It's an added production cost that maybe 1 out 20 people notices.

    So it seems maybe they did cut some tampo on this wave, and some of the tooling we already had, but that was not what prompted this wave. We wanted to make a widely popular wave that retailers and new fans would invest in. We lowered the price to make it more accessible (this set is $40 for essentially six figures, not sure if everyone picked up on that). It just so happens that it was a set we could do relatively painlessly. 

    That said, the next series has some new characters in it, new costumes, and still manages to include some A-listers. Comparable to the Daredevil wave. Hopefully everyone enjoys it.  

  12. 10 hours ago, Smashmaster12 said:

    I can’t help but feel disappointed by this, it’s such a weird thing. On one hand, this is an opportunity to have Spider-Man and his friends on shelves again. On the other hand, it’s 100% characters that have (arguably) been done better elsewhere - I’m looking at you, Ben. On the other *other* hand, it’s clear this was made to piggyback on the Spider-verse movies with the character selection but it’s not the spider-verse designs so you lose that market. 

    How are they not the movie designs? Miles, Gwen, Peter, Miguel and Ham are all pretty much how they appear in the movies. You honestly think that a lack of sweatpants will eliminate the entirety of the movie fan base? I'm sure a small percentage of them will see this set and a small percentage of THEM will want it, and a small percentage of THEM will buy it, and that's probably still more than who is currently buying Marvel Minimates. 

    10 hours ago, Smashmaster12 said:

    If DST wanted to do a Spider-Verse box set, they should have gone all in. Swap Ben for Hobie, make a jacked AF Miguel, bathrobes Peter with his kid as an accessory would be so cute. 

    I'm 99% sure the movie is not in our license -- it's controlled pretty tightly, by a different movie studio. We'd have to get a new license, assuming they'd even let us, and go through two studios for approvals, which means you would see them in 2027.

    Also, 2019 gave us a great Prowler, which is more recent than the last Gwen (2018), the last Miguel (2015), and the last Ben Reilly (2017). 

    5 hours ago, luke314pi said:

    Any chance of unmasked heads for all?

    I think we opted for new web effects instead. Everyone comes with a new, different web-spray wrist attachment, and you get the new Miguel cape. 

  13. MM are a low-margin item. We make very little money per MM. Only a huge order would make it possible to meet any financial guarantee to the Swift people. Maybe if we built up a real MM relationship with Walmart, and they expressed interest in a music line, we could go after it, but they didn't take Rebel Moon, despite being all in on the action figures. And I'm pretty sure we CAN'T sell Marvel there, so I'm not sure what they would take. TMNT? 

  14. Hey, Miguel looks great. Huge improvement over both previous incarnations. arm spikes AND that web cape that is on the ground in front of the figures for some reason. I am not there, so I can't fix it, but I'm hoping it'll be in the pics next month in Previews. Miles is to the left, obviously. 

  15. I am not an RPG guy (not since junior high), but the Pathfinder Minimates were some of my favorites we've done, so I would love to see more fantasy characters. 

    I also enjoyed the last movie, so I would love to see that band of characters as well. Not sure how that would work with the studio, I think Hasbro controls all rights, but we may need to get a license from Paramount, who we already work with. 

    I have never seen the 2000 movie, or its two (!) sequels.

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