Kill, crush, DESTROY

Hi Guys,

Another quick update but this time I will attempt to answer some of the questions from the comments sections:

“What's happened to Onslaught?”

Still on the backburners, we’ve not finalised the number or type of specials for next year but he’ll be on the shortlist. He’s one of my favourite candidates.

“Please please, PLEEEEASE, let the X-Fans know in your next post if you will be or won't be doing the Pyro and Avalanche double pack and the Blob special so we can finally get a rest and move on to other topics!”

Not the news you want to hear but as above (for Onslaught) we’ve not sorted out next year’s specials but once again Blob is one of the characters I don’t think we’ll be able to leave out. As for Pyro and Avalanche – well I know there’s been a lot of support for double packs but we’re still waiting to see just how we can put them together and how frequently we can offer them. At the moment Pyro is on the regular running order but that doesn’t mean he can’t be pulled out and made into a special with Avalanche. The only thing to remember is that double-packs would take the place of other specials making it hard to fit all the oversized characters in.

“Why oh why keep the centre spread, and axe 4 pages of info?”

Initially we decided to keep all features of the magazine intact so that it retained everything it previously had. We also slightly tweaked the format of the History section from 4 columns of text to 3, which actually gives more room for text. Plus we’ve cut down on sidebars unrelated to the character. This means that we didn’t really lose two-pages of history (text) but more like one. However, I must concede that we’re thinking of mixing things up a little and perhaps for characters that deserve more history, we’ll lose the middle pages instead. But I can’t say which (if any) characters this will be for just yet.

Anyway, just wanted to let you know I am listening to feedback.

“Cloak/Dagger 1 base or 2?”

We’ve gone for one base and I hope to have preview shots very soon.

“Any chance of a sneak peak of Destroyer or Cloak and Dagger in the next update?”

Yep checkout the below image and leave your feedback in the comments section.



Have a good weekend.

The times they are a changin...

Hi guys,

Time for another figurine update but before we get to that I have some news regarding the magazine.

As I’m sure everyone is aware, the current economic climate is forcing all businesses to re-evaluate their strategies and products, from car manufacturers to newspaper and magazine publishers. Here at Eaglemoss we’ve been affected by the downturn as much as anyone else and the fall in the UK’s currency has led to a much higher increase in production costs, especially for our figurines. In order to keep to our commitment of providing a quality Marvel figurine and magazine without putting the price above £5.99 (per issue) we’ve deemed it necessary to reduce the page count from 20 to 16 pages.

The new page count will take affect from Issue 101 (War Machine) and will involve a reduction of pages from across the magazine to allow us to keep all the standard features.

As the editor of the collection, I want to assure you that the figurine quality will not be affected by the difficult economic climate.

I know some collector’s are going to be disappointed that we’ve had to make this cut but I hope that you understand the necessity of the change.

I hope you can see from the images I’ve posted in recent weeks, as well as today, that we’re dedicated to maintaining the high standard of figurines.

With your support I strongly believe the collection will weather this economic downturn and continue past our current 140-issue run.

As a side-note I would like to mention that the page count for the special magazines will remain at 20-pages.


With that announcement aside I’d like to post an image of a figurine still in development, I give you a work in progress shot of Blackheart.

I for one was a little worried about this character; with the inconsistent look from the comics I wasn’t sure if we could do him justice. I’m pleased to say that I think we’re heading in the right direction. We may need to shorten or calm down some of the spikes coming off his head (don’t want them breaking in the box) but he’s looking good.

Short but sweet

Hello everyone and welcome back for another figurine update.

As someone pointed out in the last update, I had posted an image of Madrox before (doh!) so to make up for it here are three new images of painted figurines.

I present Gladiator, Jack of Hearts and Jubilee.







As always let me know what you think in the comments section.

Have a good weekend.

Let's celebrate

Hi guys, I’m back for another update, my apologies for the wait.

First up I have the painted version of Ka-Zar and Zabu. Obviously these chaps aren’t wearing the usual bright coloured spandex that we’re used to but I think the more natural colours stay true to their comic portrayals and actually make them standout (in a good way) in the collection.



Next, I have the painted version of Madrox the Multiple Man. I know the costume choice was a little controversial at the time but I hope everyone will agree that the figure’s really got the ‘X-Factor’. You’ll notice that we didn’t put the M tattoo on his face. This was due to the fact that it’s a super-recent addition to his look and at the moment is a little story specific, rather than timeless.




As well as painted figures, I’ve also got a concept sketch of Gorgon.



And on top of that here’s the cover for our 100th issue – Banshee. I know some collectors were keen that we put in a special ‘one-off’ figure for our 100th, and the name Stan Lee has been mentioned. Doing Stan as a figure is an idea that I wouldn’t totally dismiss but I think if we did something like that it would come at the end of the collection, which happily we’ve not reached yet. Anyway, I hope you like the cover.



