The Point – February 20th, 2009

It’s our Official Toy Fair 2009 debriefing with some of the finest action figures we’ve seen yet including Strangers in Paradise, Dick Tracy and even The Wolfman. And by the way, someone out there forgot to buy their comics in January and the numbers showed it. Even the President couldn’t stimulate this, And be sure to stay on The Point via or RSS!

Transcript

Hello, it's Mike Raub. Welcome to The Point where all parts of pop culture come together. Clear off your shelf. We're back from Toy Fair 2009 and we got some goodies to share. My goal is to mince about the loss of another actor and alright, which one of you forgot to pick up your comics in January? Well, the numbers proved it. It's Friday, February 20th, 2009 and we get to The Point right now.

This is The Point, The Point radio, get The Point radio. When I turned around, my marvelous toy came chugging from behind. It went simp when it moved, bop when it stopped, when it stood still. I never knew just what it was and I guess I never will. It was Toy Fair 2009 and we saw it all. Stuff that bounced toys you could throw, even toys you could eat. But we went for the action figures. After all, that's where all the pop culture people usually end up.

And we still have a little room on our shelves. How about you? First stop was Mezco Toys, where we hooked up with our old buddy Mike Drake. Now in the past, Mezco has done toy lines based on the Heroes TV show and the Spirit movie, but their strongest line has been a group of Hellboy toys and that is not about to change. Oh, you wouldn't believe it. Well, you know, we have 18-inch Hellboy, which people have loved. Now, 18-inch Abe, because you know, Hellboy needs somebody to hang out with.

So, 18-inch Abe is the natural progression there. And then continuing with the Hellboy line, we have something called the BPRD Buddies, which is the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense, but they're little kid-friendly Hellboys. So, kind of like Smurf size, but Hellboy, Hell never looks so cute. And then the Hell Rods, which is kind of like a Wolvertoon or a big Daddy Ed Roth style vehicle. And so it's Hellboy driving the garbage truck as, you know, that's the way he's transported around in the two movies.

So, we're very excited about what's coming out for Hellboy. As I looked around Mezco's booth, I noticed a spectacular new set of figures dedicated to the character from Universal's classic Wolfman movies. And all I could say was, wow. Oh, I'm glad you think so. We're very excited about the Wolfman as well. And we're doing two sizes of Wolfman. We have a 12-inch Wolfman and a 7-inch Wolfman. The 12-inch has an actual cloth shirt,

and he'll be featuring an open mouth or a closed mouth. And then we'll have a bloody or non-bloody shirt variant. And with the 7-inch Wolfman, we'll have a sculpted shirt. But again, the open mouth, closed mouth, and bloody and non-bloody. Down the aisle over at Shocker Toys, I was treated to the newest additions to their indie spotlight line. Now, these are 6-inch figures based on popular comics that might not be strong enough to carry a whole line of toys on their own. But there's some real favorites there. And Jeff Beckett, CEO of Shocker, gave us the latest rundown.

Basically, we have our Series 1 out, which is Kachoo from Strangers in Paradise, David Maskabuki. We have Jim Valentino's Shadowhawk. We also have the Max. And we have Skud, the disposable assassin. They do come with variants. The Skud comes with the sole version robot. And then we have the new costume version of Shadowhawk. One of the coolest figures I noticed here was Dick Tracy. And trust me on this, it's not another Warren Beatty toy. Yes, we have Dick Tracy, which is in our Series 2. We also have the Phantom, which will be in our Series 3.

And we're bringing back Captain Action. Yep. Captain Action is a 6-inch toy. How cool is that? Yeah, Captain Action and 6-inch will be packed in with Dr. Evil. Each series on its own has a mega figure, which is a little bigger. And what we do is you get a little bit of everything for the wave. You don't have to build the whole actual figurine itself.

It comes packaged on its own. So it's more like a mega. And the series is based on that mega figure that you have. So the Max, that's what it is. It's called the Max series. You get an is with everybody, even though Skud was a part of the Max world. He still comes with an is. So when you collect everything, the whole series, you get to build a little is army to battle the Max. And you also, if you clip out the UPCs and mail those in, you get a free mail away figure with only shipping. This is the only thing that's charged. And you get a mail away for Mr. Gone for the Max. And it's Arthur for the Tick series.

Okay, I know what you're saying. When can I get these? Series 1 is shipping in March. Our New York Comic Con exclusives, which was a smoky translucent Max and a smoky translucent Skud, will be shipping March 2nd. The whole of Indie Spotlight will be shipping in March. And then stores will be getting Indie Spotlight Series 1 in April. And then Series 2 will be closer to July. And we're looking at having a Dick Tracy black and white exclusive action figure for San Diego Comic Con. So maybe now you're looking for something a little more high end, like a new limited edition bust for your bookshelf.

Well, we found some great new ones of these that are on the way. And we're going to unveil the good stuff right here on Monday. It's Friday, January 20th, 2009. Here's what we're talking about in pop culture this weekend. Just like everything else, comic sales took a little bit of a dip in January 2009. There's about a 9% difference when you compare them to where they were in January of 2008. Probably would have been a lot worse if it wasn't for that wacky, amazing Spider-Man President Obama crossover that did fairly tremendously this past month. When you look at the top 20, DC did a fairly decent showing this time. In fact, probably better than they have in a long time.

The actual top 10, though, starts out at number 10 with Buffy the Vampire Slayer number 21 from Dark Horse. At number 9, Justice League of America number 29, part of the Faces of Evil tie-ins. At number 8, Astonishing X-Men number 28 from Marvel. Number 7, Batman 685, part of the Faces of Evil and again, part of Batman RIP. At number 6, Captain America number 46, number 5, New Avengers number 49, which was a Dark Reign tie-in.

