Well, whoops, it knocked poor Glenn Beck's book off of the #1 spot for a day. And this enraged poor Mr. Beck. He called out the book on his program today for usurping his greatneass and denegrated it part of the "culture of death."
Hey, you guys know Ryan North and David Malki, right? If you don't, you are dumb and I hate you. BUT YOU CAN FIX THIS VERY EASILY SO NO BAD FEELINGS OKAY??
Anyway, North and Malki, henceforth known as Nolki, are two of the greatest people in the entire world. Would you like an example? Nolki is publishing an anthology of stories about people who know how they're going to die. It started as a non sequitur punchline in a webcomic and it became reality through sheer force of will. There's 30 stories and they're illustrated by venerable webcomics people!
Universe Hardhead decked out with his new head and weaponry.
The "third-party" add-on products that I purchase are few and far between. Not a lot of them appeal to me, even the ones that are entirely new toys like not-Springer and not-half-of-Bruticus. I'm more in favor of new heads for redecoes that would have benefited by them. (This is something that will probably happen less and less as Hasbro themselves have started putting in multiple heads in the original toolings of their toys.)
Case in point... I am totally for Headrobots Hothead, aka Duro-5. It's a new transforming head for Hardhead, whose Headmaster's name was Duros. Eh? Eh? See what they did there? Ehhh?
Yeah, it's pretty crafty. No one will see through their ruse!
Check out Duro-5 in the cockpit there.
Anyway, this add-on set got my attention in a number of ways. First, dude, it's a Headmaster. The head transforms from head to robot/Nebulan and back. And, yeah, sure, that's neat, but what makes it even cooler is that the "stock" Universe Hardhead toy has a cockpit area for "Duros" to sit in vehicle mode, just like the original G1 Hardhead toy. It's like a perfect storm of awesomeness.
Of less interest to me are the weapon add-ons. The "Hothead/Duro-5" pack comes with recreations of the original Hardhead toy's weapons plus a few parts to help you attach them to the toy. In vehicle mode, the two attachment parts plug together and you can attach the three guns to it in several configurations. In robot mode, the two attachment parts unplug -- one attaches behind Hardhead's head so you can rig his shoulder cannon there, and the other plugs into his ass and stores one of the other extra pieces, though not as securely as I'd like.
Check inside the palm on the left for the stressmark I created. Whoops!
(This extra piece is a "converter" piece that allows you to use the new head with the original Hardhead. It plugs up into the neck socket and provides the same Headmaster tech-spec plug that the original head did.)
"Duro-5" is a little looser in humanoid mode than I'd prefer, but he's a solid toy, especially for a third-party product. One bit of warning... his hands appear to be compatible with the new snap-on weaponry that current Transformers have built into them, and so I tried to have him operate Straxus in weapon-emplacement mode. Do not try this! They are not actually compatible, and now my Duro-5 has a nasty stretch mark inside of his palm. This did, however, prove the durability of the toy. I pushed like a motherfucker on this thing trying to get him attached, and he's not broken.
And now all three versions of this mold have their own head.
All you have to do to get the new head to replace the old head is to remove the three screws in the back of the old head, the old head will basically fall off at that point, and then you push the new head down onto the neck joint. The easiest! The electronic lights and sounds even still work, as the middle of the new head is translucent blue plastic, so when you press the electronics button the lights will still flash through the visor.
To sum up, this is a great set that immensely pleases me. I like Hardhead and I also like his pantsless headbuddy Duros, so giving him a more-accurate noggin makes the toy come alive for me. Plus, hey, somebody has to shut up my new Blurr toy.
Boxotron guessed it first. I was costumed up as comic book writer Donny Finkleberg, aka the creator of Robot-Master, aka the creator of Potato-Salad Man, aka chain smoking jerk.
Specifically, First Appearance Donny Finkleberg, with his green jacket and his white dress shirt and his awful, awful magenta turtle neck underneath all that.
Soon after he was fired by Marvel Comics for being a terrible writer and all-around-douchebag, he was quickly snatched up by the government to pretend to be a supervillain in charge of the Transformers, because that would calm the public down or something. (What?) Anyway, they named and designed this supervillain persona after the actual published Robot-Master character that Donny Finkleberg created. So, uh, yeah, its readership must have been pretty small for that to have worked. Is anyone going to be fooled if "Dr. Doom" showed up on television and claimed to be in charge of the Taliban?
Ah well.
When people at the Halloween party asked me who I was dressed as, I told them Jonah Hill. It was just easier.
It's me, dressed up for a Halloween party! I'll send a "Bring Back the Eighties" poster to the first person who guesses correctly who I'm all gussied up as.
Here's the Lucky Charms box mentioned in Friday's Shortpacked!. Every time I go to Target, there this is on the endcap, freaking me the Hell out. What is Lucky doing? Why is he laughing maniacally? Why are his fingers grasping the air like he's Doctor Doom? Why the hell is he lit from below? Okay, yes, we get it, the cereal is so magical that it's its own light source. But, dude, General Mills, just step back a bit and realize that it makes it look like your cereal mascot is on the strongest fucking drug imaginable. Seriously. He is going to hack me open with a chainsaw. I will die by his hands.
Oh, by the way, today is Maggie's birthday. Wish her a happy one!
Man, a week or so back I thought to myself, "Dude, I should move my blogs from midnight to noon, and do updates every twelve hours like I do at Dumbing of Age." And then removed of my midnight blogging habit, I promptly forgot about blogging. Oh, momentum, how much you rule my life.
Halloween weekend Maggie and I are trying to see if we can manage to get down to Jon Stewart's "Rally to Restore Sanity." On my end it's easy to schedule since I can just get up and leave and let the website do its work, but Maggie has, like, school and its frightening deadlines, all of which are in the next few weeks. But it has to happen somehow. We just have to figure out how to swing it.
The week after that is New England Webcomics Weekend, and I will totally be there oh my god. It is the best thing in the entire world, I swear. There will be more webcomic artists there than I can count, and I'm good at counting! You have to go, for the love of all that is good and holy. You don't even know.
Oh, and this coming weekend is Maggie's birthday. We're weekend-busy all up in this shizzy!
Unlike with Amber and Mike, I only required one revision on Robin's sculpt. Patch Together's sculpting team gets better with each figure! And I just wanted her hands bigger. Now that they're fixed, I feel okay just showin' you the whole dang statue.
I've already sent off the pantones for her colors, so hopefully soon I'll be able to troubleshoot those with Patch Together until they're perfect and then we'll be able to show you the completed statue.
But until then, keep those preorders coming in! Robin's $5 off the final price until the preorder period is over. Don't miss your window! Preorder her today!
