So it looks like Mattel might have figured it out.....

     Well, my Star Sisters figures arrived to start off my first Sub with Mattycollector.  Needless to say it was a huge ordeal.  They cancelled my sub, kept trying to charge a card that was not on file with them anymore, and told me it was all my fault when I finally got someone to contact me.   As some of you will remember, they asked us to register on the mattycollector forum an then PM EvilSkeletor about our issues.  I did that, got one response from him, and never heard back from him again.  After sending another PM with no reply I called Digital River back and was finally able to get them to understand my problem.  And yes, they did try to get off the phone with me before settling my issues but I just kept telling the person on the other end to hold on a second.  Well that worked.  At least I believe so.  I have been charged for my Feb figures but I have yet to get confirmation on them shipping.  Lets see,  they said a 3 day delay and that was all.  Well If I am not mistaken its been 3 days.  I will be shocked if they ship this week at all.

     Oh, and to all you haters, the Star Sisters figures are not that bad at all.  And my 5 year old daughter loves them.

     Well until next time....

P.S.  Please fill out the poll at the bottom of the page.

The Star Sisters and What the Crap Mattel?

Well, a week has gone by and no call from Mattel on the why all this Sub Cancellation stuff is about.  But, I did receive the Star Sisters in the Mail this week and my Daughter loves them.  All I can say to Mattel on this one is "What the Crap?"  Don't send me multiple emails about my sub getting cancelled and then send me the figures.  Do I have a sub?  Will I get Shadow Weaver and the others next month?  WHAT THE CRAP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anyway, just wanted to give a little update.  BTW, Found this pic online and thought it was pretty awesome.

MattyCollector.com and how not to do business.

A few years back Masters of the Universe Figures returned to the Market as an online exclusive at Mattel's web site mattycollector.com.  I was collecting very strongly the current GI Joe figures on the market and didn't choose at the time to split my finances between two different lines.  Well starting last year my daughter discovered He-Man and She-Ra on Netflix instant download and view and I went ahead and started getting some of the Figures.  At first only collecting the main characters that I had or that appeared on the show when I was a kid.  One of my best friends had been collecting the line since it appeared and loved the figures despite repeatably messing up his orders and bad customer Service or Bad Quality Control.  Well this year I decided to go ahead and get the subscription and therefore get every figure that came out this year.  A huge commitment as you are committed to about $550 bucks and at the time you sign up you have no idea what figures are coming out.   First week of January comes around and the credit card I have on file gets changed from a mastercard to a Visa.  No problem, I contact Mattel and they send me a link to change my info.  I change it that day.  2 1/2 weeks later I receive an email saying card problems.  As I received it on a Sunday I way until Monday to call.  I log onto my Computer this morning to get the phone number and notice a new email saying that my Subscription has been cancelled. I call about it and the customer (NO) service rep tells me that they are very sorry and that my account is in review and I will be contacted in 1, 2, or 72 hours.  Since I was not contacted in 1 or 2 hours I can only think that it will be 3 days before they get back to me.  In the meantime, after reading about everyone else problems, one of which had to go through this every single month last year because they could not figure out he had changed his card number first thing in the year, I am about convinced to just let them cancel my Sub.  Although I want the exclusive figure that you can only get with it,  I am sure that I will have several figures this year that I just don't really want and would be selling on FEEBAY anyways.   Mattel, it is really not very hard to take a customers money and give them a good product.  It comes out of a will to do a good job and hiring people that are actually happy to do there jobs.  I can only think that Mattel must be a pretty sad place to work because happy workers do good work.  And that includes putting together an ordering system that helps customers have a good experience with a purchase.

Joelanta 2012

Joelanta 2012 is coming this March 18th to Atlanta.  This will be my 8th show and I can not personally wait.  Larry Hama is Going to be there.  You might remember him as the creator of almost every original Gi Joe Character from the 1980's.  Plenty of Dealers, Dioramas, and fun to be had.   And the best part is all the proceeds go to a great cause so you all need to come out and have some fun.   I will post some pictures from previous shows over the next few weeks.   www.joelanta.com 

