I’m going on Vacation this week, folks!
And by that I mean I’m working a bunch of doubles and am not even going to attempt to carve out the time to do content.
I do hope to take what little time I have to get a jump on next week and hopefully give myself the cushion I need to get back on track for 2021.
In the meantime, I’ve had some cool stuff show up this past week, and I’m anxious to dig into it!
And with that, I’ll catch ya’ll next week for Marvel Monday!
Hey hey, Toyhounds. I am unfortunately Out of Town for work for the first half of the week. It was unexpected and I couldn’t pre-load any content, so I’m going to have to push Marvel Monday until Thursday or Friday and see what happens then!
In the meantime. Here are my cats to brighten your day!
Nope, I’m not sick. And thank God for that. I did, however, spend the weekend recouping in self-quarantine from a ridiculously harsh work week. I spent a little time working on content, but I didn’t get anything finished. Instead I laid around, drank whiskey, slept, kept up with the news, and read a bunch of comics. It was a good, restful weekend and I really needed it. Oh yeah, I also had plenty of quality time with the cats. And I got a few cool comics in the mail, and I’ll share some pictures of those below. If nothing else, cats and comics have been a nice diversion for me this past week.
“Jeez… are you going to be home all weekend, human? We’re trying to sleep!”
So, I work for what has been deemed an “Essential” business, so instead of getting to stay home and wait for this to blow over, I’ve been putting in ten to twelve hour days at work last week. I imagine this week will be the same. I don’t mind it so much. I feel good that we’re getting food and supplies to people who need it. Even if they don’t need it. It makes them feel like they’re in control when they buy stuff. I’m not crazy about being in contact with so many people every day, but I’m trying to be smart about it. Besides, I’m still a few years on the right side of 50, and apart from the fact that my liver has been marinating in Jameson for the past 25 years, I suppose I’m probably healthy enough to handle a dose of it if I have to. But I’d rather not have to.
Slabbed “Web of Black Widow.” Virgin Cover by Shannon Maer. 379 of 600 copies. Signed!
It’s likely that I’m going to be just sleeping and working a lot this week, so I really don’t know that I’ll have a lot of time to get anything done on the blog. It’s frustrating because I felt like I was on the road to returning to business as usual. It’s also frustrating because I rely on FFZ to take my mind off of things. But sometimes you just have to look around and realize there’s more important stuff going on, and pushing myself to finish updates is just going to stress me out and result in crap updates.
Gwen Stacy #1 Variant Covers by J. Scott Campbell. Signed!
So, right now my goal is to get Marvel Monday done before the end of the week. I can’t really afford to miss any Marvel Legends reviews if I ever want to get caught up. Plus that review is like 80% done anyway. I’ll likely leave it at that, but if I do get a burst of energy and some free time later in the week, maybe I’ll shoot for two updates this week. We’ll see how it all works out.
Amazing Mary Jane #1. J. Scott Campbell Cover. Signed!
As of right now, the State of Florida is not under official Lockdown, but they have closed most non-essential businesses and even restaurants are only allowed to provide take out. I only went out once yesterday, to get gas and help my brother with some stuff, and it seemed like there weren’t a lot of people about. I should make it through today without setting foot outside. Although, to be fair, that’s my idea of a perfect day off even without the raging Pandemic.
And that’s all I’ve got. Be safe everyone. Be smart. Be kind and respectful of each other. And I hope to catch you all at the end of the week!
There is nothing I wanted more than to drop in today with a Marvel Monday review, but life keeps getting in the way and there was simply no time this past week for me to prepare any content. It sucks, especially since this is my best source of therapy and I’m really missing it. It doesn’t help that my backlog of Marvel Legends is going from out of hand to just plain ridiculous.
And it’s not just Marvel Legends. I have NECA figures, Transformers, Hasbro’s new Overwatch Ultimates, Prize Figures and some Sixth Scale stuff all piling up just waiting to be opened and explored. My Toy Closet is back to the point where I can’t even walk into it anymore. And my den is surrounded by stacks of comics waiting to be matriculated into long boxes. I’d say it’s been all work and no play, but I did manage to eek out the time to see Avengers: Endgame, which was like a tiny miracle in itself. And I say that not just because the movie was great, but because I actually found the means and occasion to see it.