At number 4, Final Crisis number 7. At number 3, Final Crisis number 6 from DC. At number 2, from Dark Reign again, Dark Avengers number 1, pretty much the beginning of that storyline. At number 1, Amazing Spider-Man number 583, all the different printings of that combined to make it number 1. And of course, the tie-in with President Obama. Top 10 graphic novels for the month started at number 10 with the Criminal Trade Paperback volume 4, Bad Night.

Joker, hardcover from DC, still in the top 10 at number 9. Batman, The Man Who Laughs, Trade Paperback again at number 8. Star Wars, Vector, Trade Paperback volume 1, chapters 1 and 2 from Dark Horse at number 7. The House of Mystery, Trade Paperback number 1 is at number 6 from DC Vertigo. Number 5, The Justice, Trade Paperback number 3 also from DC. Number 4, Ultimate Spider-Man number 21.

At number 3, Secret Invasion, the Trade Paperback at number 2, The Watchman, Trade Paperback big surprise there. At number 1, well kind of interesting, The Walking Dead, Trade Paperback volume 9, here we remain. DC is launching a new program called After Watchmen, What's Next? The basic idea is that once people see the Watchmen movie, a lot may discover comic stores for the first time or rediscover them for a new part of their life.

And there will be a whole run of titles to offer these people special one-dollar editions of some of the better books DC has published over the years. That includes Saga of Swamp Thing number 21 by Alan Moore, Transmetropolitan number 1 by Warren Ellis, Planetary number 1 by Warren Ellis, Preacher number 1 by Garth Ennis and Identity Crisis number 1 as well. These special edition reprints will all be priced at one dollar and be in stores around the middle of March.

Comic-Con International has announced the nominations for the Hall of Fame category in the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards. Some of those nominations include great names in the past like Mad Baker, Reed Crandall, Russ Heath, Jerry Iger, Bill Blackbeard and so many others. If you are a professional, meaning a writer, artist, cartoonist, colorist or letterer, a publisher, an editor or a comic store owner or manager, you can go right now for these at eyesnervote.com and of course they'll be announced later on pretty close to Comic-Con. If you're someone who downloads the things from the internet, say movies, TV shows or whatever,

you might be interested to know that the bigger the site you probably use, Pirate Bay is in court in Stockholm, Sweden this week. Being sued by a number of people including MGM, Warner Brothers, Columbia Pictures, 20th Century Fox, Sony and a lot more, they're trying to shut it down and get some 14.3 million dollars in compensation. Right out of the bat though, the trial took an interesting turn. Prosecutors were forced to drop half of the charges against the site because it turns out they're not necessarily copying these materials but just offering them up there.

The trial continues. We'll let you know where things go from here. And despite the fact we're trying to deny it, it's coming. The final episode of Battlestar Galactica not that far away and it will be three hours long. Here's the deal. The Sci-Fi channel will do the first hour on March 13th at 10 o'clock in the normal time slot. And then there'll be a two-parter to wind everything up on March the 20th.

If you'd like to though to wait to see it all together and if you've really got the guts to do that, you can skip the 13th and see all three episodes together on the 20th when they run a repeat of the March 13th episode right before the finale. The Boys. Baby. I don't know what they have to say. It makes no difference anyway. Whatever it is, I'm against it. The man of all it is or who commands it, I'm against it.

Weird scenes inside the gold mine. This is your own virtual future. You can't see us having a good fight at it. This is not a funny story but it's weird enough to be funny. Here we come. Walk down the street. Get the funniest looks from everyone we meet.

I'm sure you heard it but you probably missed some of the details. Last week a woman who was visiting her friend got mauled by her friend's 200-pound chimp. Like I said, that's not funny. As of this writing, she's in critical condition with her face mostly ripped off. But here's the detail. The chimp was a retired actor having worked in Old Navy, Coca-Cola and other commercials. He had a nervous condition and may have been on mood controlling medicine at the time.

He was suffering from Lyme disease. He also had a permit. Yep, in Connecticut you can get a permit to own a chimpanzee. I'm hardly a zoologist but that seems a bit incredibly stupid. They'll probably change that soon but damn, for a few bucks you too can lawfully possess a potentially lethal animal. Right here in the nutmeg state.

This didn't come as a surprise to me. When I was a kid, a chimp named Jay Fred Muggs was actually co-hosting the Today Show. The way things are going, if the Connecticut chimp didn't get killed by both police and his owner, this guy'd probably be in the starting lineup for the New York Yankees.

This is Weird Scenes Inside the Gold Mind. I'm Mike Gold, on the one. The point, the point, the point, time machine. It's Friday, February 20th, alright, let's take a trip back. Just don't hit your head on the mirror ball. 1975. Congress and President Ford were at odds over the President's proposed energy conservation bill.

Communist-led South Vietnamese forces shelled population centers, including the headquarters of the brand new peacekeeping force in Vietnam. And Henry Kissinger briefed Congress on his progress in the Middle East peace talks. Top ticket in the movies this week was The Godfather Part II, but you had a lot of other stuff to choose from as well, including a re-release of Sound of Music. There was young Frankenstein from Mel Brooks, the towering inferno, Murder on the Orient Express.

Disney gave us the strongest man in the world, and there was Woody Allen's Take the Money and Run. There was a G-rated night on TV that began with Hollywood Squares and slipped into another episode of the Waltons. Later on, there was Barney Miller, Archer, and we capped it off with Karl Malden in the streets of San Francisco. Time Machine! On the radio, once she was with Pickety Witch and Sweet Dreams, now on her own, it's Polly Brown and up in a puff of smoke.

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