battlecat

Heroes? Great show but I wonder how well more 'civilian' 'mates will do. The size of 'mates dictates that they need an uniform or costume to be instantly recognisable & therefore sell, I am not sure the 'Heroes' characters have that capability, I hope so.

Well, Claire does have that cheerleader uniform and they could do a Hiro-as-a-Samurai mate (I'm not that into Heroes but I'd love one of those), but otherwise it'll be pretty civvie-focused yeah... although you could say the same for the 24 line (and most of the BTTF one too), and they seem to be doing well...

sign me up for the Civil War Set please... and cheers, this is very generous of you guys!

Wow that sucks. I was all excited when I heard about upcoming Maxx and Scud figs (the 6-inchers, not the Shockinis or whatever). Then I saw their godawful Maxx proto and I was only excited about the Scud figure (which looks to be their only not-fugly sculpt). Then I read all the "love" for ShockerToys here and elsewhere, and it sounds like it might not even see the light of day.

The only upside is that several of the insults in this thread made me laugh out loud

Sure, if you see them around again, definitely take a look... it's either a variation or they just switched the paint app before they went into production...

I like the coloring on the one I got, I just wish it had more of a contrast between the two browns -- in some lighting it basically looks monotone, which makes the head look weird... you can see the difference if you click on the thumbnails at the bottom of this link: http://www.action-figure.com/index.php?nam...e&sid=22553

For anyone who picked up the Chewie, does yours have the same light tan/dark brown coloring as that promo photo? The one I got is barely two tones, and more character-accurate brown... just wondering if this was changed in the middle of the run too, or if they were all switched to these colors prior to release...

I caved and got one on eBay... I'm sure they will turn up somewhere else for better prices eventually, but my whiny/impatient/instant-gratification-loving toy collector side won out

Anyway, good luck everyone with finding them. I can't believe some of you guys are in the U.S., with these stores nearby, and having so much trouble... that blows.

Just got my Spidey 3 mates, and Gwen Stacy is clearly not wearing a bra, so at least the lack of underwear is consistent with her design...

Can honestly say that I'd never upskirted my minimates before, so this never bothered me.... annnnd nope, still doesn't.

I'm more worried about the toning down of established party girls, like Lorraine's disappearing cleavage in the BTTF Enchantment Under The Sea pack... partly because her upper body looks weird as an almost detail-free pink block, and partly because the, um, prominence of her dress was an actual plot point in the movie

wow, well one's already up on eBay for like $30... that's what, a 300% profit?

turns out I lied, took a closer look and it's $27 or best offer... I've bought from him before and he's a good seller too, I just haven't quite talked myself into the crazy price mark-up that always comes with eBay... there's another one up now from a different seller for $23...

I finally found a Suncoast store that had four in stock but said said that another employee was going to be purchasing them but to call back in a week!

nice, the rare "we're keeping them all for ourselves" style of customer service... you'd think a store wouldn't want its employees hoarding exclusives, presumably to resell. unless that was a board member working there and snapping them up for us, in which case I'm all for it!

I can see another up there for $13. I'd probably go for it if it had the "Buy Now" option.

yeah I saw that one too but it's already got like 6 bids on it, and 6 days left to go! jeez...

hopefully as more eBay dealers raid their local stores and put the sets up the prices will lower across the board...

those are some great sculpts, makes me wish I was into the old BSG enough to justify getting them... REALLY makes me wish DST could get a Star Wars license -- the quality level on these and so many of the recent lines makes me think they could get the likenesses spot-on...

wow, well one's already up on eBay for like $30... that's what, a 300% profit?

Sometimes that can be a random glitch in the system....my LCS got them both in at the same time although it was a week later then normal releases....but generally up untill then they were shipping close if not right together....definatly were always advertised 2 waves at a time

Jeff of the Minis

Yeah, that's what I'm saying, close but not right together... I was agreeing with you that they were released as "double" waves (I think they even showed both waves on the back of the all the old boxes, didn't they?), just not that they shipped on the exact same day (until Spiderman 3).

Minimate Database has all the double waves from 4/5 onward shipping anywhere from within a week to a month of each other, but I think those must be DST's proposed release dates since the site lists Astonishing/New Avengers as coming out Oct 6/Nov 1 2006, whereas a quick dig through Diamond's shipping archive has them released Oct 25/Nov 8...

Not trying to be argumentative by looking this all up, just genuinely curious, and my memory by itself is nothing to go by

I was just coming back to correct myself on that....up untill the X3 and the Avengers waves the marvel minis always shipped two waves at a time....in fact when it was originally solicited the Ghost Rider movie wave and the Avengers wave were supposed to ship together.....but yea normally the marvel ones always ship 2 waves at once which is why I think they went with 2 waves for the Spiderman 3 ones because they would come out at the same time

Jeff of the Minis

They used to ship 2 waves at around the same time, pre-X3, but isn't Spiderman 3 the first time they've been released on the same day? Like I remember my LCS getting in the Astonishing X-Men wave on a different week than the New Avengers one... **just checked Minimate Database which says they were about a month apart, if they've got the dates right.