Anywho, my goal is to try to get a couple of reviews up this week, one of which will be the Marvel Legends review that would have gone up today if I had had the time to finish it. And by finish it, I mean actually open a figure, write the review, photograph it, do the editing and post it. I’ll try to get one up on Wednesday and another on Friday, but with my life the way it is, I can’t make any promises.
Yeah, I’m going to have to close up shop until at least the weekend.
What began nearly six months ago as some minor renovations has since turned into prime material for Builders From Hell. Back on the week of Thanksgiving, the property management here embarked on a well intentioned crusade to improve the property, which included total renovations to the outside and installing new windows. After a Week of Hell the new windows finally went in, but they left the inside of the new windows unfinished. THAT WAS FIVE MONTHS AGO!!!
They’ve only now come back to redo the frames and that meant I had to pack everything up in my studio, including a sizable piece of my collection to avoid any collateral damage. Most of the work is done, but they still have to come back and paint after the foundation dries. That’s either going to be tomorrow or Thursday. I’ve got enough stuff going on with an erratic work schedule this week (I’ll be pulling at least one overnight), so rather than stress over it, I’m taking the rest of the week off from creating new content.
Hopefully I’ll get everything back together on Saturday and I’ll be able to at least sneak a couple of this week’s planned Features in on the weekend and then get back to business as usual on Monday!
So, apparently this weekend while I was laying out and uploading the week’s features, I accidently scheduled today’s Batman piece for yesterday. So, if you didn’t bother checking here on Sunday, you’ve still got something new to read if you scroll down a bit. If you did stop by here Sunday, then you got a free trip to the future to read today’s feature a day early. The “Happy Monday” in the opening paragraph should have tipped you off. I blame this mishap on a combination of whatever virus it is that’s been dogging me for the last week and the copious amounts of alcohol I’m using to try to knock it out of me.
So tomorrow things should be back to normal. In the meantime, I’m taking a sick day to huddle under a comforter, do Nyquil shots, wipe snot on my cat, and spend some quality time with an old friend…
See ya later, Space Cowboys…
Who wants to check out some of the new Play Arts Kai Mass Effect figures?
Well, I sure did until photos of the final Shepard and Ashley figures hit the Interwebs. WOOF! The bodies look ok, but instead of going with in game likenesses, Square-Enix decided to go with transvestite Shepard and crack whore Ashley. We’re talking shockingly bad sculpting and paintwork. Garrus appears to be the only one that escaped the factories with his face intact, but then he was ugly to begin with. Zing! Of course, I’ve yet to mention there have also been some reports of unfortunate QC issues showing up on the initial production run. Thankfully, I was in time to cancel my pre-orders and I can always wait and see how Fem Shep and Tali turn out. In the meantime, I needed to look elsewhere for my Mass Effect figure fix.
And that brings us to Big Fish. Who? These are the guys that took over production and distribution of the more mass market orientated ME3 figures after the shit blew up between Bioware and DC Direct over delays in shipping. DC Direct finally got out the first wave under the Mass Effect 2 banner, before the whole show was handed over to Big Fish. But new name or not, these are still essentially DC Direct figures (only now released under the Mass Effect 3 banner), meaning that they’re aimed at a much more mainstream market than the larger and far more articulated Play Arts Kai figures. Now, personally, I’d rather have a less articulated figure with a decent looking portrait, but hey that’s just me. It didn’t hurt that I was able to get six of these figures (plus a Kotobukiya statue) shipped from our brothers in The Great White North for less than the cost of two of the Play Arts Kai figures. In fact, the only two I’m missing for a complete set are Legion and Garrus, and I have no qualms about hunting them down individually for a little more monies.
Usually, new weeks begin around here on Mondays, but with Thanksgiving and Black Friday ahead, I’m going to spend most of this week either crazy busy, crazy drunk, or asleep. There’s bound to be a few days this week, where I won’t have time to update, so I’m hoping that if I start today, I’ll still have a good chance of making it through all six figures before the end of the week.
So strap in, kiddies, and I’ll be back tomorrow to kick it off with the hero of the piece: Commander Shepard himself.
Technically, it’s been 4th Quarter for a month now, but November is when things start to get ugly. Yes, my job tends to put me through the ringer this time of year and when you add that to the fact that the Holidays have a way of draining me both emotionally and financially, it can sometimes have a negative impact on the doings here at FigureFan.
