pk13

Have a great one!!!

And, I'm getting to experience the sensation newcomers to Minimate collecting must feel you can gorge yourself on so many figures that have been released already, not having to be patient or wait for new stuff, because everything is new to you. On the flip side, I'm also feeling the pain of hunting for older releases that are going for kind of crazy prices on the secondary market, or are seemingly impossible to find at all.

That's a very interesting point and provides a pretty good deal of clarity on a problem I've been having lately with Minimates. I didn't start out at the beginning, almost a decade late to be precise, and have felt a huge drop off lately with my excitement with the brand. But it's because of what you pointed out. I jumped into a brand that had a ton of figures spread out over many lines that I was interested in owning figures of. Now, after collecting for a little bit and putting my collection together, I'm finding that I feel like my wheels are spinning a little bit. But that's because I'm not in the same position of having *10 YEARS* of a catalog to work through.

Looking at things through that lens makes it almost impossible to keep up the enthusiasm that someone new to the brand would have. But readjusting expectations, which I should have thought of but, embarrassingly, hadn't before, completely puts things into a much better perspective.

Thanks for that post, Lobby. It was actually a tremendously helpful insight that I had no expectation of finding in a thread about Kre-O.

You know what CBMM1? I'm sorry I singled you out. If you're having fun with what DST is doing then it's a dick move on my part to rain on that. I'm obviously not very thrilled with the state of things but that's my problem and not yours. I apologize for that post and hope you have a good rest of the convention.

The current BIN Ebay listings for the turtles give-aways seems to be helping me with what I had always believed would be a momentous decision ..........it isn't as hard as I thought .

And even worse is the Comic Wow blank. The only one available as of this post is at $100.

Of course you don't. DST just has to say jump and your immediate response is how high.

My personal experience dictates that the above slide isn't all that great. My local comic shops have stopped carrying Minimates for the most part because of lack of interest due to the one per case variant model. So that means that anything I want I have to buy at TRU, which is absolutely the worst consumer experience possible, or go to any one of the empty LCS options.

Just because the ill-received B&W TWD set is deeply discounted and unwanted doesn't mean that a TNBC exclusive would follow the same path.

I'm so tired of jumping through hoops to buy Minimates. All of the fun is sucked right out of it. If I wanted to be a masochistic toy collector then I would have gone with Kubricks. At least then I could have had Star Wars.

Happy Birthday! I hope all of those '03 blanks that I opened and converted into candles arrived in time to put on your cake....

I'm looking for the following if anyone has them for trade:

Chief Wiggum, Grandpa Simpson, Lisa, Mr. Burns, Ralph, & Scratchy

I have extras of Homer and Maggie plus anything off of my Minimates trade list if anyone is interested.

The easiest way would definitely be to pick out some of the upcoming lines that DSTZach mentioned and get in from the start. You never know what's going to turn into the next Thundercats box set on the secondary market. It's much, much easier to pick it up at release for retail. Especially if you want doubles for customs or to pull off alternate looks.

-Marvel is possible, but as BHM said, you will need patience. The trick is to figure out just how completist you are/want to be. If it's just one of each figure in each outfit then it won't be too bad. If it's one of each outfit with each tiny variation, then it gets much more complicated. I started in on Marvel about a decade after it was released and went after every single different figure no matter how small the differences. That took some time. I made a roadmap using the IMDB, (Hail Ivan, Hail Ivan, Hail Ivan!), that plotted out how to buy the line by two packs with getting the least amount of doubles possible. I've since lost that thanks to a pos of it was on. But I highly suggest doing something like that as it can help keep things straight when buying so many figures.

-Ghostbusters was also a bigger process. Lots of exclusives and a ton of figures. But that's a really well rounded line that was fun to complete.

-Outside of a figure or two, HALO wasn't too hard to put together. Especially now if you can find the vehicle 3 packs for cheap at TRU. They take care of some of the figures from older waves and the vehicles are nice. HALO has a lot of overlap between box sets and older two packs so make sure to plot out your purchases and trades to get the least extras.

-I would also highly suggest DST's in-house Calico Jack Pirate Raiders line. It's small and relatively inexpensive on the secondary market. The figures are cool, (if you like pirates and all), and there are a few ships as well. Plus lots of quick customs can fill out the ranks.

Other than trying to get the promos or pre-production stuff, I would say that most of the lines are ok as far as your time and money are concerned. Marvel is going to cost more because of the size and popularity but as I said earlier, you can definitely cut down on a lot of that based on what you want out of the experience.

Just make sure to do a little bit of research before diving in. Track completed eBay sales and take a look around the trade and sales threads here to get an idea of what's available. Then you can get a rough idea of what you would be looking at cost and effort wise. And be sure to post anything that you have to trade or want to buy as well. There isn't a ton of movement on the trade scene here, but all it takes is one or two people deciding to take the time to work on a deal with you and you'll find yourself some pretty damn cool toys to add to your collection.

Insanely good work. The Marvel line is starving for figures like these.

Someone should tell Cable he is holding his gun backwards.

That's cracking me up. Cable is a shaved head away from pulling a Pvt. Pyle.

