I just bought the Transformers Animated Bulkhead figure. I love the damned thing. It's my first Transformer purchase in 20 years and I love every plastic joint, wheel, and man boob. I miss the diecast metal pieces and metallic decals my old transfomers had. But Bulkhead won my heart with it's chunkiness and decent transformation complexity.

I'm embarrassed to say that I couldn't figure out how to transform the damned thing. My girlfriend had to give me a helping hand in figuring out the instructions (for shame!). But with some concentrated practice I can now transform from robot to truck and back to robot again in 0.127 seconds (don't ask for a youtube video).

While photographing Bulkhead, I realized I have a man crush on green and silver cyborg/robot type thingees. I gathered my favorites to create a green and silver toy posse led by Mini Gobi Original. But at the very moment I was considering the eventual world domination by green and silver objects of badassery... out came 2 vicious feline monstrosities to upstage their badassery.

Here's a rare glimpse at my "Divine Cabinet of Perfection". Seeing it with your own eyes is equal to things like King Tut's tomb or that fake Jesus towel. It's way better than that overrated "Body Works" exhibit of embalmed dead people.

While the majority of you have generic Ikea display cases made by Chinese robots, my display case was made 100s of years ago by skilled carpenters in the dry lands of India! Each panel of wood has the scars of hardship and Nature's scorn. It's the PERFECT cacoon for our figures (the GUTS of Muttpop).

While I wait to fill the remaining 2 shelves with more Muttpop perfection, I'm keeping those shelves busy with only the finest of Japanese Kaiju and some sentimental Western classics.

Jerry nearly sobbed of jealousy when he saw my cabinet. Photos can do it no justice... but alas there is no other way to capture it's beauty.

I loved, loved, loved these as a kid! I think the Kinnikuman figures is one of the greatest collections of characters ever. The Kinnikuman creators made characters of all facets of the imagination. There was NOTHING that they could not make into a wrestler. Character inspirations ranged from Deities to household appliances. And they all were brought to realization with the greatest of enthusiasm.

Even though the Kinnikuman universe was established in Japan through the comic and cartoon series, as a Westerner I was introduced through Bandai's M.U.S.C.L.E.S toy line. I had no clue to the characters histories. But I LOVED how they looked and felt they were the perfect size to put in a pants pocket for later play.

This toy line was my inspiration for convincing Jerry, Bill, and Gobi to do a Designer Toy Line with the Lucha Libre universe. It is also a long term goal of mine to do Lucha Libre figures in the same scale, style, and material as the M.U.S.C.L.E.S figures (right on down to that wonderful pale pink rubber!).

Here's a really nice website archive about Kinnikuman. Not all the links work but the ones that do are very comprehensive. Check it out:

AMERICAN KINNIKUMAN INFORMATION ARCHIVE

Costume designs for the Stephen Sommers directed G.I.Joe movie have been released over the last few weeks. So far, so good! Scarlett and Snake Eyes look amazing. The all black on Scarlett has a bit of an Anime vibe... but I like the understated design.
Sommers isn't known for quality films, but he's sure to bring a lot of explodo. If the rest of the characters look this sharp, I'll want to check out the film. I wonder how they'll pull off Destro? Non-expressive metal mask or metal-painted skin? Which Cobra Commander design will they use? ...I forgot how many great designs existed in the 80s G.I.Joe line!
As usual, thanks to the ToysREvil Blog for the wonderful coverage!

DJ Shadow, Cut Chemist, Vinyl, and Robots. What can be cooler than that?

I LOVED the Hard Sell Show @ The Hollywood Bowl... so I'm super excited to find out that the fine folks at Bigshot Toyworks have grabbed the license to do a vinyl toy version of the Juke-Bot.

ToysREvil did an expert job of investigating and revealling all currently known information about the Juke-Bot. For more pics of the Juke-Bot from ToysREvil, CLICK HERE.

As a fan of Ashley Wood's fine art and comics (remember my Automatic Kafka post?), I'm pretty excited about the beautiful Bertie combat bot that he's doing with Klim at Bigshot Toyworks. It's truly a work of art... and it'll be priced as one. Rumor has it this piece will be selling for somewhere between $200-$300.

Generally toys of that price are out of my price range. I'll have to make an exception with this one!

MORE UPDATES CAN BE SEEN ON ASHLEY WOOD'S BLOG (CLICK HERE).

By the way, my favorite McFarlane figure is the Hellspawn figure based on Ashley Wood's cover (the original Mandarin Spawn is a close second!).