Remember the e-mail I got a few days ago, warning me not to post pictures of the painted Universe figures in the coming magazine? Surely you remember - it was the e-mail with the atrocious grammatical and formatting errors, and the nasty and insulting tone. Well, the magazine came, and I'll be damned if the article with the photos didn't live up the expectations I took from the e-mail. The text for the article includes no information of relevance, particularly since we've seen the prototypes, and more specific release information, already from Hasbro, and it manages to sound like it was written by a thirteen-year-old. Sure, it's a petty complaint, but after they sent every paying member of the club an e-mail like the one linked above, these folks are now on my 'vaguely asshole-ish' list.
I assumed, looking at Hasbro's pictures, that the figures would look nicer in the prototype grey than in final colors, since the former allows so much more detail to show in flat photos. And yes, that pretty much held true; the color-schemes are all pretty nice, but they do obscure a lot of detail, especially on Prowl and Tankor. In fact, while I said before that Prowl was my favorite of the line, I'd have said the opposite if I saw these pictures first.
But oh my lord, they didn't even bother to transform them correctly, or to pose them at all! Only Sunstreaker and Onslaught look at all decent; Prowl looks like he's dislocated his shoulders, Tankor looks like a deer in headlights, and they didn't even connect Powerglide's damn wings to his chest! Looking even closer at the photos, even Sunstreaker's vehicle mode isn't right - they didn't bother to match up the panels correctly. The whole point of doing this line is to make versions of these old characters that take advantage of all the advances in tech since the 80's: ball joints, better plastics, better paints, the works! These figures, if they're anything like the first series of Classics, are capable of all sorts of dynamic poses, and they give us this? I'll grant that maybe some person at Hasbro did all this, and just sent on the images to Master Collector. But if I were in MC's shoes, and had made this exclusive info such a selling point, I'd have sent these shitty photos back and asked for better images, because these stink.
That's not just idle bitching, by the way. In my old life, I did that very thing with Irwin Toy and JAKKS Pacific from time to time, and I was just some guy. Sometimes they listened to me, sometimes they didn't, but most of the time they came back to me with better images of the products I was promoting for them for free.
Also, looking back at the images from the Hasbro post, they are posed really, really well. Tankor, in particular, is depicted in this wonderfully dynamic way. These pictures can't have been done by the same people.
I'll grant you that this is a dumb thing to get worked up about. And I'm not worked up about it, I'm just griping a little bit. Apparently, that's my right as a member of this fandom. But between the hamster cage liner that I throw straight into the recycle bin every month, and the really lackluster effort this kind of thing shows, you've got to wonder what the hell is going on at Master Collector. They surely can't think that the majority of their fan club members are kids, not at the prices they charge for membership, exclusives, and (to steal another phrase from Nala) the Gay Robot Convention.
No, by the way, I'm not going to post the images. I'm sure someone has, but since I paid for my bi-monthly 16-page magazine, I don't have to search the internet to find them for you. Go look at the Hasbro images, they're better anyway.
Michael | February 5, 2008 12:38 PM
I couldn't have said it better myself, and I was going to try (as soon as I had some free time). I get the impression that Master Collector is run by a small group of people who are somehow related to Hasbro employees. "He's my cousin, and he needs a job since the Kwik-E-Mart burned down, could you maybe let him send pointless emails to paying subscribers?" If you're going to send me political emails or vague threats, at least use a grammar check first.
Michael
michaelandchrissy.com
Nala | February 5, 2008 5:29 PM
Yeah. Agreed. But of course, you probably knew that already.
Michael: I don't think there's any familial relationships. Just business. They also do DollCon (The GIJoe convention) so I think it is more or less just not having to deal with more than one vendor.
But I also think if Hasbro removed those 2 licenses, FP wouldn't last more than a few weeks as a company. It seems, like most niche collectible businesses, they totally live by the collective hold they have on the niche collectors.
And while I try (very hard I might add) to really not fan boy bitch about toys that are for children, is it me or is Onslaught's paint deco just so totally busy that he loses the awesomeness he has in plain grey most of all of this wave?
Nala | February 5, 2008 5:32 PM
Oh. And the Gay Robot Convention isn't remotely mine. I ganked it off Hooper X a couple of years back.
There was just something in the name that appealed to me... basically Adults + Toy Collecting = Pretty Damn Gay.
Then again, I've had a few emails from people complaining about my use of the word. And Ghey Robot Convention, while actually the proper way to spell it, just loses something in the translation.