I'm going to throw this out there... for a convention exclusive box set, this gives us a remake of a mystique that many of us don't have and that a lot of us think is an improvement, and it gives us not one, but two Senator Kelly heads, one in mid transformation back to mystique. to me, everything else is irrelevant. That sells the set

I guess it really is a case of different people seeing different things when looking at the same situation.

I would say that many people already have a Mystique, looking at the pics and the previous version doesn't make me feel like a great leap forward was made, and to make a Senator Kelly figure, I would have to use a body that isn't provided in the set. Those things make this set a pass for me.

Beautiful work, fwoosheyman.

When you get a more diverse collection now from Marvel Legends and Marvel Universe than minimates, something is wrong.

A sad but true statement.

So for us to skip a movie assortment in favor of a comic assortment would, unfortunately, hurt the line unnecessarily. But more movies doesn't necessarily mean that we have the production capability -- or retailers have the budget and display space -- to accommodate more waves overall. Not every year will be like this one, but I think we've done some cool stuff for comic fans this year, starting with 54 (Classic Marvel), plus the three other box sets we have coming up (X-Force, Villain Zombies and Deadly Foes - thanks, Luke!), plus Series 59, which I think will grow on people.And we have a tooling budget for the year. Some sets/assortments require more tooling, some require less, but it tends to even out... usually. But when you have a best of it.I personally think the extra length on Wolverine's coat is just enough to make it slightly more dramatic, and in a good way -- it looks good to me.

Thank you for the candor, Zach. But I have to say that my worst fears for the line were pretty much confirmed. The fact that DST took chances on collector driven characters and were committed to a comprehensive execution of the Marvel Universe was what convinced me to get out of all of my other toy collections and be a full time Minimate collector. Now, while I understand that releasing the same stuff over and over and not being as concerned with accuracy is a safer bet financially, it's pretty underwhelming for me as a collector and a customer.

To me, the heart and soul of Minimates as a line was the fact that it catered to the people that read the comics and appreciated the healthy selection of both obscure and mainstream characters. Now it feels like buying from Hasbro or Mattel. To put it in musical terms, DST used to feel like a somewhat mainstream radio channel that had nice late night shows that focused on indie music or world music or other niche areas of interest. Now they've replaced those shows with more of the same Top 40 songs that you can hear on any other station.

I think in a year where the comic line has been so neglected, and adding in the fact that Wolverine has flooded the market, that it isn't unreasonable to expect an iconic Wolverine to be accurate.

The coat looks even worse in that pic.

Yea.....I just don't get what DST is thinking these days when it comes to marvel. This should have been an awesome set. Instead it's full of bad choices (Logan's coat, future Kitty, mystique belt) and it's just blah.

I feel the same way. It seems like Marvel comics should be the main focus and see new stuff and innovation across the line. But it has been very neglected lately. And what we do get is all rehash. DST's handling of the comics line feels very much like Mattel's handling of a 90's Batman line... all repaints and little imagination.

Is the Marvel Minimates license about to be up? It just feels like DST is trying to get every penny out of the comics figures without doing anything new. That's usually a direction taken towards the end of a license.

These sets are pretty disappointing. The Wolverine jacket is especially bad. I mean, it doesn't even look like the cover of the comic.

At least the comic is kind of cool.

I just reserved the URL www.minimateblindbagmultiverse.com just in case...

You will be unable to see any topics/threads until you pay for them.

but don't worry there are tons of people that like to do that.

Or you will have to post in every single thread on the site to make sure it goes in the thread you wanted it to.

I'm sure we'll lose some collectors who dislike blind bags, but I think we'll pick up more blind bag fans/people who understand blind bags than we'll lose.

Come on Zach. This statement makes it sound like we who are against the blind bags are too dumb to understand it.

It does read as condescending.

I agree. I guess that means I don't understand blind bags.

So freaking awesome. It kills me how Lightning got the name hookup and everyone else was pure random hilarious.

I don't think there will be very much of a market at all for the overpacked figures. It will most likely be the same case as the shared figures between a TRU and specialty wave. The stuff that's shared has little to no demand while the short packed figures see their prices rise.

And I don't feel like comparing a blind bag case to an army dump is exactly apples to apples. Buying the army dump case nets plenty of dupes, sure, but those are army builders that carry a higher demand for people that want multiples. Maybe I'm wrong, but I doubt that there will be much demand for all of the blind bag extras coming from others that are trying to move the exact same amount of unwanted product.

Buying blind bags just isn't fun to me. I'm not trying to suggest that it's an evil plot by DST to screw the collectors. But for me, it's just an unrewarding experience that forces me to waste money on things I don't want multiples of to get the things I do. I just want to buy minimates and not have to jump through hoops to do so.

It will obviously make DST plenty of money. And that's why they show up to work each day.... to make money. Nothing wrong with that at all. I'm just voicing my opinion on the practice of making customers gamble with their money when they only want to buy something.

I believe Zach already said no Marvel blind bags planned at this time.

I really hope "at this time" doesn't change. But it seems like a statement that's just delaying the inevitable. The blind bags have cured my completist buying habits for non-Marvel minimates. Just hoping it doesn't do the same for Marvel as well. Or, at least if it does, it just stays on the movie side of things.

Congrats on the job! Working at a comic shop is a fun way to earn some cash.

I like #3 the best. But they're all pretty cool looking. It sounds like you and your wife are going to throw a great birthday party!