Last November, the FigureFan bus not only went on hiatus, it actually hit a speed bump, lost control, swerved off the road into a pile of babies, blowing up that pile of babies, and then sank into a flaming tar pit. This place came to a dead stop for the entire month of November and most of December. It was because my life was the Perfect Storm of stress and complication. Work was running me ragged, there were relationship issues, and the Holidays were seriously stressing me out. When I wasn’t at work or fighting with my psychotic ex, I was planted on a barstool somewhere drinking myself into oblivion and watching cat shows on Animal Planet. Folks, you know you’re spending too much time at a bar when you can ask them to turn the channel from Football to Animal Planet and they’ll do it for you.
Patron to my left: “Hey! I was watching that! What’s with the cats?”
Bartender: “Are you going to drink an entire bottle of Glenlivet? No? Well this guy is, so shut the hell up and watch the cats!”
I don’t think that’s likely to happen this year. I’ve made some positive adjustments in my life. I’m a lot higher up on the food chain at work and my ex has thankfully fled the state to locations unknown. Sure, I’m still bound to get preoccupied with work here and there, but I really plan on using this place as a safe harbor in the stress storm. I also plan on doing most of my medicinal drinking right here at FigureFan Central with FigureFeline so I can positively channel my drunken ramblings into content.
Ok, so with that behind me… let’s talk some toys…
November also means Marshalls and Ross set up their super clearance toy departments! Yes, these havens for budget clothing and home décor expand their usually pitiful offerings of clearance toys just in time for cheap well-intentioned grandparents to get their grandkids all of those toys that were on their Christmas lists… and by that I mean last year’s Christmas list. Last year, these stores were an absolute cornucopia of things that I needed to fill in my collection. Not only did I find almost every Reveal the Shield Transformer I needed, but I also got all the GI Joe 25th Anniversary vehicles and comic packs that I was missing. It was amazing!
Well, I dropped in to both stores on Friday and was pretty disappointed. Ross was just like Ross at any time of the year. It’s always hit or miss. The only thing they had of note was some of the 6-inch Thundercats. I blew out of there pretty quick hoping for better luck at Marshalls.
Last year, Marshalls was the better of the two. They had about six tables loaded with cast offs from the big box’s action figure aisles and the usually sparse shelves of their Toy Graveyard were now bursting. This year? Not so much. In fact, it wasn’t much better than Ross on a really good day. They only had a few extra tables set up and those were all devoted to Barbies and other dolls. The action figures consisted of a metric shit ton of Iron Man 2 figures, a bunch of Dark of the Moon Voyagers and Deluxes, and more Ban Dai Thundercats.
I was going to pick through some of the Iron Man 2 figures and get a couple of DotM Voyagers, but for some reason the lines were ridiculously long, even at 10:30a on a weekday. I decided that I’d poke around a little more, but unless there was something better, like something I absolutely needed, I would just come back another time and see if they put more out.
Yeah, I did find that one item that made me stand in the line, but I’ll get to toward the end of the week. This week’s features will be back to a state of glorious randomness. Look for some Star Trek, Transformers, Hot Toys, Doctor Who, Star Wars, and even some GI Joe. For now, I’m going to go brood over the fact that my three-day weekend is more than half over.
Several months ago, I started making Vintage Vault a regular scheduled update because, a) I was sorting through tubs and had a lot of my old stuff available, and b) There was absolutely nothing new coming in for me to look at. Well, it’s been a fun ride and it’s served its purpose, I’ve been through most of the M.A.S.K., Sectaurs, and AD&D stuff that I have in storage and now there’s a lot of new stuff coming in on a regular basis. Those of you who enjoyed it will be happy to know it’ll still be popping up from time to time, and I can always bring it back as a regular when I need it again. Those of you who didn’t give a shit will be happy to know I’m putting it back on the shelf.
I was actually going to try to get one more in today, but then the UPS guy dropped the Perfect Storm of stuff off on my stoop and I figured I should get started before I get buried.
And, yes… I will be back a little later on with some actual content.
So, I usually like to keep my commitments, but M.A.S.K. Monday is going to be pushed back to Wednesday this week due to some unforseen circumstances (ie. my camera blowing up). I was going to dig out my spare, but I’m getting called in to work to take care of some business. All this, just when I thought I got a new update schedule hammered out, but as they say, “it never rains, but it pours.”
I’ll still do my best to get three updates in this week.
Christ, I hate Mondays.
-FigureFan
FigureFan Zero 