I can't wait to get the SM3 mates, but buying 8 boxes at once will sure fill up a shopping bag

messenger, don't shoot... but I can't see them on Diamond's online shipping list... hoping I'm wrong...

It also seems likely that anyone having their own book that features exploits of them on a team will not be Skrull, as they cannot explain the inner dialogue of character specific thoughts when they can't deny that the person was ever on a team.

I still think people with their own books are safe, as a lot of the books have seen the characters going through personal stuff that would not be bothered with by Skrulls.

Yeah but taking internal dialogue and non-Skrully personal motivations as an indicator that they're not Skrulls only works if all the agents are aware that they're Skrulls. Spider-man himself pointed out in New Avengers that he'd make a good candidate for a "sleeper" Skrull...

Love everything you guys do...

Any chance the Back To The Future sets have sold well enough for you to consider making a Delorian?

Thanks!

You want to read a freaky-cool book? Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman.

That's a wicked book, I gotta catch up on Gaiman, haven't gotten to Anansi Boys or the new short story collection yet. Saw him do a reading/signing thing when American Gods came out, he's a pretty funny guy. His biography of Douglas Adams, Don't Panic!, is a good read too, if it's still in print.

Lot of good reccomendations in this thread... I thought that second Jurassic Park novel was even better than the original, though they shredded it for the movie (especially all the T.Rex-as-Godzilla nonsense they tacked on at the end). Same with Crichton's Timeline -- great book, terrible movie.

Love Pratchett, especially Small Gods and his City Watch books (the recent ones, Thud! and the one where Vimes goes back in time, have really gotten back to the greatness of Guards! Guards! and Men At Arms). That's true about him never shoving his point down your throat, and even more amazing is that almost every last one of his ridiculously long list of books has a meaningful point hiding behind all the fun. That's a lot of points to think up!

So wait, you guys think DST was lying in that Q&A, about the movie lines generally selling better? They did specifically exclude the GR presales from that statement, so if they're going to cop to that line's failures I can't imagine why they'd lie about the other lines doing well. I mean I believe you that they didn't sell well in your LCS, but is that reason enough to assume that was the experience worldwide?

I guess I just don't think SM3 has instantly disappeared from popular consciousness just because the DVD isn't brand new on the shelves. The Spiderman/X-Men movies have much wider pop culture awareness right now in the general public than, say, the old Avengers comic book, although obviously comic book readers/stores are the main venue for minimates right now, so... I don't know.

I'd say on average that for any minimate wave we see art or prototypes 12-18 months before we get the mates in our hands,

It definitely feels like more time and effort was put into the SM3 mates than was actually put into SM3

Plus the mates have a lot less crying (unless I can't find that Mary-Jane variant).

Along with holiday orders clogging up the USPS, the current US exchange rate probably isn't helping... I know with the Canadian dollar up vs the US down the last couple of months, I've been ordering a lot more online, so I would assume your online stores are pretty export-heavy right now.

Wait, didn't the X3 mates come out way after the movie? (I'm actually asking, I didn't buy them so I wasn't paying attention.) Because in the last Q&A, DST said the movie mates have tended to sell better than the comic book lines. And it hasn't been that long since Spiderman 3 came out on DVD...

Huh. People are getting their orders? Should I be worried that I haven't heard from them since I got the auto-response order confirmation?

I never got a shipping/tracking email, the package just showed up one day, and I think some other people have said the same in one of the other AFX threads. Plus someone said AFX's excuse for combining all the double orders in single shipments was because they're backed up with hundreds of orders for this exclusive. So I wouldn't be worried. But you could email them if you are.

(Also, the box was in fine condition and AFX does ship USPS to Canada, so it wasn't super expensive. Not that I don't understand people's issues in this thread, just glad I didn't have them myself.)

I could never hate Iron Man, if only for the fact that his alcoholism makes his character really funny in all of the superhero parodies like Casstoons, Twisted Toyfare Theatre, and "I'm a Marvel. And I'm a DC." (Caveat: I have a lot of alcoholics in my family so please don't think I think it isn't a serious disease in real life.) The recent "Director of S.H.I.E.L.D." stuff where he thinks making someone with three PhDs rub sunscreen on his ears is a good allocation of our nation's resources stuff has just made me give up on him for now.

Iron Man's alcoholism made him really funny in The Ultimates too... it was nothing like the after-school special way in which they (understandably) usually address his drinking problem.

I'm not too big on reading him as Director of SHIELD either, though I actually really liked (unlike most readers I guess) how he was handled in the main Civil War miniseries, if only because he made a far more effective supervillain than any of the actual Marvel supervillains usually are in those things. Oh and I liked that Bendis one-shot too, The Confession, where he tries to justify his dickery to Cap's corpse.

There are 2 main ebay sellers of PALz ,corndogcollectibles & bigsnowtrading. They are both ex-directors of Palisades ,Ken Lilly & Mike Renegar respectively.

Interesting, I'd stumbled across the Corndog shop before, randomly searching Muppets stuff, but I didn't realize it was Ken Lilly, just thought someone had bought up all the office leftovers. Those sarcastic Q&As he used to do on the Palisades board were great. Soon as I can remember what I did with that extra four grand, I'm totally buying the Oscar the Grouch prototype (sadly, not true).