Remember those dreary, melancholy days back when Energon Sharkticon had never been redecoed? What a desolate world that was. Because God does love us, even if He's slow about it, this void has been finally been filled, and we've certainly made up for lost time.
Who're the greatest sharks around?
Sky-Byte is definitely one of the best BotCon exclusives ever produced. He's just sharp and beautiful and perfect and covered in paint applications. And I'm so so happy that he exists because the original Sky-Byte toy was pretty terrible. So terrible I sold it along with the rest of my RID stuff back in the day, even though Sky-Byte is a great character. Sometimes a great character can overwhelm a bad mold, but it didn't in that case. Meanwhile, the Energon Sharkticon mold is everything the Transmetals II Cybershark mold is not, so I finally have a great toy to match the great character.
I'm also amazed at how well the other new use of the mold, the Sharkticon 3-pack, succeed at being G1 Sharkticons. The G1 Sharkticons were dumpy and round, while their new toys certainly are not! But with the right paint, it really works. Like the Sweeps last year, each of the three gets their own tech spec card. There's Land Shark, Air Shark, and... Sea Shark. Whose bio notes that he was "given the sea upgrade." Ahahahaha.
For when he wants to sound like Professor Hamilton instead of Papa Smurf.
A few years ago, the original Ratchet toy was redecoed as his live-action film counterpart in Japan. Man, I totally had to have that! That's just friggin' awesome. Y'know, in a kind of "ha ha" way. But it was a limited exclusive that was an incentive to buy a Transformers art book. I wouldn't have minded getting that art book, but it was a pretty costly art book! $120 or so, I think, for the toy and the book? That's a lot to put down on a hilarious Ratchet redeco.
And so I passed. Quickly, you could buy the toy separately, but for about $80. That was 2008. In 2009, the price dropped to about $55. Clearly I should wait. The green Ratchets were going no where.
At BotCon 2010, I managed to pick one up for $25. Score!
His name is Ratchet Emergency Green. Since I got home, I've had him hang out with the Encore Ratchet reissue that my pal Cholma got me last year. The green one keeps an eye on the white one to make sure he doesn't sacrifice himself again. You can only do that so many times!
Today I noticed that my Big Bad Toy Store preorder on the Cobra Resolute seven-pack went through. Well, crap, I still have the remainders from last year's batch of seven-packs sitting on the floor downstairs waiting to be auctioned off! Well, let's get that finally done with.
I took six of the original fourteen figures out of the two sets to keep. I'm offering the remaining eight figures. Auction ends in three days! Happy bidding!
I mentioned Tuesday that the Mike statue is getting ready to ship. (You can still order one, apparently!) Like for Amber, I've designed Mike a sticker to be put on the face of his box. This is it!
Click the image and see it.
Man, I can't wait to get mine in my hands! My Mike statue. "Get mine in my hands" sounds kind of, uh, questionable out of context. Even in context, a little!
Next up is gonna be Robin. Gonna have to draw up some sketches.
So this is Drift, the character everybody loves to hate. He used to be a Decepticon, but then he fell in with a mysterious third faction of Transformers that taught him how to be zen, and now he's joined the Autobots so he can tell them how much better he is than they are! And he has three swords. One of them he only uses in the most dire of circumstances, which is all the time.
On that sword, it says that he's better than you.
(I'm serious. "Peerless under heaven" is written in Japanese across the blade.)
So, yeah, for some reason people hate Drift. But people somehow hate him with an intensity greater than his suckage, and it's not like he ever really did anything beyond being given a hilariously overwrought backstory, so it's hard to hate him too much.
And his toy is fucking awesome.
I'm serious! The toy somehow manages to come with all three swords and allow them to store. He's got the two smaller blades tucked into scabbards on his hips. The third, "special" sword stores on his back. And, sure, he's got three swords, big whoop, but he's also got enough articulation to use them. He can grip the special sword with both hands! I don't think I can begin to list all the points of articulation on his arms and in his shoulders. He's one of the few Transformers that can almost cross his arms over his chest.
He's a drift racer! Get it?
His leg articulation is a little less awesome. It needs better (meaning any) heel articulation, but is otherwise pretty good. I forgive this because the way his lower legs transform is nifty. I don't know how to even begin describing the process. I guess the car parts sorta rotate separately from the upper robot shin parts, while the feet and ankles sort of fold up and around and...
I also like how neatly and easily it is to fold his arms up into the underside of the hood. In some Transformers, this is an ordeal, especially the ones like Drift who have wheels somewhere on their arms. With him, it's pretty straight-forward. Just fold them up into the shoulders, easy-cheesy.
Why must we fight? We are not enemies!
Now, some genuine problems. First of all, he clips together really well in car mode. So well that it's a little scary trying to pull him back apart. When I say "clips together," I mean it. In some spots he doesn't just peg together. At the front and at the back, there are some legitimate irregular-shape in irregular-slot deals. You basically have to pull them apart with excessive force because there's no room at that stage to slide one side out of the other.
Oh, and one of my shorter-swords was missing the pin that goes through the hinge between the blade and the hilt. I cut a tiny bit off of a rubber-coated paper clip (so it was thick enough) and shoved that in there. Seems to be fine now, but still kinda annoying.
Maggie saw him on the coffee table this evening and said he was beautiful. Then I told her his backstory and she changed her mind. Can't wait for that Drift comic book miniseries this fall!
Blanklabelcomics.com just got a major facelift. (Yeah, that's why the forums have been down for the past few days. We're movin' stuff around!) Totally check out the new site. It's a little bare right now, but beautiful, and it will be crammed full of things (not unlike your mom) in no time.
All three of us will be at San Diego Comic-Con in a week, of course, at the usual spot. Look for the sea of orange!
I'm back from ConnectiCon, and, by golly, I had a blast. And so did Maggie! The ConnectiCon folks are awesome people who will bring you donuts and will find you five dollar bills when you run out. They also play a mean game of Paper Telephone.
Also, I learned that ConnectiCon attendees rightfully believe that Beast Wars, even Cheetor, was totally awesome.
I will miss the Hartford Marriot's sultry elevator voice.