Finally, and I’m really spoiling you guys now, I have some news regarding Marvel’s 70th Anniversary. I’ve been thinking long and hard about how the CMFC can join in with the celebrations and we’ve come up with the idea (which I think a few have mentioned) of making a special of the Destroyer. He’s a Golden-Age character who made his first appearance in 1941 and is one of the first Marvel characters created by Stan Lee. While I’m still planning the magazine element of the special, I can say that it won’t just focus on the Destroyer but will touch upon many of the Golden-Age characters as well as Marvel’s entire 70 year history.

For those of you wondering why the Destroyer? Well, when you look back through Marvel’s earliest characters he’s one of the most recurring and popular outside the big three of the time: Captain America, Sub-Mariner and Human Torch. As we’ve already made figures of each of these characters (I know it was FF torch not Golden-Age but they would look similar) I thought we’d get another character in the collection rather than having another version of one already made. And for those of you worried about the special running order, we’re not losing any of the confirmed specials or giving away a slot for another character, the 70th Anniversary special will be an extra. We’re planning to slightly tweak the release dates for later specials so that the Destroyer can comfortably fit in; he’ll be out during the start of October (the official month for the 70th Anniversary).

Right that is your lot, have a great Bank Holiday weekend.

Man or Machine

Hello people, things have quietened down a little this week so I’m back for a longer update than the last one.

First up just want to say it’s great that this blog is generating so many comments and giving us a lot of feedback here at Eaglemoss. However, can I ask that everyone tries to keep a cool head and refrain from using any derogatory language. It’s hard to always get your point across on a blog or forum and some posts can be misinterpreted so let’s all remember to be civil and respect each others views.

Now enough from ‘old man’ Richard, time to answer some questions about the way we choose characters for the extensions.

Firstly I’ve noticed that a lot of discussion has been on X-Men characters (especially villains) and how many we have in the collection. Well first up, I promise you we’re not anti X-Villains here at Eaglemoss, in fact we're not really anti anything. Between the chaps who work on the Marvel project and some of our other mags we’ve got a large cross-section of comic readers.

Dan (Designer) is a big fan of Kirby characters and wants to diversify the collection as much as possible to include the horror elements.

Alan (previous editor) loves the Defenders, some of the old ‘50s monsters, and obscure Daredevil characters.

Gary (DC designer) is a big fan of the ‘70s characters.

And I personally grew-up on X-Men comics from the ‘80s and ‘90s.

When we do choose which characters go into an extension we spend a long time coming up with a list of potentials (the last one was 150 characters long) we then choose based on a number of criteria including:

Number of comics the character’s been in.
Importance to the rest of Marvel Universe.
How good the figure will look.
The comic fans' perceived importance of the character.
The Marvel ‘family’ they fit into.

And belief it or not, we always look at the balance of the collection, and try to make sure that we have a fair number of characters from the main Marvel families.


There might be a few groups that are slightly underrepresented but we always strive to fill any extension with characters that help complete sets (Inhumans, Alpha Flight, X-Men…) as well as starting new ones such as Thunderbolts, Eternals, Guardians Galaxy. We also want to have a solid mix of old characters and modern ones to keep everyone interested.

At the same time we’re keen to have the collection reflect the Marvel Universe, in diversity and make-up. What does this mean? Well one example is with female characters (which I think we’re all keen to get more in the collection). A quick look through the Marvel Encyclopedia (DK edition) shows that Marvel’s characters are predominantly male with only around 25% female. Looking in our collection we’ve got 31 females out of 140 which is about 22% so we’re not that behind Marvel. Obviously this is just an example and we don’t actually sit around all day using stats to choose characters but hopefully you can see the point I’m making.


All in all it’s a tough balancing act and I hope you can see we think hard about it and, more importantly, I hope you agree with me that we get it more right than wrong.

So the big question: who’ll make the next extension if/when we get one? Well you’ll all just have to wait and see. Last time we let you guys choose a lot of the characters and I’m happy to let you choose a few more but definitely not all of them.

Will there be more X-villains? Yes.

Will there be some new groups started? Yes.

Will I reveal anymore right now? No

And finally a figurine update: Machine Man.

Black Knight

Hello,

Just enough time this week for a super quick update.

I give you the Black Knight:



Have a good weekend.

Stormbreaker

Hello everyone, sorry for the once again delayed update to the blog, it has as always been very busy here at Eaglemoss.

From the comments posted I can see that the double-pack specials are very popular, with some great choices being suggested. I hope we can get as many double-packs into the collection as possible but we must remember that the double-packs do take the place of regular or mega specials in our schedules. So I’m going to have to balance them with the other specials.

I think the Pyro and Avalanche idea is very strong but I’m going to keep Pyro in the extended running order for now and see if we can get him into a double pack later on. So far our confirmed specials are:

Watcher
Kingpin
Ka-Zar and Zabu
Cloak & Dagger

That takes us up to the end of October so I won’t be able to confirm anymore until a little further down the line. But, characters aside, what type of special would you want next: Regular, Double-Pack or Mega?

Right I’ve got just enough time to tease you with a new figure, I present Beta Ray Bill. At the moment this is the only shot of the figure I have but I’ll try and put a couple more up next week.