Army of the Red Shadows

 For a few years now the Red Shadows and the whole Action Force series of figures has interested me. As I got closer to finishing my Collection of the essential GI Joe Figures I started branching out and picking up a few of the exclusive figures from other Countries.   I have acquired a small number of them over the years now.  The whole idea of another branch of GI Joe peaked my interest but a group that predated Cobra really interested me.  When the BLACK MAJOR started selling his custom figures on ebay I grabbed several of the Red Shadow ones to build a small army.  The the GIJOE Collectors Club did a set for one of the National Conventions and that gave be a nice sized army.   About a year ago I came across a link on www.bloodforthebaron.com and to order some custom Red Shadow Heads.  Well they came in today and I think they look pretty good.  I had him make them with a Matte Finish as I thought that would blend in a bit better.  As you can tell they are not 100% the same color but close enough that you would never tell when your army is sitting on a shelf.  I ordered the Skull stickers from www.cobrastickers.com and once again they provided extremely high quality stickers at a great price.  Maybe one day soon I will pull out all my Red Shadow figures to show my ever growing army.  Hope you enjoy.

Joe, Smiley, Mindbender, and Cobra Commander Return in March for Joelanta 2012

Cobra Commander and Friends pulled out of Storage... It could only mean one thing. That's right, the third Joelanta Short film has begun filming...

Are you ready? Am I ? Will the Daleks return to Exterminate us all? All will be answered at Joelanta 2012. 

“It's gonna be legend-... wait for it... and I hope you're not lactose intolerant because the second half of that word is DAIRY!”

A Very Masters of the Universe Christmas

Battleground Teela

Keldor

A Custom Man-at Arms

Moss Man

She-Ra and Swift Wind

Underneath the Christmas Tree this year was a number of the MOTUC figures for my Daughter.  Of Course Swift-Wind and Bubble Power She-Ra were her Favorites.  Santa was able to find here a Man at Arms Head to put on one of the Palace Guards.  And I have been informed by her that Battleground Teela is a new version of She-Ra also.  Santa was kind enough to set up most of them underneath the tree so that she saw them when she woke up Christmas morning.

My Next Diorama: A Mountain Scene for my Daughters She-Ra Figures.

I finally got a chance to take a look at the size of the Eternia Diorama base that I want to make for my Daughter and myself.  I want her to have a dedicated place to play with all her He-Man and She-ra figures as well as I have for doing photo shots of different figures.  I figured that a nice mountain layout would work great as it will give me a lot of cool angles.  I will continue to post pictures up of how it goes.  I will try to be as detailed as possible so that this can be used as a tutorial of how to do one of these dioramas.  I am putting together my list of needed materials and will list everything up that is needed in a couple days. I do know that a couple cheap Christmas Reefs will be needed as that will create some great ground cover.  Probably have to spray paint this thing first.  Large and white is hard to cover, not to mention very expensive.  I usually just figure out what my base is going to be and spray paint it Brown.  Then any ground covering over that is easy as it doesn't completely cover it just looks like exposed dirt.  I'll update as I go.

Battle Cat

Just messing around with the settings on my Nikon SB-700 flash I got for my birthday earlier this year.  Was watching some youtube lessons on how to adjust the settings and figured might as well try it out.  Shot with a Nikon D5000 using the Nikon 40mm Macro lens.  I plan on doing a review of the lens at some point.

Marvel Universe Apocalypse

About 5 years or so ago all I ever collected was the 3 3/4" GI Joe figures.  Then I noticed the 3rd or so wave of Marvel Legends Figures and started considering branching out into some other figures to collect.  I picked up a few here and there, mainly X-Men related figures as that was the most relevant Comic book that I have collected off and on over the years.  When the line moved over to Hasbro I pretty much got out of the line as the quality suffered a lot.  Ironically Hasbro is the Joe brand and that line was having Quality Control problems around then also.  So when The Marvel Universe Figures came out I was skeptical.  That and I had started leaning away from the New Articulation that was also on the GI Joe line.  But I picked up a few and have been collecting choice figures since.  Apocalypse is a pretty nice figure.  Using parts that I believe were also used for Hulk or Juggernaut, this figure stands taller then most in the line.  He has a lot of the movement of other figures in the line.  Even with his shoulder pads and the tubing coming out of his back, his articulation does not seem to be hampered by it at all.  Given his power to enlarge his size in the comics, I wish I had gotten the Marvel Legends  versions as I would be able to display him in more scenes.  I was not really a fan of Apocalypse back in the day but have learned to appreciate him over the years as I have started on and off again reading the comics.  In a line that seems to have more duds then winning figures, this one stands out.  The paint job is great.  Subtle shading is done very well.  Of the whole figure, I think the head is the only part that stands out as being painted a bit flat.  Overall I give this figure an 8/10.