ComicMix Radio: ‘Heroes’ Is Back!

Yes, Heroes is back… at least, in the toy and comic stores. Mezco Toyz is handling the no-brainer of bringing Claire, Hiro & the rest into the world of action figures. Who is coming and when? ComicMix Radio has got the scoop, plus:

— A trip to the coolest toy collection on the planet (and a desperate search for one particular item you might have) — Locke & Key scores a sellout for IDW — The X-Men Origins: Wolverine casts keeps expanding — Did you know Mr. T was cooler than Thomas Jefferson? — And, of course, another brand new trivia question and another chance to grab an exclusive Graham Crackers Comics variant by e-mailing us at: podcast [at] comicmix.com

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Transcript

Broadcast 167. ComicMix.com ComicMix Radio! 3, 2, 1. Did every toy you've ever wanted, bike, plane? Here's at your favorite toy store.

It's Toy Fair cleanup around here. Hi, it's Mike Raub on ComicMix Radio, and as I ship through my giant bag of swag here, I got a couple more tidbits to share, including what I think is the coolest toy place on Earth.

Wow, what a toy! Our trip there starts in just a couple of minutes on… February 23rd. 2008. ComicMix U! It's always good to see when an independent comic hits the high mark,

and it looks like the new issue of Locke & Key. In fact, it was issue number one that came out this week from IDW, has sold completely out and is heading back for a second printing. Locke & Key is the brainchild of suspense writer Joe Hill, and the second printing should be in stores.

Sometime in about the next couple of weeks, Locke & Key number two from IDW will also be out right around the first part of March. According to Variety, the cast of the Wolverine movie just keeps on growing, and new additions include Lost Star Dominic Monaghan, who's going to be playing Blackwing,

and actor Daniel Henney, who's playing Agent Zero. Of course, that movie's set to appear first of May in 2009. How do we ever miss this? An anticipation of the worldwide launch of a new Mr. T graphic novel coming later this year. The British publisher Handling the Deal, Mohawk Media,

has announced that they're celebrating with a limited advanced edition. This consists of only 4,000 copies, and it's now available from them. By the way, why the interest in Mr. T? Well, apparently, like Jerry Lewis to Japan, Mr. T is very big over in England.

A recent poll voted him the fourth greatest American. That's according to the BBC. It was on a list ahead of names like Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Marvel Comics is headed to court, and they're facing the Foo Fighters, that according to the Rolling Stone,

the band alleges that Marvel used substantial excerpts of their songs Best of You and Free Me in part of the trailer for the new animated Wolverine and the X-Men series. That trailer hit the internet back in February, and has since been pulled completely off of YouTube. The acclaimed independent comic series,

Proof is headed for a trade paperback collection, just to catch you up in case you've missed things so far. Proof follows Agent Ginger Brown when she's transferred to the FBI's top secret, Crypto Zoological Division, and immediately there, she runs into a murder mystery with an urban legend as its prime suspect.

It's been talked about in Entertainment Weekly, a lot of retailers say it's one of their best-selling independents, and now you can get the entire package. As proof volume one, the Goat Suckers series begins at 128 trade paperback, full color collection in stores coming up right around the first part of May.

Fox is getting back to work ordering shows like Bones House and Back to You into production, and they've also announced a few premieres on the way in very short order. That includes on March the 2nd, the premiere of Unhitched on March the 4th and the 6th, the new Vampire series we've heard a lot about, New Amsterdam premieres with a special sneak preview,

there's also the return of Jezebel James, another premiere that hits on the 14th of March on Fox and Hell's Kitchen returns on April the 1st of the network. Meanwhile, 24 returns to production for its seventh season, but will not premiere now until January 2009. Simpsons, American Dad, and Family Guy are also all back into production

for future episodes to be scheduled soon. John Landis, who you know from Animal House, the Blues Brothers, and Twilight Zone has been attached to direct the biopic about William Gaines, called Goulisha Yours, William N. Gaines. The screenplay involves the banding together of an anti-establishment group of artists and writers,

led by Bill Gaines along with Al Feldstein, and of course, they become EC Comics. More on this as production begins to get underway. USA Network is also getting back on the job with another season of Monk on the way from that network. Seventh season debuts in May, also coming in the spring and the summer from USA, are the new series to start our wife and in plain sight,

and of course new seasons of Psych, Per Notice, and Law & Order Criminal Intent. Bark this down because you're going to be hearing a lot about it in the months to come. PBS has announced the development of a new television series called On the Record, the soundtrack of our lives. It's an eight-hour series that tells a history of recorded music and its impact on pop culture.

It's hosted by George Martin, the guy who was the producer for The Beatles all those great years, and narrated by actor Kevin Spacey. The series features hundreds of artists from all sorts of different music genres, and it'll air in the prime time in the fall of 2010. Along with the series, PBS is going to include a number of different outlets,

including some interactive content at PBS.org, a corresponding CD box set and CD series, a 12-hour DVD home video series, books, a multi-genre global radio show, and online broadcasting throughout the world. You will hear a lot more about this. Hi everybody, this is your cousin Bruce here.

You know what you're listening to right now? Comic-fics. Comic-fics radio. Hey, it's Hanbro. Hanbro makes toys.

What's new, Hanbro? Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head with their own cars and trailers. That's what's new. It was fun seeing all the brand new toys, things that are out, and things that will be out in the months to come at Toy Fair.

But it was also great when we turned one corner and went right into an amazing display of some of the most classic toys in American history. Standing behind the booth was Chris Bench from the Strong National Museum of Play and curator of the National Toy Hall of Fame. So what could be in the Hall of Fame?

All the toys that you would think of, you can hardly open a kid's closet or look under their bed without finding these 38 toys or examples of them, from jigsaw puzzles, rocking horses, building blocks, alphabet blocks, erector sets, of course Barbie and GI Joe are there, Sower, Raggy-Ann and Andy, the Teddy Bear,

toys that all of us have grown up with and that endure despite trends and fads and changes along the way. If the collector's market is strong as it is and eBay, of course, in everybody's mind, getting additions for the museum has probably just gotten tougher. It's gotten more expensive for sure, but we are thrilled to have eBay bring us access to a world of toys. And we have more than 500,000 items in the museum in our overall collection.

So we have the world's biggest collection of toys, dolls and games and we're constantly adding both new examples and historical examples. Chris says that the wide range of years that are covered here is pretty bad. We have dolls that go back into the 18th century, so that's a little bit of years on them and they are as fashionable in their time as Barbie or Brad's dolls are today.

So some things don't change. Little girls want dolls that look up to date. I had to ask, is there anything they're really looking for, like a holy grail? There's plenty of holy grails out there. One of the ones I'm looking for is one from the 1970s called the Lemon Twist. It went around your ankle and was shaped like a lemon and you basically jumped over it as you swung that around.

There are varieties like that and some of those, I know, are lurking, maybe even mint in package in people's attics or basements. And I'm on the lookout to find that because we want to have that comprehensive collection of toys. So how do you get to the museum? We are www.museumofplay.org and we're in Rochester, New York, just 90 minutes from Niagara Falls. So come to upstate New York, see two wonders of the world in an easy trip

and you won't be able to tear your kids and family away. It looks like it's definite that we're a few months away from the return of Heroes to television, but you might be able to have a little bit of a break with Heroes Action Figures. Seems like a no-brainer for these characters to fit right into the Action Hero line and Mezco Toys is the company that's doing them. Damien from the Mezco Marketing Department was more than happy to walk us through what's going to be in all three waves of these characters.

Series 1 has Claire, Siler, Mohinder, Peter, and Hero. Series 2 is Noah Bennett, Matt Parkman, and