I didn't know or care where it was "from," just that it was a frigging awesome 6"-scale rainbow pegasus unicorn, and that not only must I own it, but Batman must ride it. Apparently it's a She-Ra thing! I wouldn't know. My mom cut me off He-Man for being anti-Jesus-Having-All-The-Power long before any spin-offs could happen. But this, I would have it.
It's huge. I mean, I know horses are pretty big, but this thing is, regardless, substantial. There's a surprising amount of articulation -- the neck turns around in various directions and even the tail is a ratcheted balljoint. The wings are removable, which is good, because I have to take one of them off to fit the thing on a shelf.
Yay, I'm home! ...and my desktop computer decided to stop finding wireless networks while I was gone. WELL THAT'S FUN. GOD DAMMIT. Can I get home from a convention and actually have everything be normal? Apparently not.
Anyway, me news -- The Laughing Ogre here in Columbus is having a FF #1 thing on Wednesday. (Apparently it's just literally "FF" now, so trying to spell out what the acronym means is counter to informational purposes.) The Laughing Ogre is having a sale with 15% off Fantastic Four trades and 25% off Fantastic Four back issues. And if you buy the FF #1 "blank cover" you will get a sketch on it from one of the local artists in residence. One of those local artists is me! So if you've got a hankering for a doodle of HERBIE, I'm totally your man from noon to about 6 or 8.
(I love the response from the guy who's pissed off that I write toy collecting strips specifically for a toy collecting website on topics that only toy collectors would understand. Should they be about sports?)
The comic I drew about Optikk endeared him to me. I had to have him. Masters of the Universe figures are, in general, really fucking goofy, but Optikk, I feel, has some extra special goofiness that I enjoy.
1) He's an evil Space Mutant. He's an evil Space Mutant that has a special sticker decrying his goofy Space Mutant-ness right next to where it says "ADULT COLLECTOR" on the packaging bubble. (there is no shame here)
2) He's an eyeball man who can communicate his given name only through a series of blinks... despite having no eyelids. He can't even speak his native language! He is, for all intents and purposes, a mute eyeball man!
3) He is a mute eyeball man named Optikk with an eyeball-themed shield and an eyeball on the end of his raygun. (A raygun, mind you, that has an external revolving bullet chamber.)
Unfortunately, Dinobot's eye was bigger than his stomach.
And he was originally a New Adventures of He-Man villain, which I think was underappreciated. Campbell "friggin'" Lane makes a charismatic Skeletor. Hell, and with He-Man voiced by Garry Chalk, it's practically a Beast Wars voice cast precursor.
Optikk's articulation is what you'd expect from a 6-inch Mattel action figure. His chest detail is actually a plastic vest attached around your default Masters of the Universe chest. (That's right, he's got nipply pectorals under there.) I read that his arms and legs are recycled from Trap-Jaw, but with them done up entirely in gold, it's not immediately obvious. Sculpted into his back is a fake little dial that corresponds to the original Optikk toy's gimmick: if you turned the dial on his back, his eyeball would move back and forth. On this figure, you can do that just by manually turning the head itself.
Punch a Space Mutant? Can anybody punch a Space Mutant? I wonder.
He comes with an extra red eyeball that you can swap in for the green one, if you so choose. Apparently that's what color his eye was in the original cross-sell photography? That's sort of neat, I guess. I'm more in favor of it being an eyeball accessory for other figures. Some of my Transformers have heads small enough that they can fit up into its balljoint socket, so that's some more hours of fun.
Since I missed out on buying Optikk myself because MattyCollector.com is a piece of shit, a generous reader called Mysterious Stranger managed to grab me one and mail me it. He requested that there be a photo of Batman punching him. His wish has been granted.
I'm determined to get two books out this year. Shortpacked! Book 3 is the preorder everyone should be familiar with by now, but Roomies! Book 2 better be out by the end of this year, too! It's faaarr too soon to solicit it, since SP!B3 is still in production, but not too soon to finish putting it together. An idea for the cover hit me last night, and no sooner than this afternoon I had it completed to my satisfaction.
Take it in.
Also, I was sorely in need of some freebies to hand out at C2E2, so I designed and ordered some double-sided bookmarks. There's a strip on each side - my recent Skeletor/Luthor team-up strip for ToyNewsI seemed suitable, and of course you gotta have Batman DDR on there, so I cropped it down into the requisite number of panels to fit. I'll be handing these out at Penguicon this weekend. A huge purpose of convention-attending I've been neglecting is the romancing of new readers. This'll help me fix that. (If you're already a reader, you're still, of course, allowed to grab one.)
Since the new site went live, one of its most awesome features is the ability to order prints of individual strips simply by clicking the $ icon below each strip. Ha ha ha, so obviously the first one that got bought was Mike's freaky smile creep show. This is great, because I had to take this file into the print shop and have them give me strange looks as it comes up on the screen and again out of the printer. How much is my dignity worth? Apparently $10 and shipping.
I didn't know or care where it was "from," just that it was a frigging awesome 6"-scale rainbow pegasus unicorn, and that not only must I own it, but Batman must ride it. Apparently it's a She-Ra thing! I wouldn't know. My mom cut me off He-Man for being anti-Jesus-Having-All-The-Power long before any spin-offs could happen. But this, I would have it.
